He has emboldened a recklessly aggressive Saudi government, which is now destroying Yemen, imposing a blockade on Qatar—and could even stumble into war with Iran.
While authoritarian rule appears to provide stability over the short term, it breeds discontent and affirms the idea that violence is the only way to be heard.
A top-secret memo detailing George W. Bush’s proposal to bomb Al
Jazeera is not “outlandish,” as the White House claims. The Bush
Administration had been threatening, insulting and imprisoning Al
Jazeera staffers and other unembedded journalists long before Bush
reportedly floated the idea to Tony Blair.