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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 11, 2006 / 13 Iyar, 5766

Stop coddling despots

By Max Boot


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | During his first four years in office, President Bush made impressive strides toward achieving the improbable goal laid out in his second inaugural address — "ending tyranny in our world." American troops liberated 50 million people and midwived representative governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States also provided important support to peaceful uprisings in Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan.


The ripples of those revolutions reverberated throughout the greater Middle East, long the major breeding ground of anti-Western terrorism. At a minimum, tyrants felt compelled to pay lip service to American demands that they curtail support for terrorism and show greater respect for human rights. Syria's Bashar Assad pulled his occupation army out of Lebanon; Hosni Mubarak promised to hold genuine electoral contests in Egypt; the Saudi royal family deigned to hold elections for municipal councils.


In the last year, however, the global momentum for democratization has palpably slowed and in some places reversed course altogether. Vladimir V. Putin has crushed all competing centers of power in Russia. Belarus, the only other dictatorship left in Europe, held fraudulent elections that confirmed Alexander G. Lukashenko's death grip on power. The same thing happened in Kazakhstan, where president-for-life Nursultan A. Nazarbayev claimed to have won more than 90% of the vote. Next door in Uzbekistan, security forces gunned down hundreds of unarmed protesters in the city of Andijan and then tried to cover up the massacre.


The same worrisome trend is observable in the Middle East. The Iranian ayatollahs have stepped up their campaign of torturing, jailing and executing dissidents. The Assad regime has arrested more opposition figures at home and continues to intimidate anti-Syrian activists in Lebanon. And, most glaring of all, modern-day pharaoh Mubarak has imprisoned his leading liberal opponent and renewed the draconian "emergency law" that allows indefinite detention of anyone who challenges his rule.


What's going on? Well, no one — not even Bush — ever said that the course of liberty would be smooth and easy. Entrenched elites have an obvious incentive to resist giving up power, and they now feel free to do so because they think that Bush, a lame-duck president with approval ratings in the low 30s, is too feeble to resist.


The despots reckon, not without reason, that they can simply wait out the current occupant of the White House. They know that the odds of vigorous action from the United States are slim given how many U.S. troops are tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. The continuing turmoil in Iraq and Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian Authority — signs of the supposed dangers of too much freedom — provide further pretexts for repression.


In his remaining 986 days in office, Bush has a choice: Either he can sit back and allow the resurgence of the dictators, or he can fight back with the considerable power still at his command. His recent decision to grant a coveted White House reception to Ilham Aliyev isn't a good sign because the president of oil-rich Azerbaijan blatantly rigged his nation's parliamentary elections just six months ago. If Bush wants to show that he is still serious about promoting "the expansion of freedom," he could begin by making an example of Egypt.


Mubarak is reputedly one of Washington's closest friends in the Arab world, yet he has been among the most brazen in defying Bush's demands for greater openness while force-feeding his 78 million subjects a steady diet of anti-American and anti-Semitic drivel. His vow to hold multiparty presidential elections produced a suspect ballot last fall in which he secured 88% of a feeble turnout. Afterward, he consigned his chief challenger, Ayman Nour, to five years' hard labor on trumped-up charges of forging signatures to qualify for the ballot. The subsequent parliamentary election was even more dubious; ruling party goons used violence and fraud to keep the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition group, from winning too many seats. Now Mubarak's minions are roughing up peaceful demonstrators who support brave judges in their demand for greater independence and less electoral fraud.


Why, oh why, is this repugnant regime still getting $2 billion a year in American subsidies? Take the money away from Mubarak and give it to democracy-promotion programs across the Middle East. That would be a shot heard 'round the world. Failing such a signal, the dictators will become bolder and more brazen in defying what Bush once called "the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity."

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The book was selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Christian Science Monitor. It also won the 2003 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award, given annually by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for the best nonfiction book pertaining to Marine Corps history. Sales help fund JWR.



Max Boot is Olin Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times. To comment, please click here.


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