Like Saddam, President Bashar al Assad heads a secular regime that rules through brutal repression. The determination in the West to depose him in the name of human rights and democracy was perceived by the Sunni majority as an opportunity to overthrow their oppressor.

Yet it would be a mistake to regard Latin America s broadening international relations as marking the end of US preeminence. Unlike in the bygone era of superpowers and captive nations, American influence can no longer be defined by the ability to install and depose leaders from the US embassy.

Saakashvili sees a Moscow hand in every challenge to his authority, which could be explained by his government s close alliance with the United States. But the people rounded up in the latest raid against the opposition were originally imprisoned by Eduard Shevarnadze s government, which Saakashvili helped depose in Georgia s supposedly democratic Rose revolution in 2003.

The US views Syria mainly through the lens of Iran, seeking to depose Assad in order to deprive Iran s leaders of an important ally in the region, one that borders Israel. The US led effort in Syria is thus best understood as a proxy war with Iran a cynical strategy that has contributed to the massive rise in violence.

In contrast, the Malay Peninsula, including the island of Singapore, was the land of the Malays (Tanah Melayu) before the first Chinese and Indian immigrants came and settled there. The British, who did not depose the Malay rulers as they did the Singhalese king in Kandy, made sure that the native position of the Malays was constitutionally secure from the start.