more....

At the conference, the formal title of which is "Democracy and Security," there is a debate about whether a policy that promotes the former in places like Iraq is inversely correlated with the latter. Mr. Mudawi's experience in Sudan suggests democracy and security are, in fact, mutually reinforcing. He observes that Mr. Bashir's dictatorship has from the first been sustained by Islamic radicals such as al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, which used their influence with Mr. Bashir to infiltrate the security services and the army, and from there to sow chaos throughout the country.'

I would have been remiss if I did not first highlight such a pivotal conference. We ignore at our peril the wisdom of any of those named in the primary paragraph clipped above. Even so, this is the comment that caught my eye:

Mr. Mudawi does not begrudge him the label. "I have a different view of Bush," he says, having twice met the president privately. "People say he's crap. I see him as a very intelligent person. Not that I'm in favor of his positions, but he's focused and he knows what he's talking about."