Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 | 2:04 a.m.
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After Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, other Arab leaders are feeling the heat as civil unrest has flared against rigid, out-of-touch dictatorships.
For many decades, the U.S. was caught in a conflict between its values and its interests. Washington backed many military strongmen around the world and ignored abuses of human rights and political repression, spending billions of taxpayer dollars regardless of the U.S. federal deficit.
American presidents have chosen stability over democracy, but the revolt in the Arab world has forced the U.S. to hear the people’s demands for freedom, and we have little choice but to shake off our cynicism.
Revolutions have toppled many dictators supported by the U.S. However, too few of their successors have bothered to build democracies, and we don’t know now what comes next.
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