Three weeks after former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was taken into custody, 34-year-old bookseller Siavash Akbari finds himself still wondering about the lessons that the capture holds for other dictators, including, he says, those in Iran.

"It is a very big question before all political scientists in the world, why dictators do not take lessons from each other's fate," he muses, referring to a speech weeks ago by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, where he admonished Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W Bush to learn from Saddam Hussein's fate.

"None of the dictators identify himself with the other one. The Supreme Leader can find some lessons for Sharon and Bush, but not for his own regime," Akbari tells IPS. "I think the tyrants are great in self-deception."

"For Iranians it is an absurd situation that their despotic government officials elaborate on Saddam's tyrannical regime. This is a typical paradox in our country," comments Robic Gregorian, a literary and theater critic.

Others, however, say they cannot wait to see Saddam Hussein, who was captured on Dec. 13, in the dock for crimes ranging from aggression in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-88, genocide and other war crimes.

Iran's government is preparing documents and compiling evidence that it says it will hand over to an international tribunal that it hopes will try Saddam Hussein. Iraqi officials are already preparing for investigation and prosecution, and judges are already being trained for this.

"I lost part of my right leg, below knee, to shrapnel in the war fronts in the west of the country," says Majid Arab, who was disabled in 1982 in the Iran-Iraq war that is officially called the "imposed war" here.

"Personally, I am angry with Saddam," says the 44-year-old Majid, who works in the department of state-run radio television that used to monitor Persian and Arabic broadcasts during the eight-year-long war that is estimated to have caused up to 1.5 million deaths.

Ebrahim Yazdi, the secretary general of illegal but tolerated Azadi (freedom) Movement, wrote in the reformist Saharg daily: "Now with Saddam in captivity, all his former cronies and associates have no excuse to say 'he was responsible – we were forced to obey him blindly'. Now all of them can collectively be tried in an international tribunal."

Indeed, soon after Saddam Hussein's capture and turnover to US forces, Iranian officials called for his trial in an international court.

At one point, President Mohammad Khatami was quoted as saying that Saddam should be given the death penalty. Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, called for an international tribunal in a press conference in Paris.

But the spokesman of the foreign ministry, Hamid Reza Asefi, also says that trial by a special international tribunal should go beyond Saddam Hussein's own actions and "reveal who have equipped the dictator in Iraq and caused the three big crises in the region (the Iran-Iraq war, Gulf War and the occupation of Iraq)".

This leads to the possibility of other issues coming out that many here say will not be to the benefit of many western countries or Iran itself.

In the weeks after the big news of Saddam Hussein's capture, some are also beginning to wonder what difference a trial can really make for justice or for Iran.

"I believe it does not make any difference for Iranians whether Saddam is hiding in some concealed underground hole or captured by the Americans. Nothing happens in favor of justice and no secret of the war will be discovered," Mohammad Ismaeel Haydari, a seasoned journalist, says in an interview.

While some believe that justice will come in the case of Saddam, Haydari says this is a "naïve" belief. "Are American hands truly just? I do not think so," he adds.

In truth, says Asgar Nazemi, a recently retired officer of the intelligence ministry," our government has more important issues to handle these days, that is getting the (anti-Tehran) MKO (Mojahedin Khalq Organisation) expelled from Iraq. Saddam's capture or his trial has no immediate fruit for us."

Majid Arab, the war veteran, himself says that if Saddam Hussein is tried, he may be able to justify his assault on Iran. In 1980, he said, the fledgling revolutionary regime in Shiite-majority Iran was after all engaged in "exporting its revolution to (Sunni-led) Iraq," he explains.

"I think Saddam should be tried in an eligible international tribunal, though I believe my wish won't come true and the things which might be revealed during the trial won't be in favor of the United States, Germany, and even Iran," he argues.

Of war veterans and casualties in the Iraq-Iran war in neighboring Iraq, Majid says: They are the victims of Saddam as much as I am. That is why Saddam should be tried for invading the south and west of Iran in 1981. He is responsible for all the human casualties on both sides."

He points to other skeletons in the closet, not least Washington's support for Iraq during the war with Iran - a foe of the US government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution - and German companies that provided chemical weapons to Baghdad. "They must also be accountable," Majid adds.

"But," he continues, " I reckon the prospect of Saddam's international trial is very dim and I think the Iranian regime does not (really) like it either. "

Asked why, he replies in a whisper: "There many mysteries about the war. Why did it break out? Why did Iran insist on continuing after kicking out Iraq soldiers from Khoramshahr port in the northern part of the Persian Gulf? Which countries supported Iran militarily during the war? If Saddam is tried, at least parts of these mysteries will be discovered."

Jamal Mosavi, whose brother is a top official in the Iranian oil ministry and well-connected to the regime, believes there is no point in going after Saddam Hussein.

"Why should Saddam be tried for anything? Whatever he has committed in the wars is commonplace in any other war. And if he is to be tried as a despotic president, then, we should ask ourselves who was not a tyrant in the Middle East?