posted June 28, 2005 10:23 AM            

Not as much as we should be, and not as much as we could be.

On May 13, Islam Karimov, the Uzbek dictator, crushed a demonstration in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon, causing over 500 deaths. This was his response to what had happened in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in recent months. There, autocrats had bowed to popular sentiment and foreign pressure, and yielded power. Karimov chose another path. He was quickly supported by his fellow strongmen Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who values our military base in Uzbekistan, has apparently (so far) blocked attempts by others in the U.S. government to insist on an investigation of the massacre, or to withhold U.S. aid.

Leave aside the fact that Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan would be more than happy to provide similar bases. Karimov has so far paid no price for his actions. Surely the United States should do what it can to prevent dictators elsewhere from inferring that repression works. Unless the Karimov regime is a lot more central to U.S. foreign policy goals than any of us knew, necessity does not compel Washington to make an exception in this case.

Combine our inaction with respect to Karimov with our passivity in the face of crackdowns in places ranging from China to Zimbabwe to Saudi Arabia in the past couple of months, and there is a real danger that the democratic momentum from earlier this year could be lost. The global story of 1989 happily turned out to be more Berlin Wall than Tiananmen Square--but that wasn't inevitable. Nor is it inevitable that the story of 2005 will turn out to be one of democratic triumphs rather than regressions toward dictatorship. One thing is sure: Dictators around the world (and democrats, too) are watching our actions in response to their various efforts.

As are the terror facilitators: The June 8 Washington Post had a front-page article about Abu Ibrahim, a Syrian who, with the tacit approbation of his government, has been for months shuttling Saudi money, and Saudi and other jihadists, into Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis. Yet it seems Syria remains a safe haven for terror sponsors. The Defense Department apparently refused a CIA request to launch an attack on a Syrian terror-sponsoring target within the last two weeks. Shouldn't it be the case that if Assad can't police his border, we won't respect it either, since we have to defend ourselves and our Iraqi friends against jihadists infiltrating Iraq from his territory?

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror. For that matter, is the Saudi government doing as much as it can to stop its young men from trooping to Iraq to kill Americans? How much pressure have we put on either government? Wasn't it a big mistake of the 1980s and the 1990s not to make the friends and enablers of terror pay a real price for their activities?

And wasn't it a mistake to allow nuclear proliferators, like A.Q. Khan, and nuclear cheaters, like North Korea and Iran, to move ahead with impunity? Are we being tougher today? Are we doing all we can to destabilize the ghastly Kim Jong Il regime? To help dissidents in Iran? To insist that China not prop up the North Korean regime? Evidently not. If actions hostile to the United States and our interests, and disdainful of our warnings, have no meaningful consequences, surely there will be more of them--many more.

The Bush administration has had a pretty good understanding of who our friends are, and of who our enemies are. More important, it has grasped what kind of regime is likely to be friendly, and what kind tends to be an enemy (or at least a problem). In recent weeks, there have been some good speeches and gestures by the Bush White House, and some useful deeds. But the dictators have had smooth enough sailing in the last couple of months that we should worry. It would be unfortunate if the spring of 2005 went down in the history books as a turning point--in favor of the dictators.

posted June 28, 2005 03:56 PM            

Dear Mr. Kristol:

Your above referenced article was shown to me today by a person I consider a leftist, not a liberal, but a leftist. In the continuing hand wringing, pants wetting leftist whine against the Bush Administration and everything the US does at home and abroad, your article was brought up to buttress the leftist position against the President and his Administration. The presumed leftist equation being, that if you can't remove all injustice, all dictators in the world at the same time, you aren't permitted to take action against any of them.

Against that backdrop, I'd like to ask you some questions, for the sake of brevity, hitting only the high spots referenced in your article. It seems you are unhappy with the pace adopted by Bush to remove dictators.

On January 20, 2001, how much of your personal fortune would you have wagered that four and a half year later, there would be a free Afghanistan, a free Iraq, a free Lebanon, that Libya would have given up their nuclear weapons ambitions, that a Pakistani, Mr. Kahn would be under house arrest in Pakistan for nuclear weapons proliferation and the ring he headed would be exposed and dealt with, that Pakistan would be an ally of the US in the effort to oust the Taliban and also in a war on terrorism, that Syria would have been forced to withdraw from Lebanon and that Ukraine would throw off their Russian backed President, choosing instead a leader friendly to the US, against the will and objections of Putin?

The Bush Administration played a very large hand in bringing each and every one of the above referenced events to fruition.

Be fair Mr. Kristol, be honest; you wouldn't have bet a plugged nickel any of those events would have occurred.

There are admittedly, other dictatorships in the world. The question is, how many regional wars and of what magnitude are you prepared to have the US fight at the same time? Do you not believe Bush will get around to confronting Syria directly? Do you not believe Bush is thinking hard about Iran and will get around to the addressing that issue in due time?

As for the little madman in North Korea; how many South Koreans are you prepared to sacrifice to the artillery and rocket barrages North Korea could unleash if Bush takes military action to remove him. You are aware the distance from Seoul to the dividing line with North Korea is only 25 miles, are you not?

Patience Mr. Kristol. All these events happened in spite of constant leftist barrages by Democrats, the leftist press, and every leftist organization in America and abroad and Bush didn't flinch or budge. What makes you think he doesn't intend to finish the job, to the degree possible before he leaves the White House, including doing something to either reform or bring about the removal of the dictator of the former Soviet satellite state you mentioned in your article.

Lastly Mr. Kristol, terrorists are entering Iraq from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, just as you stated. What better set of circumstances could you wish for than that they expose themselves to US and coalition forces where they can be killed or captured, preferable killed, without having to dig them out of a hostile sovereign country, like Syria and Iran?

If you have that magic wand Mr. Kristol, which would make all the dictators disappear at the same time, please wave it. I'm sure Bush would applaud you because he's having to do it the old fashioned way and in the face of fierce resistance from every leftist in America.

xxxxxxxx jwhop
Madeira Beach, FL