But by retaliating so far from the border, Israel risks a broader conflict involving Syrian forces as well. As long as the Lebanese government does not have the power or the will to resist its exploitation by Iran and Syria, Israel will have to act against those foreign forces directly. And rarely has a people been so frequently excused and placated as the Israelis. And the reporters are falling into line. We, too, have done this.
Dictatorships are as free as democracies to serve.
The latest batch of new members illustrates how poorly this system works. They include such dubious paragons of human rights virtue as Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam. That, in part, is why, even in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the commission never mustered enough votes to condemn China, and why the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could gas and execute tens of thousands of Kurds with impunity before his ill-fated invasion of Kuwait. Azerbaijan has agreed to cooperate in the construction of a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean that would give the West direct access to the region's huge supplies of oil and gas, without passing through Russia or Iran. A settlement would help stabilize the volatile and strategic Caucasus region and open needy pro-Western countries such as Armenia and Georgia to trade and investment.