juan cole summarizes how this could bite president unelectable in the ass in the long run. juan has also argued that the capture could increase the violence in iraq, not decrease it. apparently a u.s. intelligence report agrees as it argues that "seizing Hussein could provoke more attacks by making the insurgency more acceptable to Sunni Muslims who were not members of Hussein's Baath Party elite." (article via joshua marshall).
as i noted in my "captured" post below, saddam's capture is more of symbolic victory than a substantive one and symbolic victories have a way of backfiring in the long run. it remains to be seen what the long-term effect of saddam's capture will be.
