Selective Morality

There’s no pressure on those dictatorships friendly to the West.

Where is Bernard-Henri Levy hiding these days, anyway? Since his much ballyhooed support for the Libyan rebels in Benghazi, the Parisian philosopher has been silent. Could it be because the bombardments against Gadhafi he demanded didn’t produce the results he predicted? Or has the Arab world just become so complicated to him that he doesn’t want to get mixed up in it any more?

There’s plenty of grist for his mill there in the Middle East. In Bahrain, the opposition has been effectively dealt with: Since martial law was declared there on March 15, the regime has brutally taken control of towns, hospitals and media outlets. Several hundred Shiite activists, demonstrators and members of the opposition now sit in detention. Four of them have since died “of unknown causes.”

Meanwhile, in Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh isn’t yet considering giving up his 32-year reign despite the fact that tens of thousands of his subjects have been taking to the streets in protest since February, and the Gulf Cooperation Council has offered him a golden parachute: If he voluntarily steps down, he and his family will receive immunity from prosecution.

But it’s different in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad also clings to power by force but unfortunately isn’t an ally of the West. One might think that would make it easier for the United States to put pressure on him, but while the West scurries to render military assistance to the Libyan rebels, those proponents of democracy on the Arabian Peninsula have been left in the lurch.

A superpower can afford to exercise such double standards, but whoever claims that it does so in the name of human rights can’t remain silent. Those who fail to speak out are nothing more than lapdogs of the powerful.