Musharraf resigns; Washington fields candidates for Pakistan

In the eyes the freedom-loving west, Pervez Musharraf was Pakistan's idealist strongman who merely suspended the constitution, sacked Supreme Court justices, jailed activists and imposed martial law when his authority was challenged. After all, to err is human, but to dutifully carry out Washington's will in an Islamic republic divine!

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As Condoleeza Rice recently clarified, democracy is a "unified political-economic model" of which the United States is the preeminent example. It follows that we can export ourselves to countries that still labor under the delusion of democracy as a political process to which all public choices are subject, including economic ones. This contributes handily to US fondness for dictators -- or the Chinese Communist Party, for example -- when they impose favorable economic or security outcomes in the face of whatever their respective populations would freely choose. Remember the first western appraisal of Musharraf after his 1999 coup: "He is someone we can do business with." This speaks volumes.