I wonder if we could learn a lesson from this. It seems that the Western powers – I use the term widely, but with particular reference to the US, though I am pro-US rather than anti-US – seem to nourish dictators as long as they are keeping down any smell of left-wing government anywhere. Then, when these dictators become too powerful, we raid the countries and remove them. I am thinking of people like Suharto, Marcos and Pinochet, all supported in their time and given arms by Western governments. Saddam Hussein was once a friend of Ireland, a man to whom we sold meat, and who was supplied with arms by all the Western powers. When he went too far, they went into Iraq and deposed him. Perhaps in future we should not support dictators on the rise, and instead allow democracy to work wherever possible.