The world's media was torn on Monday between applause for the death penalty given dictator Saddam Hussein and warnings that killing him would only exacerbate divisions threatening to destroy Iraq.
A day after the landmark ruling, commentators also doubted whether it would significantly help US President George W. Bush, architect of the US-led 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam, who faces crucial mid-term elections on Tuesday.
The New York Times called for Saddam's execution to be deferred, saying his trial had given Iraq "neither the full justice nor the full fairness it deserved".
The newspaper, which is opposed to the death penalty in general, said Iraq not only needed to hold Saddam fully accountable for his atrocities, but also to heal and educate the nation "he so ruthlessly divided".
Saddam, 69, was on Sunday sentenced to die for "wilful killing", part of his indictment for crimes against humanity in ordering the deaths of 148 Shia residents of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a 1982 assassination attempt.
British newspaper editorials ranged between gloating over the sentence to the left-wing Daily Mirror tabloid, which cautioned in its editorial: "He may have been a brutal dictator, but there is every risk his hanging will bring more bloodshed."
The Guardian said that if "a new Iraq is to ever ... emerge from the ruins of the old, eschewing judicial murder would be a good start." The Independent lamented that the trial had "solved nothing, ended nothing, healed nothing."
The Sun tabloid rejected such arguments as "liberal hand-wringing".
"There can be no more fitting end than a hangman's noose for this gangster-turned-president," the paper's editorial declared.
France's centre-right La Figaro wrote: "It's a shame the verdict can give the impression of legitimising a military intervention taken under false pretexts, when it should be before all else a founding act for a state based on the rule of law after 24 years of dictatorship."
"For President George W. Bush, the sentence for Saddam is without a doubt a political success that he very much needs ... but he shouldn't forget that the Iraq liberated from its dictator remains ungovernable," Germany's Leipziger Volkszeitung said.
Some European papers saw the trial as a missed opportunity, arguing that hearings under an international tribunal would have delivered justice better, while the faulted process in Iraq was only likely to fuel fighting.
The Berliner Zeitung said it should have been a "historic chance" to learn about the brutalities of Saddam's rule and help the nation move on. "Instead of that, the trial was manipulated by the occupational forces."
A Pakistan English daily in its editorial "A farcical trial" said: "The verdict is hardly likely to be of any benefit to the Bush administration, neither in winning back the confidence of US citizens alarmed at the rising toll of GIs, nor the Republicans in retaining majority seats in mid-term elections."
In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald also questioned whether a death sentence for Saddam could save Bush's Republicans from losing crucial Senate and House seats in Tuesday's Congressional vote.
"The probable answer is a resounding 'No'. Such is the nature of the Iraq crisis and the hardening of opposition to the war," the newspaper said.
And in Japan, the influential Asahi Shimbun noted: "Officially, the trial was presided by Iraqis ... but analysts believe this verdict was scheduled to show American voters progress in Iraq, just ahead of the US mid-term election on Tuesday."
Hong Kong's best-selling English newspaper the South China Morning Post criticised Saddam's trial for being "so flawed they made a mockery of the judicial system".
In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, the Kompas daily said observers "worry about the possibility of a civil war breaking out between the Shiites and the Sunnnis as a complication to the death verdict on Saddam. The future of Iraq is now really at stake," it added.
The newspaper warned that executing the ousted dictator, whom it believed should be given a fair trial, would not move the strife-torn country forward.
The Philippine Star, under an editorial "Message to mass murders," said the verdict would send "a powerful message to those who use genocide as an instrument for perpetuating despotic rule".