A violent despot is tried amid violence: Two defense attorneys were killed and a third was wounded in attacks during the early trial phases. Finally the verdict arrived, and the situation seems even worse.

Since Saddam Hussein's sentence of death by hanging was announced Sunday, the violent sectarian divisions among Iraqis seem sharper than ever — members of the Shiite sect are joyous, while Saddam's fellow Sunnis feel another heaping of humiliation piled on.

Although a curfew at least initially helped quell potentially violent demonstrations, the healing of the rifts seems a very long way off. Saddam will appeal, so he could hover as a perverse hero to the Sunnis, many of whom may have forgotten his undeniable crimes against humanity.

The country's Shiite-led government yesterday made a peace offering: A law has been drafted that would enable thousands of former members of Saddam's purged Baath party to win back their jobs. The gesture still must be approved by the parliament, but all who observe the three-year-old bloody conflict can feel somewhat encouraged by this thaw in relations.

Most of the news from Iraq, however, is anything but uplifting. In the first six days of this month, three times as many U.S. troops have been killed.

So as much as the conviction of Saddam marks the end of a grotesque chapter in Iraq history, taking any sense of closure from it is precluded by current events.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, proclaimed the verdict as "the end of a dark era and a beginning a new epoch" where the rule of law "will be supreme." Those are lofty sentiments, but they demand action. Shepherding the passage of the Baath reconciliation legislation would be a credible first step.

There are so many steps to follow. The immediate specter of full-scale civil war looms; some maintain that this threshold has been passed already. Al-Maliki can't make much progress in leading a stable government until Sunnis are convinced they have a future in their home country.

The Iraqis and Americans are nearly out of time to make that happen. All should let go of Saddam's dark legacy and lay the groundwork for a functional Iraq, with renewed diplomatic efforts and earnest support of infrastructure and job creation. That is the correct focus of peacemaking efforts, as bleak as prospects for peace now appear.