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Thu 01 Jan 2007Saddam begins journey from despot to martyrExecuting leaders is simply bad politics - history shows that they backfire. Saddam's reputation will be salvaged , writes Jim DuffyName the last monarchs of Italy, Russia, and France; US presidents from the 1860s and the 1960s; a 1920s Irish minister. The odds are that most people will not remember the last Italian king (Umberto II) and will get the last French king wrong (they'll say Louis XVI; it was Louis Phillippe), but will remember Tsar Nicholas II of Russia while naming Lincoln and John F Kennedy as US presidents and Kevin O'Higgins as an Irish minister.