...Hanson: There is nothing in Dr. AbuKhalil's position to mock since it is unfortunately predictable and depressing-the émigré from the Arab world, who finding little liberalism at home, migrates to the United States, enjoys its security, freedom, and affluence, and in return offers not gratitude, but mostly blanket criticism of his adapted country-and worse blames it for the self-induced misery that he so eagerly left behind.

The only thing that is new is that such opportunistic and boilerplate invective no longer has much effect on most here, who, yes indeed, realize that by and large societies are ultimately responsible for the governments they get. I'd prefer to listen to the thousands of brave people in the Middle East who are risking their lives to change the status quo, along with thousands of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan-rather than academics in the United States who from the faculty lounge demand perfection on the cheap.

If he believes Israel is not a democracy, he should try engaging in this dialogue in Tel Aviv and then repeat it in Ramallah or Damascus, and then tell us what he has found out-I expect his "Jewish" hosts will honor his human rights far better than his Arab brethren. And yes most of us do not stay awake at night over Israel WMD since it is democratic and subject to public audit and majority votes involving weapons usage--a concept lost on Dr. AbuKhalil the supposed student and advocate of consensual government.

Anyone who has read what I wrote in the past, realizes that I have argued for US distance from Saudi Arabia and other corrupt Middle East regimes as part of a larger policy to promote democracy-but without the cheap and easy blanket criticism of past administrations who were a little worried about Soviet totalitarianism. One's options are limited sometimes to realpolitik when 7,000 nukes are pointed at you by a succession of Stalinist regimes. In the same regard, I think it was a mistake to ever have anything to do with rogues in Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iraq; but in history's cauldron sometimes nations have little opportunity for moral perfection in the allies they choose. When a theocracy storms your embassy, promises death to your country, and then engages in mass murder of its citizens, few are upset that another rogue regime invades it-amoral calculus to be sure, but tragically something akin to the US support for the Soviets against the Nazis...