Violence in Iraq has been reduced, as Western generals and politicians are keen to point out, but it has not gone away. If anything, it has become more deeply ingrained.

The kidnapping and murder of Muntadher al-Mussewi shows how political violence has spawned criminal gangs capable of the vilest acts. Having learnt their trade from the Mahdi Army, a brutal militia, the kidnappers now carry on without even the veneer of political justification.

Were terrorists to disappear from Iraq overnight, the country would still be stuck, possibly for decades, with the culture of violence they fostered (building on the legacy of Saddam Hussein, of course).

So should the West use its by now limited influence to prevent another turn in the cycle of violence? Often that can work: when Arabs and Kurds rattle their sabres in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk, US advisers are right to scurry up north to calm them down.

But in the case of Muntadher’s kidnappers it is harder to argue with local politicians, who prefer to be left alone. They advocate “Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems”.

The tribe of the kidnappers has agreed to a public execution after the tribe of the victim demanded it. This is not the sort of dialogue that Western governments mean when they recommend political reconciliation.

But in the short term it may have a better chance of stemming violence — only in the short term, however. If public executions were to become common again the bloodlust would be fed further and Iraq will have taken another step closer to the models of government of its regional neighbours.

In Iran, the condemned are hanged from a crane; in Saudi Arabia they are beheaded in what have become known as “chop-chop squares”. Many Iraqis would like to see either or both practices introduced at home. In other words, Iraq is on the way to becoming a normal Middle Eastern country.

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