Dictators reject democracy, and reactionaries reject reform.

And Arab masses just revolted against their dictators.

I'll just give you a very short list of reasons why authoritarian deliberation may actually help the dictators.

And for dictators all over the world, the good news is when cartoonists, journalists and activists shut up.

And they did not turn out to be the Islamist boogyman that the dictators were always using to justify their regime.

That this should be so has of course much to do with America s traditional policy of sustaining the Arab world s pro Western dictators.

There is much debate these days on a global level about reform and democracy, both cherished ideals, rejected only by dictators or reactionaries.

But the fact that those dictators suppressed democracy in their country and suppressed Islamic groups in their country actually made the Islamists much more strident.

So having people involved in planning for 2020 is not necessarily going to change anything, because the dictators are still the ones who control the agenda.

That much was understood widely by entrenched Arab dictators, who saw to it that their intelligence and security corps extinguished any flame before it could spread.

Almost everywhere else veered sharply to the right. In Germany and Italy, fascist parties came out on top, while elsewhere, dictators were backed by armies or kings.

For example, over the past 15 years, the progress of international justice has made the world less secure for dictators and those who trample on human rights.

The representative of a country that has produced and continues to produce the most Ubu like dictators that our region has ever seen has nothing to teach anyone.

People in the Middle East and North Africa have been led by the West, or by Western backed dictators, for long enough. They must find their own way to freedom.

But the moral power of religious faith does not need a supernatural explanation. Its strength is belief itself belief in a moral order that defies secular, or, indeed, religious dictators.

But what did not happen might be as important as what did. While dictators associated with military juntas were challenged overnight, the Arab Spring never came to the region s conservative monarchies.

And I think the West, at least some powers in the West, particularly the United States, made the mistake of supporting those secular dictators, thinking that they were more helpful for their interests.

And when the colonial period ended, what you had in place of that was, generally, secular dictators, which say they're a country, but did not bring democracy to the country, and established their own dictatorship.

Up to and around about the Second World War, conductors were invariably dictators these tyrannical figures who would rehearse, not just the orchestra as a whole, but individuals within it, within an inch of their lives.

Come on, you have dictators ruling the world, population is growing by millions, there's no more fish in the sea, the North Pole is melting and as the last TED Prize winner said, we're all becoming fat.

Come on, you have dictators ruling the world, population is growing by millions, there's no more fish in the sea, the North Pole is melting and as the last TED Prize winner said, we're all becoming fat.

Referendums are the favorite device of populists and would be dictators. One vote on one day subsumes complex matters with one ballot question, which in any event is frequently not the question that many people actually answer.

Nevertheless, coups, whether violent or peaceful, are the antithesis of democratic institutions, and military rule can last a long time. Nigeria endured almost 15 years of it, despite repeated pledges by three successive dictators to restore democracy.

But, although the revolutions toppled dictators and transformed societies, these core objectives remain as distant as ever. In fact, the economic challenges facing the Arab Spring countries have become even more pressing, weighing heavily on these countries political prospects.

Dictators like Saddam make their living by selling their oil, not by holding it in the ground. Perhaps, though, Saddam was too eager to sell oil concessions to French, Russian, and Italian companies rather than British and US companies.

Such a decision would be a serious setback to the movement to end impunity for the most serious crimes. It would show that indicted warlords and dictators can avoid justice by holding the Security Council hostage to threats of more violence.

Many Muslims also understand that the problem of Palestine, unsolved for three generations, goes beyond the suffering of the Palestinian people. They know that the region s dictators have used Palestine to justify their misrule and to avoid political and economic liberalization.

The war changed that equation. Higher oil prices mean that Americans (and Europeans and Japanese) are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Middle East oil dictators and oil exporters elsewhere in the world rather than spending it at home.

The following day it could allow its decisions on Chechnya to be dictated by Russian President Vladimir Putin s advisers. Then, for some unknown reason, it could make its assistance to Africa conditional on fraternal ties with the worst African dictators.

Such a decision would be a serious setback to the movement to end impunity for the most serious crimes. It would show that indicted warlords and dictators can avoid justice by holding the Security Council hostage to threats of more violence.

Many Muslims also understand that the problem of Palestine, unsolved for three generations, goes beyond the suffering of the Palestinian people. They know that the region s dictators have used Palestine to justify their misrule and to avoid political and economic liberalization.

Samantha Power tells a story of a complicated hero, Sergio Vieira de Mello. This UN diplomat walked a thin moral line, negotiating with the world's worst dictators to help their people survive crisis. It's a compelling story told with a fiery passion.

Neo colonialism is returning to Africa, the global project of human rights is in retreat, and the world trade system is becoming far less open. Brutal dictators go unpunished because their interests are protected by large powers with stakes in their natural resources.

Of course, history is replete with examples of autocrats perverting justice Stalin had his Moscow Trials, and Hitler had his People s Court. But the authority of those dictators did not rest primarily on the rule of law that of their modern counterparts does.

Democratization in the Arab world is not only about toppling dictators it is also about redressing the politico ethnic map of the region, which has kept too many minority groups dissatisfied. Consider the Kurds, who were split among Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran.

It is equally important to address bank secrecy, which facilitates corruption by providing corrupt dictators with a safe haven for their funds. In August 2001, just before the terrorist attacks on America, the US government vetoed an OECD effort to limit secret bank accounts.

Rising soft dictators what the journalist Bobby Ghosh calls authoritarian democrats have used these feelings of unease and alienation to attract votes. Their supporters do not want to be oppressed, but they do want stability and national sovereignty desires that their leaders fulfill partly by limiting opposition.

The Middle East s demographic youth bulge is well known, but no one predicted that its members would mobilize social media and cell phones to topple long established dictators. The technologies of the Internet were thought to fragment societal forces rather than unite them in a common cause.

CAIRO The self immolation a year ago of Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi triggered a wave of popular protests that spread across the Arab world, forcing out dictators in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Now, Syrian President Bashar al Assad, too, seems near the end of his rule.

These same ten steps occurred in Thailand in 2006 in ten days, and in seven days in Myanmar a year later. The script is so well known by now among the world s would be dictators that it can take less than a week to lock down a country.

China s willingness to arm and defend African dictators, even in the teeth of UN sanctions, as in Libya, undermines its claim to a peaceful rise. Given China s Libyan duplicity, the world should now determine whether it is a country that obeys international rules only when doing so suits its interests.

When it comes to producing terrorists and undocumented immigrants two critical issues for Europe Arab military dictators have an inglorious record. Algeria in the 1990 s is a potent reminder of this, and Western governments do not want the vicious cycle of repressive autocrats producing violent theocrats and refugees to restart.

But many commentators hyperbolic depiction of a shareholders spring, with its resonance of ousted Arab dictators, is inappropriate for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Arab Spring actually toppled regimes. At the moment, the current shareholders revolt is failing to achieve any significant result.

In a recent interview, he replied to the question of the core of his foreign policy with two words liberal interventionism. The world may have moved on, chastened by the realization that interveners, even when intervening in the name of human rights, can be as barbaric as tin pot dictators.

DURHAM In setting himself ablaze following a humiliating encounter with the police, the university educated Tunisian vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi triggered a wave of protests across the Arab world. Several Arab dictators who had held power for decades have already been ousted or forced to announce that they will retire.