Which is the lesser evil?

Better Dictators than Elected Islamists

Now, the question asked is not really any of our concern, anyway, us not being likely to have to choose between the given alternatives for our own country, unless as a purely theoretical matter.

But doesn’t he change the question in his second sentence, taking a whole lot for granted about what counts toward making one better than the other?

He reports participating in a public debate, but can’t quite make up his mind what the point debated actually was.

Doesn’t he go back to seeing these as two distinct questions a bit later with this?

“The issue, rather, was which sort of ruler is the lesser of two evils, and can more easily be cudgeled to democracy.”

Damned silly, that, really, anyway.

After all, one of the two alternatives being debated actually is democracy, though the winning party is presumed not to please us.

Near as I can tell from the summaries and quoted passages here, all the participants had slush in their skulls and wouldn’t have been able to stay on point if their lives had depended on it.

And so far as they did debate something it seems to have relied on a false dichotomy of greedy dictators without political values versus ideology-driven Muslims elected to office but whose values, well, suck.

Certainly not fair to Ataturk.

Nor to the Egyptian presidents from Nasser to Mubarak.

Nor, really, to the Baathists of Iraq and Syria.

Probably not even fair to the long-gone last Shah of Iran.

But this fellow is paid very well to write waste paper like this.

And let’s face it, this is an article for NRO.

The lesser evil of two Muslim regimes, for them, just means a regime less unfriendly or dangerous toward Israel.

Not a view shared quite by everybody, though apparently by nearly everybody, in American politics.