November 10, 2003 -- "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."- Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, Nov. 11, 1947

"WINNIE was right. And a bulldoggish smile surely would have crept across his jowled face upon hearing President Bush's visionary words last Thursday, when he proclaimed that enough is enough - the Middle East exception to freedom must end. The region's governments, from Cairo to Tehran, must be persuaded, indeed pressured, to alter their counterproductive political courses away from despotism and toward democracy.

"'Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty,' Bush said."

Read the Whole Article: by Peter Brookes