The Case for Democracy:
The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror

November 10, 2004

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording

11:45 a.m.	Registration
Noon	Introduction:	Christopher DeMuth, AEI
	Speakers:	Natan Sharansky, author
		Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
2:00 p.m.	Adjournment

Proceedings:
MR. DEMUTH:  Welcome to this luncheon in honor of Natan Sharansky, and discussion of his book, The Case for Democracy:  The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.

Minister Sharansky is a prominent political figure in Israel.  He has held several cabinet posts in recent years, including Deputy Prime Minister.  He is currently Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs.  He became a famous international figure in the waning days of the Cold War, a political prisoner in the USSR for 9 years, whose bravery, fortitude and eventually release, his release by the authorities was a critical moment, critical episode I the collapse of the Soviet tyranny.

He is also a thinker and writer and frequent speaker at AEI conferences over the years.  Two years ago he gave a brilliant lecture at an AEI conference, which we immediately published and distributed, titled "Democracy for Peace."

With the release of his new book just published by Public Affairs, our pamphlet has been supplanted.  It is obsolete.  We're sending it off to the archives.

Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist with the Washington Post, received the Irving Kristol Award from AEI earlier this year, and he spoke on a subject closely related to the concerns of Natan's new book in his AEI lecture on "Democratic Realism."

He is going to be introducing and saying a few words about Minister Sharansky.  We will then have a presentation of the book.  Charles will have several words to say in response.  We'll have some conversation up at the head table, and then we will have a period for questions and discussions.

With that, I'll turn the proceedings over to Charles Krauthammer.

MR. KRAUTHAMMER:  Thank you, Chris.  It's an honor to be here to introduce Natan Sharansky, and since I'm going to be the hors d'oeuvres and dessert, I'll be brief.

Since the Second World War we've lived through two epic stories, really stories of biblical proportions.  One of them was the Manichean struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States in the West, really a struggle between light and dark, almost unlike any ever seen, which eventually ended with the total victory for the forces of light.  That is historically unusual and it was the great story of our time.  But it shared the stage with another remarkable story, and perhaps even more surprising, and that is the rebirth of the Jewish State in its own homeland after 2,000 years.  That is a story that rises to the level of the miraculous.  Nothing ever like it has ever happened where a people revived their language, revived their nationhood, re-inherit the land of their origin and create a state as the Jews have done in Israel.

What is remarkable is that on the planet I do not think there's any other one person who's been at the epicenter of these two stories together, and that man is Natan Sharansky.  He not only was at the center of the two stories, but he has been a pivotal historical figure in the unfolding of the two stories.  In fact, in the first story he was one of the seminal figures of that epic, and history will remember him as one of the great heroes in the defeat of the forces of darkness, and he did it from a prison cell for nine years, almost entirely alone, with a courage really unmatched anywhere at any time.

Then he went on and did something almost equally heroic, which was when he arrived in Israel as a great historic hero, he could easily have remained above the fray, nonpolitical, as a kind of a figure who stands aside and back, and preserves the halo which he had earned in the Soviet Union.  But he decided that was not what he wanted to do or what he wanted to be.  He had no need or use for a halo, and he decided to plunge into the world of Israeli politics, which ranks somewhere near American politics in its level of elegance and dignity, if I may say, at least in the day-to-day conduct, in order to do more things, in order to affect more history.  And he did, making an incredible entry into politics, doing enormous good for the integration and reception of Jewish Russian immigrants from the ex-Soviet Union, and then that task accomplished, entering and affecting the policy of the state itself in these troubled years.

It's not only that Natan was a witness to all of these events, and a participant, but he's one of the few who drew a lesson from the first to the second.  The second story is today known as the Arab-Israeli dispute, or the Middle East problem, which in fact it is.  It's another version of what Europe used to call the Jewish problem.  And in looking at it, people had ignored the lessons of the first epic, which is rather remarkable since our lives were dominated by the Cold War for those 60 years.

Natan had a simple proposition.  We can learn something from the success of the Cold War, and how that happened and why it happened, and apply the lessons to the Middle East issue, which really nobody had done.  They were considered totally separate.  There were no lessons to be learned, and Natan was one of the first, if not the first, to argue that in the same way that we had achieved peace and calm tranquility in relations with the Soviet Union, and by extension, with all of Europe, Eastern and Western, not by arms control, not by negotiations, not by pieces of paper, but by the change in the fundamental character of the regime, and by instituting a regime of human rights, in the same way that ought to be applicable in the Arab-Israeli dispute, and particularly in the Arab world.

That is the lesson he drew.  He will speak about it in a moment.  But all I want to say is he began as a voice in the wilderness where he always begins, and he ended by hearing, as all of us heard in June of 2002, the President of the United States make a speech in the Rose Garden, in which he essentially accepted the Sharansky doctrine.  And he said it would be the policy of the United States to pursue precisely what Natan had been advocating--he didn't actually quote Natan; Presidents don't do that, but I can--which is that to achieve a peace in the Middle East, the fundamental element has to be the democratization of the parties.  Israel already having achieved that, that means on the Palestinian side.  And that is a central element of American policy, and I think the author of that ultimately is Natan Sharansky.

So it is with enormous pride and pleasure that I introduce Natan Sharansky.

[Applause.]

MR. SHARANSKY:  Thank you, Charles.  You praised me to the heavens.  I have to go back to the earth where we have to live, to discuss, to debate, and to improve.

I only want to recognize here the person with whom together we were writing this book, Ron Dermer.  Also Rachel Friedman, who helped us a lot with the research, and also my old comrade in arms in Moscow, Lydia   (?)  who helped us research on this book.

This book is dedicated to Andrei Sakharov.  Andrei Sakharov was the one who created weapons of mass destruction for the Soviet Union.  At that time he was the most decorated scientist in the Soviet Union, the most respected, enjoyed all the benefits of this life, the most respected, decorated scientist, and at some moments one would believe the letters he was writing to countrymen to the stability of the goals, to create the balance of the weapons of mass destruction.  Later he understood that that will not bring to peace and security.

And then he invented another nonconventional weapon, simply the relative truth, and started speaking truth about the Soviet system, and it happened to be the weapon which destroyed the Soviet Union.  And in fact this book was written because we felt that everybody recognizes today the power of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists, the danger of these weapons.  But very few, unfortunately, even today very few recognize the power of weapon of mass construction, the freedom and democracy in our hands.  We have these unique nonconventional weapons, with which we can change the world, we can make the world safe, and not only we are not using it enough, so many of us don't believe the power of this weapon.

And this book is the case for democracy for those skeptics who today are raising the same questions which were raised 30 years ago, which we called as dissidents in the former Soviet Union.  These questions are in fact three big groups of questions.

One is who said that democracy is good for everybody?  Maybe it's something which we are used to living in the free world.  But we are trying now then to go to absolutely different cultures and mentalities, civilizations, trying to speak about democracy.  Who said that it belongs to them?  But they want it.  They can live in accordance with the principles of democracy.

And the second group of questions is even if we agree that democracy is good for everybody, that all the people can live in democracy, but who said that that's good for our security?  Maybe after all we have to defend not only our freedom, but also our security and stability of the world, and maybe democracy will be in some other countries who are hostile to this, or simply used as a window of opportunity for some more awful extremist fanatical regimes who come to power.  Maybe it is dangerous to have democracy everywhere.

And the third group of questions is even if we agree that democracy is good for everybody and democracy is not danger for anybody, who said that we have any role to play?  Can we really impose on somebody?  Can we really have a role to encourage, to strengthen this process?

And these are the questions which we are dealing with.  And when you are dealing with the first question, and it's always sad, but democracy is good for--maybe for America, but it's not good for Russia, for Germany, for Japan, for Latin America.  These voices we heard many times in the past.  Of course in the times of the Soviet Union, we dissidents heard from many leaders of the western world, that don't be naive, you understand Russia, for 1,000 years, was a dictatorship and will always be a dictatorship in one or another form.  Let's not expend efforts to do something innate(?).  Let's find way to appease it, to live in peace with this, and then we can be able also to help  (?)  distance.

Before they have voices of close advisers of President Truman, who were explaining in 1945 that Japan's definitely not for democracy.  It's very important to fight against the militarism in Japan, but to think that we, the West, can encourage them to have democracy, they are such an ancient civilization, much more ancient than the European--not speaking about America--and they are all built on hierarchy and discipline.  What it has to do with the western values?

We can give many examples what was said about democracy will never be in Germany, that democracy will never be in any country which is not Anglo-Saxon country.  We can find specialists who will say that democracy is something very strange for Latin America, for Kungfusian(?) civilizations and so on and so on.

So we can say that history is on our side.  All those who were saying it were wrong.  But it's not enough to prove that, for example, democracy is also good for Arabs.  We see here right off in  (?)  okay, it was right, it was wrong about this part of the world or that part of the world.  But we have to go to history?  Simply look what's happening now.  22 Arab countries, none of them has anything to do with democracy.  And is there any signs that these people want democracy?  Our argument, and my conviction that democracy's for everybody, is based not on optimistic history, but it's based mainly on the understanding, on the experience of living in a totalitarian regime, and there are certain mechanics of freedom, mechanics of democracy, and mechanics of tyranny.

But first of all we have to define what we call free society, what we call democratic society.  For dissidents in the Soviet Union, those who were sitting in prison, the answer was obvious.  When sometimes in one cell there is Russian monarchist and Ukrainian nationalist and Lithuanian Catholic, and a Muslim from Crimea who was exiled to Siberia, and Pentecostal from Siberia who is not permitted to teach his children his religion, so all these people of course had a very different view of the world.  But all of them knew and agreed in what kind of society we want to live.  We want to live in a society which permits dissent.  As I recalled in the book, town square test, that you can go to the center of the town; you can express publicly your views, and you will not be punished for this, you will not be put in prison.  If that is a condition, that is a free society.  It can be sometimes not just.  There can be many wrongdoings, but this society is free.  People are not living there in fear to be punished for their views.  And if they are punished, it is fear society.  And there is nothing in between.

You can start building the schemes of the society where dissent is not permitted, but it's not even needed because everybody thinks the same, and from time to time there are such societies.  If you will take kibbutz--in the beginning of the century it emerged--people who think the same, who want the same, who organize their lives in the same way, so one can say, look, you can't say that it is society in which dissent is permitted, because it's not needed simply.  So it's not fear society, not free society.  But, no, life proves this wrong very quickly.  It will become clear what kind of society it is because children don't always want to continue the life of their parents.  The people have different tastes, different mentalities, different experiences, and as a result, different wishes, and very soon the question will be, if you permit expressing of the dissent, and then society is changing very quick, like what happened with the kibbutzim.  The kibbutz of today has nothing to do with the kibbutz of 50 years ago.  Or it will be not permitted.  The founders will decide that we want to prevent changes, and then it very quickly becomes fear society.

In fear society there are always three types of population:  true believers, those who believe in the ideology of the society; dissidents, those who take risks and speak publicly; and double thinkers, those who don't share this ideology, those who have their doubts or their disagreements but are afraid to express it publicly.

The dissidents, a very important group in the society, but the fact of their existence is always the function of how tough the regime is.  Sometimes you can hear, look there are no dissidents in some Arab countries, so how can we speak about democracy if there are no dissidents?  You know, in the '30s, if you ask yourself who of the famous dissidents you remember in Stalin's Russia in the '30s, you'll find out that they don't remember them.  What, there were no dissidents?  They were simply killed immediately.  If Gandhi was promoting his theories in Nazi Germany, he would never have millions of followers because simply he'll be killed before he'll have three or four followers.

So in the same Soviet Union in the '60s and '70s, because of different reasons, the punishment for dissent was not immediate death, but imprisonment up to seven years.  Admittedly, there were already hundreds of dissidents.  But dissidents always are a tip of the iceberg.

The real majority, overwhelming majority of population in every dictatorship and with the times the number is always growing, is double thinkers.  Well, I happen to be very lucky person who knows exactly the moment--I simply remember the moment when I became double thinker.  I was 5-years-old when Stalin died, and my father, making sure that the neighbors who lived in the same apartment--they were communal apartments--don't hear us, explained to me and my other brother, who was 7-years-old, he explained that Stalin died and that's a great miracle because this person killed a lot of people, and we Jews, we have the evil of deportation, and now we probably are saved.  So he said, "Remember, a miracle happened.  We are very lucky."  But, he said, "Don't say to anybody, and do what everybody does."

And next day I went to kindergarten and I was crying with everybody, with real tears, and I was singing songs about great leader of all the people, Joseph Stalin, and I knew that miracle happened and that we Jews are very happy that he died.

That was the beginning of the normal, typical life of double thinker.  And if you will read the books of people, dissidents from Iran, or from North Korea, or from any other country, they describe exactly the same state of mind.  But it looks to observers from outside that it is absolutely a society of true believers, everybody says the same, everybody votes the same way, everybody demonstrates and speaks with passion and so on.  But in fact, more and more people, and then it's overwhelming majority of these people, are living with self-censorship through all their life, and the regime demands from them to demonstrate loyalty to the regime beginning from their childhood, and they already don't notice it.  Automatically it happens.  They live in this atmosphere or double-think, controlling themselves, what they say, what they write, how they express themselves, how they vote and so on.

But when it happens so, because of one reason or another, that people stop living in double think, or because they became a dissident, or because there was a change and their fear society somehow disappeared or became very weak.  And suddenly people can start saying exactly what they feel.  It's such a big relief.  Only then people suddenly realize how bad was their life before.  It's like when you are going after long hike--and when I was young I remember this feeling from the years when I was young.  You go for a long hike for the day, and you have big weight on your shoulders, and you almost don't notice it, simply difficult to go but you go, then suddenly you stop, you take it away, and you feel so easy, so light, like a bird, it seems that you can fly.  That is the feeling which people feel when they suddenly go from the life in constant fear which they don't even realize it because it's their subconscious.  When they move to the life of free person, who can say exactly what he thinks without bothering about consequences?

I believe that it is this feeling of relief, which in the end, this  (?)  people to live free life and not the life of fear, that's what in the end explains why Japanese and Germans and Russians and people in Latin America and many other places in the world, when given the real opportunity to continue living in the life of fear or not, prefer not to continue this, if they're given a real opportunity to do it.

And that is, I believe, the answer to the first question, why freedom is for everybody.  People who want to continue living in accordance with their tradition in a stable atmosphere with a good job and a good education and so on, and all this, they prefer to have all this and the conditions of free life and none of the conditions of constant fear.

Even if it is so, and even if you convinced us that everybody wants to enjoy freedom, but what about the stability in the world?  Can we afford that some people who are not yet ready for democracy, or who don't want to really, or who are afraid of it, will not misuse it?  Isn't it better to guarantee stability by having reliable dictators, as President Johnson once said, to have our son of a bitch.  Of course, after all, it's not our responsibility, or the leaders of this country or other free country to guarantee freedom of other countries.  Our responsibility is to guarantee freedom for our people and stability and peace.  And if stability and peace can be better guaranteed by dictators in the other countries--so it's up to those people to decide whether they want these dictators or not--but if they have, we must make sure that they will befriend the dictators.

This was the issue with which I was debating for 30 years.  I remember how Andrei Sakharov, when I had the honor of helping him in talking to, and translating, and organizing his meetings with those who were coming from the West, how he was explaining again and again, there is no such thing as a peaceful dictator.  And saying again and again that you cannot rely on the leaders who don't rely on their own people.

What we are saying in this book is that dictatorships are always danger for peace, and we explain why.  Again, we have to go back to the level of mechanics of democracy and mechanics of tyranny.  What is similar and what is different between the leaders of democracy and dictators?  First of all, what is similar?

Every leader wants to stay in power as long as possible.  That's human nature.  But democratic leaders, in order to stay in power, they depend on their people, so they have to deliver goods or at least to show that they deliver goods, or at least to pretend that they are making serious efforts to improve the lives of their people.  So they depend on the public opinion of their own people.  And the majority, the silent majority of every society wants to avoid wars, and that's why true democracies always prefer the worst possible compromise.  They always will find compromise, but will not go to wars.  True democracy is one or the other.

Look at all the history of 100 years with more democracies.  It's so difficult to find even example.  Why?  Because in the end, when leaders depend on their own people, they have to convince their people that they made their best to avoid    (?)   to avoid the war.

Dictators don't depend on their people.  People depend on their dictators.  And as a result, the real challenge for dictators is how to keep their people under control, to keep all this army of double thinkers--which is increasing every day; practically every day you have more and more double thinkers in your country, more because the world becomes more and more open, it's more and more difficult to control the brains of these people from the external influences.  So you have to keep that under control.

How to do it?  That is the main challenge for dictator in every country in every society, whether you're speaking about Soviet Union, whether you're speaking today about Syria, whether you're speaking about any dictatorship.  Of course, you know, to keep people under control, there is brainwashing, there is punishment, there is KGB, there is Gulag, there are different things.  But the real powerful weapon which is used by every dictator, it is enemy, external enemy.  You have to mobilize constantly your people for the sake of its struggle against the enemy, for hot war, if you are strong enough, and if not, cold war, but you need this atmosphere of mobilization.  Atmosphere when everybody feel that he is obliged to give also loyalty, and when he is not loyal, that is a real military crime, and all the public opinion will be  (?)    starting of course with very good inventing, and supporting this atmosphere of external enemy.  And when the enemy's capital is all finished under Soviet Union, then he start creating enemies, those who are trying to weaken Soviet economy and those who are trying to prevent us from reaching the level of the western economy, and constant trials, constant persecutions against those who are trying to destroy our factories and mines and so on.  It's all fiction, but for dozens of years people lived with the constant atmosphere of mobilization against the enemy.

If you look on Syria, Syria needs Israel as the enemy.  Not Syria needs Israel as the enemy, Syrian leaders, in order to control their own people, they need to be tough for their people, and they need Israel as an enemy.

You can say, well, and what about Egypt?  You say that dictators are always dangerous, but you have very good peace agreement with Egypt.  Well, it's true that our peace agreement with Egypt already works for more than 20 years.  There are no wars.  But I can say that there is no wars with Syria.  Maybe it's the result of the fact that in both cases you have strong army.  But even if you accept of course that the agreement with Egypt was successful--but look, Egypt got many things on this agreement:  territory and American assistance and an opportunity to get modern weapons, but Egypt, Egyptian leaders lost something very important.  They lost Israel as political enemy.

Oh, in my different capacity, for the last two years I'm coordinating efforts in the struggle against anti-semitism, against new campaign of hatred towards the Jews and Jewish State.  I had to say that.  The center of anti-semitism today is Egypt.  The number of copies of Protocols of Elders of Zion, published in Egypt, is bigger than in any other country in the world?  Why?  Because the moment they lost us as a political enemy, they need us the enemy nevertheless, and the new generation of Egyptian schoolchildren is brought up with much more hatred towards Jews and Israel's Jewish State than the previous generation before signing the agreement.

Another example may be a little bit less popular in America--not in American Enterprise Institute--Saudi Arabia.  When in '91, after Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was saved by United States of America.  So when you arrived in Kuwait, both were saved by United States of America.  I, coming as a former dissident to America and speaking with political leaders in Washington who wanted to continue discussing the experience of Soviet Union with many opinion makers, editorial boards, I was raising again and again the same question, how it can be this at the moment when Saudi Arabia's existence depends fully on the United States of America, and you are not doing anything to encourage some changes.  I understand you can't demand from Saudi Arabia to become democratic.  But you had the experience of the Soviet Union.  Why not link your assistance, which is so important for Saudi Arabia, with some changes, even small changes in immigration law, with the suggestion, with agreement, with the permission of some delegations which are not permitted to come from the West, delegations, for example, which include Jews, to start coming to Saudi Arabia, to start from something?  And again and again I heard from most respectable political figures in America, the same answer, that don't you understand that because of the oil and all these things, Saudi Arabia for us is not the question of democracy.  It is a question of our stability.

So for generations America was building its stability on supporting the dictatorial regime in Saudi Arabia.  And this regime in Saudi Arabia, in order to be able to control their own people, needed to finance, to support wahabism inside the country and all over the world.  Look in all those points where you have now the terror and most Arab extremists.  How many local religious leaders, local religious leaders, went to Saudi Arabia, started there, came back as the pupils of wahabism and are now the hard core to all of this?  So the price of stability of the regime in Saudi Arabia is today terror all over the world.

That's why we are saying that, and with writing this book, again and again, that dictators always need free world as its enemies.  And even if today they are your friends, tomorrow they will need you for their own stability as enemy.  You'll turn from one category to the other.  That's why it's much better for any country to deal with democracy which hates this country than with dictator who loves this country, because democracy which hates you, there is very little chance that it will start a war against you, but dictatorship which loves you, tomorrow can lead the campaign against you for its own soil.

And then there's a third question which is raised.  Okay, but what can we do with this?  Do you really propose us to now to start sending the troops all over the world and to fight fear societies?  Don't we have enough of this already?  Then let us go back to the example of the Soviet Union, and find out how, without one shot, without one soldier killed, Soviet Union was defeated.  And again, in order to understand how it happened to be possible, you have to go to the mechanics of tyranny and understand how it works.

Dictatorships can be very dangerous, can be frightening, can be ugly, but they are extremely, extremely weak from inside, because the longer it exists the bigger the number of double thinkers, the bigger the efforts of dictatorship to keep their own people under control, and they have to put more and more and more energy to keep their own people under control, but at the same time they need to compete, to advance their ideology, and for this they need the sources of energy from outside.  Sooner or later they will need it.  And then they must create a very strange situation when free world is needed to dictatorship as the enemy in order for its own stability, and free world is in it for the dictatorship and the source of energy, as a friend who agreed to help.

And of course, when we are talking about small dictatorships, especially in the times of cold war, they always could blame the fact that enemy will be in one part of the world and source of energy will be in the other part of the world.  So Mongolia can have Soviet Union as a source of energy, and America or  (?)  as an enemy.  Or vice versa, some dictatorship in Latin America could have Soviet Union as their enemy and America as a friend.  But when you are going higher and higher on this hierarchy of dictatorships and you go to the top of this food chain, when you're coming to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had no choice.  Soviet Union needed America as the enemy, and it needed America as a source of energy.  And that was all the idea of detente from the point of Soviet Union, how to make sure they can continue their very aggressive ideology with America as the enemy, how they can continue sending troops to Angola, to Eritrea, to Prague, and at the same time to have America as a source of energy.  That was the idea of detente, and surprisingly, but for many years it worked.  And if you will look at the most awful days of stalin, you can find out how the West was willing to cooperate, to appease Stalin in order to make sure that we will be more stable.

And of course, the highest point of it was the policy of detente, and at the very last moment, when Soviet Union, together with sending troops to Nicaragua and to Angola, was going to get the status of Most Favored Nation from United States of America, at that moment it was stalled.

And here is great history, of course, of Soviet Union moment and the great history of Jackson Amendment, which stopped it at a very critical moment, was the first piece of legislation which connected the question of human rights and the question of international policy, which in fact was saying to the Soviet Union, you can have us as friend or you can have us as enemy, but you cannot have both at the same time.

And then the Helsinki Act, which way in the beginning, we dissidents, we are very concerned.  We're afraid that it will be the second Yalta, that it will be--the third basket about human rights will be lip service, and the Soviet Union will be permitted to get away with it as it was permitted with the decision of the Yalta.  But achievements, control over Eastern Europe, western technologies, credits, that will be reality.

And just so not to permit it, not to permit it to become the second Yalta, we created our Helsinki Group.  And in one year all the founding members of the Helsinki Group were in prison and exiled, but it helped turn this agreement into a really binding, the factor, binding it, because reaction of the United States of America, the American Congress, then of all the world, which made this linkage so strong, and which said in fact to Soviet Union, you cannot carrying us both as the enemy, as a friend.  You want to enjoy benefits of a cooperation with us, but then change--not change your attitude towards the West, change your attitude to your own people; start transforming yourself step by step from fear society to free society.  Or you can continue to be our enemy, you can continue to be fear society, but then you will be our enemy.  And then Reagan said, "Then we'll have star wars."  That was something the Soviet Union understood.  They simply couldn't continue to compete.  We now know it from the witnesses from inside Soviet Union, how critical this moment was.

So because of these mechanics of fear society, which consists of double thinkers and true believers and dissidents, which because of the challenge for the leaders how to control their people, they needed external enemy.  And because they need the free society as external enemy, but also as the source of energy, because of this, we believe and we are speaking about in this book, that the free world has the great power, the great weapon, as I said, the only nonconventional weapon which nobody else has except the free world.  That's the weapon of freedom and democracy.

And now we will take, as we do in our book, another example.  Here is discussed a very positive example of this linkage.  But we will take another example of Oslo process.  Ask ourselves why it developed so differently?  Helsinki and Oslo are so near one from the other, but Helsinki was so successful and Oslo was such a failure.  Because in fact Oslo process is a good example how we are betraying our own principles, how we are forgetting the reasons for our own success, because Oslo process, from the beginning was built of the idea that in order to bring peace and security to the Middle East, you have to strengthen dictators.  At the beginning of the Oslo process you are taking leading terrorist from Tunis; you are bringing him to the Middle East; you are giving him money, credits, weapons, everything.  And you are saying--I quote--"It is good for us that Arafat doesn't have Supreme Court, human rights organizations and heart bleeding liberals, because without all these restrictions of democracy, Arafat will fight terrorists from Hamas much better than we."  That was said by our leader one week after signing.

Also, that's when I, by the way, wrote my first article against Oslo, which of course was very unpopular at that moment.  But I wrote that, we will be doing everything to strengthen him as a strong dictator, and he will use everything what we'll give him to strengthen hatred towards us, because Arafat needs free world as the enemy and as a source of energy.

And for Arafat, there was no other external enemy.  He could not choose between many different external enemies.  The only enemy who he could use to unite his people to strengthen his dictatorship was Israel, was Jews, and that's exactly what's happening.  And that explains why the generation of Palestinian school, who was brought up not under Israel occupation, but under the rule of Palestinian Authority, hates us by far more than the previous generation.

These days, of course, there is a big debate--today it was on Fox News--how much money you think he has and who will take control over this money.  Well, maybe it's interesting, though it's not the most important question.  The most important question is to remind ourselves what is the source of this money.  It's true there is a lot of this money as a result of terror and   (?)   and many other things, but most of this money that we are speaking about, was given by the free world, was given by Israel directly to the personal account of Yasser Arafat.  In 1995 there were signed Paris Agreements between Israel and Palestinian Authority, blessed and supported by all the free world, these agreements, that Israel now will be transferring sum of money which approximately equals to VAT tax money, which belongs to Palestinians.  Israel will be taking and transferring to Palestinians.

But what was less publicized?  There are five different accounts, as it was agreed in the agreements, where the money will be transferred, and 20 percent of the money which belongs to Palestinians were transferred every month to personal account of Yasser Arafat in Tel Aviv, and then moved to Paris.  And you know, many times I was raising this question.  From '96, when I became a member of the Israel Cabinet in the government of Netanyahu, then Barak, and the first government of Ariel Sharon, until the year 2000, when we stopped finally because of intifada to transfer this money.  I was raising this question.  "Let's stop it."  And the answer always was, "We cannot do it because it was less supported by all the international community.  And after all, it is that if they fight the terror, Arafat needs to be strong, and he needs pocket money to hire his own army to struggle against terror, so after all, it's small money to defeat the terror."

And today there is debating, well, from where this money came, and for what they were used.  And it's clear for what they were used.  All this idea that we need strong Arafat to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, that was the most powerful weapon of Yasser Arafat that was participating in Wye Plantation negotiations.  And you know, if you think that the biggest problem which we had was Palestinians--there was a   (?)   their position was clear to us.  Our biggest problem was with our American friends, who all the time were saying, "Don't weaken Arafat.  Don't press him too much."  Even when finally Arafat agreed to some minimal thing about changes in charter, one of the most powerful members of the administration, when they went to that room where we were discussing with Arafat and said, "You see, if you'll press him as you should, he agreed on this concession."  He said, "What?  You really want to weaken him like this?  You're putting gun to his head."  And he rushed to Arafat to convince him not to agree with this concession.  Though of course it was the minimal concession which was promised us in '93, but American administration was so concerned that Arafat can become weaker, and if Arafat would become--

[Tape change.]

MR. SHARANSKY:  [Continuing] -- there will be real terror.  That's how we ourselves, free world, betraying principle that peace comes with support and democracy.  We were building this most terrorist, most corrupt dictatorship which exists today.

And by the way, the big question today again, all the questions which I hear and was asked yesterday in one interview to the other interview:  Who will be the next?  Don't you understand that today there is  (?)    that we can as quickly as possible to identify strong leader, the one who has better chance to be strong and to make him strong.  If that will be the approach, we go back to the mistakes of Oslo.  That is a moment when we really can make a change.  And here we are going right to the plan which he proposed some months before the President's speech of the new leadership of Palestinian Authority has to deal only with the questions of dismantling refugee camps and taking the fourth generation of Palestinians from refugee camps, where they keep them in order to strengthen their control and their   (?).  Well, what they would be doing was creating of job opportunities and many projects of creating jobs for Palestinians together with us.

We are  (?)  Yasser Arafat because it meant that he will have less control over his own people, where they'll be dealing with giving really good education to Palestinians and not education  (?)  and of course they were doing the stuff against terror.  This type of leadership has to be supported, embraced, new Marshall Plan and all the other things.  But the leadership, which will be strengthening over is   (?)   all the channels of communication, all the assistance which comes to them should we stop.

And the big debate is now when Yasser Arafat of whether he will be disconnected from his life support.  It's not really our business.  Our business is how to disconnect any possible potential dictator from the life support, how to stop giving public money and our technology and our legitimacy to the new dictators, and how to make sure that real democratic changes will be coming.

One more example I want to give, which I mention in the book.  Under the hottest moments of the struggle against terror, when we sent our troops to the cities from which terrorists were coming.  Ramallah was under siege two years ago approximately.  I got a call from Ramallah, and I am sitting in the Office of the Minister of Housing, and I get a call from Ramallah from public telephone from   (?)   and who is telling me that--well, he calls from public phone, and it's clear why--he didn't want to be identified--he said that he just now read my article in Wall Street Journal, and do we really believe that Palestinians deserve to live in freedom and democracy?  I said, "What do you mean?  All my life I believe in it.  Why are you asking?"  "Because if we know anything about you, we know that you are right-wing, minister in a right-wing government, so you are supposed to be our enemy.  And here I'm reading this article and I agree with every word.  Of course, our biggest enemy is corrupt dictatorship, and we are suffering."  And he was successful businessman.  Well, we wanted to meet.  It was impossible to meet because of he couldn't escape Ramallah without being  (?)  and definitely not to meet with Israeli minister.

Some months after this he emigrated, and here in Washington we met with him, and some other persons.  When you speak personally with him, you feel that is exactly that type of dissident as we were.  Many times it was said you continue support of Palestinians, that is continuation of a dissident course.  And of course, it was always meant that they had to support dictators.  No, it has nothing to do with it.  Here finally I finally speak with somebody, who is exactly the same type of dissident as we were, with one difference.  We knew that if we go, that we can go to prison, but we knew that all the free world will be behind us, but these people know that if they will go to prison or even will be killed, the free world will not be behind them.  In fact, the message of these people was:  don't try to weaken Palestinian Authority, because after all, the real power is Palestinian Authority, and if you're weakening it, you're helping the terrorists.  And that is a big betrayal of the free world, and that's why I believe, and we believe, and we are saying in this book, that if only we will be true to those principles, which proved themselves so powerful, freedom can prevail in every part of the world, freedom somewhere, will be strengthening of security everywhere, and that we have tremendous opportunity to encourage, to expand free societies and to limit the power of fear societies.

The last point, the victory in the struggle against the Soviet Union was reached because of the security hawks(?) and human rights activists united, worked together, understood that with all their differences, in fact they have something which united them much stronger than what disunited them.  That is the challenge for today.  People say that all America is divided.  That is a way to unite America.  Security and human rights and democracy are inseparable, and we have to unite our efforts.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. KRAUTHAMMER:  That was an extraordinarily powerful presentation with which I am deeply sympathetic, but my job here is to play the devil's advocate.  So I'll try to raise two objections, Natan, the first of which I somewhat believe, the second of which I don't, but it won't be the first time I make an argument that I'm rather skeptical about.

The first objection would be to your second principle, which is that dictatorships are always an enemy of freedom and that you cannot rely on them for your security and your safety.  Now, what I would ask is, is it not true that there are times in history where dictatorships are necessary allies, better than the alternative, and that as a temporary expedient--and that temporary can be a decade or two or three--you need them as allies and you don't want to destabilize them by trying to make them more democratic.

I'll give you some obvious examples.  The most obvious, of course, is our alliance with Stalin against Hitler in the Second World War.  That was short-lived, nonetheless, it was necessary, and it would have been hard to argue in the middle of that war that we should be encouraging dissidence, although perhaps you would have made that argument, but at the time it seemed rather clear that you had to go with the lesser of the two evils.

A second example of that is a little more recent, in the Cold War.  Chile, under Pinochet, was a useful ally, as was Marcos in the Philippines.  We tolerated, in fact, we supported those dictatorships for decades when they were useful, and we did not make any stringent attempts, at least early in these dictatorships, say in the mid '70s, to weaken them on behalf of human rights and democracy under the theory that we had enough troubles everywhere else in the world, our real enemy was the Soviet Union, and if we could pick up a corrupt or even non-corrupt dictatorship here and there as an ally, it would be useful.

And that argument, which of course was rather famously made in some ways by Jeane Kirkpatrick, I think turned out to be justified, not only as a tactic, but also, if you like, as a moral issue, when the Cold War waned and the victory was within sight, we then changed our policy, and encouraged democracy in Chile and the Philippines, and indeed were instrumental in the overthrow of Marcos in the Philippines, and encouraged Pinochet to go to elections, which he lost.  In other words, are there not times, particularly when you're in a Manichean struggle with an existential enemy like the Soviet Union, like Nazi Germany, when you want to have allies, you'll take a dictatorship, you will not try to liberalize it because you have other priorities?

And I would argue that today you might say, with the new existential enemy of Islamic radicalism, that you may have to tolerate as an ally, say the Saudi dictatorship, under the theory that if it were removed what would follow would be worse, or perhaps even an Egyptian dictatorship or elsewhere if they were to be useful.

So that's the question about do you ever make alliances with dictatorships as a tactical issue and given them a free pass?

Second question I would raise is one with which I'm not as sympathetic, which is to question your first premise, that everybody wants democracy, that there's something inherent about it, people want to live in a free society as opposed to an unfree society.  I happen to think that is true, but then you have these troubling historical examples.  For example, Russia, where they had their great opportunity, they had in 1917.  It didn't last very long.  They've had again in the '90s, and they appear to be settling into a gradual contraction of the sphere of freedom with the acquiescence of the population, apparently, at least--I'm not an expert on this--but I think it's hard to deny that Russia is less free today than it was, say, in the early days of the Yeltsin years.  Does that not argue for there may be parts of the world, Russia, with its own culture, which may be rather alien to the freedom as we Anglo-Saxons or we in the West understand it, and that they prefer to live under perhaps a benign czarist type dictatorship.

And the way I would frame that question additionally would be to say, looking simply at what's been happening in the Arab world now in the last few years since we launched the war on terror, which is also, if you like, a war of liberation, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, what lessons would you draw from our experience in Afghanistan and now in Iraq as to whether--I mean what should the history of the last two years teach us about the prospects of democracy in a place like Iraq?  Are you discouraged by what's happened?  Do you think that we have simply had a problem with the mismanagement of the war, or do you think the issue of bringing democracy to a place like Iraq is a more fundamental problem?

So those are the two critiques I would raise on the question of alliance with dictatorships, and the second about the will to freedom.

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, it's very difficult for you, Charles, to be a devil, so it's--your first question.  In fact you took two good examples which have some similarities, Stalin and Hitler, and then Islamic radicalism.  It's true there was four years of war when America and Stalin's Russia together were fighting the Nazi regime.  And it will be strange, even the time of that war, America will say, "We'll stop sending you weapons or food"--to Soviet Army, almost all food to Soviet Army was American--"until we change your regime," because it was a struggle for the survival.

But let's see why there was this war.  If Stalin--when the West tried to appease Hitler, what happened with this?  Then after the West tried to appease this Hitler and failed, they immediately started appeasing Stalin, and they were negotiating, and it seemed to them--and I read the reports which you had sent to Churchill and to Roosevelt, the reports about optimistic signs of these negotiations, and one day they were still thinking that they're in serious negotiation with Russia, and   (?)   a Ribbentrop/Molotov agreement was signed.  That's the price of appeasement of dictator.

It's true that for the dictators, for Stalin, for Hitler, that was a tactic.  The strategy was divide against this free world.  The tactics was who is today their friend and who is today their enemy?  The fact that then Hitler deceived Stalin, and instead of going to fight the front, they attacked--not the front--other countries of Europe, they attacked Soviet Union.  That's what helped to build this union between Stalin and Roosevelt for a very short period.  The moment Stalin defended himself, he betrayed the West again, because for him it wasn't even the question of betrayal.  All this was tactics.

So if the free world was not appeasing dictatorship of Hitler and dictatorship of Stalin, there was no need in this union with Stalin because there was no Second World War.  That I would say was important conclusion.

And the same with Islamic radicalism.  You see, now when we have this awful war with Islamic radicalism, can we afford ourselves to press in Saudi Arabia?  I don't know.  Maybe not.  But if we are not appeasing Saudi Arabia, if we are not declaring for years that that is the guarantee of our stability, the strong  (?)  Saudi Arabia, we would not have this Islamic radicalism today in the first case.

So no doubt practical terms of the moment of the war.  There are some restrictions on democracy, like there can be   (?).  So at the moment of war there can be some change in restrictions on your possibility to influence on the democracy of other countries.  But only if you look at all the  (?)  together historically, you can see that that is exactly this belief, that dictators can deliver you security and then bring to the world wars, to the big tragedies, to the big losses, and to our need to make all these compromises.

As to the example of Soviet Russia--today's Russia, no doubt there are serious retreat from some of the democratic development, and I believe that the free world should pay more and more attention to this, and should link its policy with demands to slow down, to stop this process.  But I absolutely disagree with those who say that Russia went back where it was.  Soviet regime, Russia took and kept 200 million under control through fear.  And this fear was created by killing millions and millions and millions of people.  To do it--for 10 years the virus of freedom was in the brains of the people--in order to bring back the same level of control, not only you have again to have millions of people working for KGB and  (?)  you have to be able to kill a lot of people, and it's not going to happen.

To say that today Russia is the same as it was and that's why there is no meaning in democratic changes, I would like to say that there was no meaning and importance of the French Revolution, because 12 years after there was Napoleon, who took back many of the liberties of the French Revolution.  So what?  Look what's happened in 100 years.  And you can see that of course they've had ups and downs, but the process was in one direction.  That's I believe what's happening in Russia, and of course, the more clear policy of the West in discouraging different forces in Russia can only help.

As to Afghanistan and Iraq, I think it's a very important and very positive process which is taking place.  Of course, it's true that there is a mess.  It's true, I think, that not everything was planned as it happened.  But if you go back to the experience of Germany and Japan, imagine for a moment that there were elections in Japan or in Germany at the end of '45.  No doubt the Nazi regime would come to power again, and the military regime of Japan would come to power again, and control there was much bigger than control here.  But I think it goes in one direction.  It's clear that terror has the power to resist, but what's really important is whether then the Iraq people will have more and more opportunities to enjoy freedom and appreciate freedom.  And I believe that from this point the process is developing exactly this direction.

MR. KRAUTHAMMER:  Chris, you want to open it up to questions from the floor?

MR. DEMUTH:  Thank you, Natan and Charles.

We will take questions and comments from the floor.  There will be a microphone that will appear momentarily--it's already here, Courtney, thank you--that will be circulated around.  Please introduce yourself before addressing your question or comment.  Yes, sir?

QUESTIONER:  Mike Detterich [ph], formerly of State and Defense.  I have a question about United Nations.  Neither of you mentioned the UN in your comments.  But to me it seems like the UN, on the surface, would play a major role in advancing the cause of freedom and democracy throughout the world, but in reality that's not the case.  Tyrants, dictators, thugs and terrorist regimes have hijacked the institution, and you see the nucleus of groups like the Islamic Conference, the African Union, the Non-Allied Movement.  They vote in large blocks and they really challenge the United States and Israel on almost everything through the resolutions.  Could you make a comment on that and the worthwhileness of the UN in achieving more freedom and democracy throughout the world?

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, I believe that today's United Nations has nothing to do with promoting democracy because of a simple thing.  The majority of those who are sitting in the United Nations are not democratic elected leaders.  The people who don't permit their people to vote have the right to vote and have the right to decide what should be in the world.  That's why it was so easy and so natural for this organization to hijack the banner of human rights and to turn it into the kind of support of dictatorial regimes.  The first big conference on human rights of United Nations turns into the  (?)  of hatred towards Israel and towards the United States of America.

I believe and we by the way are suggesting at the end of our book that   (?)   to the United Nations, where we create a new institution, where only countries of freedom--of the leaders of free societies will be represented.  Only those who permit their people to vote will have the right to vote.  And this type of institution, of course, will have the most of the powerful resources of the world because the powerful resources belong to free world.  And their decisions will be built on the logic of strengthening freedom and not strengthening a bunch of dictators.

MR. KRAUTHAMMER:  I agree with that completely.  In 1987 I wrote a cover article for the New Republic that had a picture on the cover of the UN Building tiled and surrounded by water, and it was called "Let it Sink."

[Laughter.]

MR. KRAUTHAMMER:  Unfortunately, my advice was not taken at the time.  I don't expect it ever will be.  But Natan's idea I think is a very important idea and I think you could--there really is a groundswell for that kind of substitute.  We're never going to leave the UN for reasons of history and tradition and sentimentality, but the idea is to let it wither, and you make it wither by creating an alternative.  And I think there would be a lot of support from the left and the right, realists and idealists, to begin to build an alternative, which would be United Nations or League of Nations of Democracies.  I think it would be extremely important, and over decades it could truly supplant the UN, and that's the way to do it.

MR. DEMUTH:  A question right here?

QUESTIONER:  Stanley Kober with the Cato Institute.  You might have noticed there was a session on torture just before this session here.  The books are side by side outside.  And given your presence here, I can't help asking, how do you view the use of torture by democracies in the war against terror?

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, first of all, torture is a very bad thing, and democracies should be concerned not only what it means for that person who is tortured, but also what it means for the system.

I have to say that Israel I think was deliberating or debating on this issue more than any other country.  We had special debates whether investigators of SHABAS, when they're investigating terrorists, the moment of truth, the moment when the information has to be got that can save many lives from terrorist attack, whether they can use--what kind of method they can use, and we're talking--the torture was called this shaking.  And then whether it should be permitted, and if, yes, whether it should be written in the law.  And the choice was very difficult because we knew that in order to be written in the law that it's permitted, all the laws will say that we permit tortures, but if it is not written, then where are the borders?  The big problem is that it's natural for every office, for every bureaucrat and everything to try to make his work easier.  And so if there is not clear thing what is permitted and what is not permitted, were Israel to make his work easier and to cross this line.

I have to say that I don't know any other country which has serious inner debate whether to put in the law or not to put.  And then it was decided not to put it in the law, simply because it was clear that the misinterpretation of the reasons of this debate will be the global example.  But in fact, there are enormous restrictions which we introduce in the last 10 years.  Well, from '89 approximately when this big debate started, to '97.  And even in the most difficult situation of interrogation, the worst moment, our interrogators today are acting under very strict prohibition of this just because of the--not because it will appear so merciful to the terrorists who are killing thousands of people--and only in Jerusalem, there were 27 suicide bombings--but because we understand what it means for the society, we're not permitting it.

Nevertheless, I have to say with satisfaction that some leaders of American administration were telling me and some others how you can get so much information from the terrorists, and we don't.  And I have to say--well, that was two years ago.  Maybe today Americans also doing much better right now.  I would say we are doing it without using any type of torture.

QUESTIONER:  Marc Plattner, Journal of Democracy.  First let me say I thought that was a wonderful speech, and I thank you for it.

I wonder if you might say something more about what you see is the potential for more democratic forces rising within the Palestinian Authority now, and what it is, if anything, that the free world should be doing to encourage that kind of development.

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, I just only believe, even with the risk of being dissident in my own country, I believe that it's a very big potential of democratic forces among Palestinians.  It's very difficult to think even about it when you see how the people are dancing on the roofs at 9/11 or to the killing of another 20 children in discotheque.  But Palestinian society is a society which has experienced living in democracy, even in difficult situation.  It's a society where there was a relatively big middle class of business men, lawyers and other people who have a lot of bright initiative.  It's a society which has  (?)  and well educated diaspora.

The problem is, as I said in my lecture, to what extent the free world will be ready to use our power to encourage and to strengthen these people and not the dictators.  And I believe that if we will be determined to do it, and to make very clear linkage, and to say now that we are ready to embrace only the leadership which does 1, 2, 3, and I mentioned of this.  And we are not ready to give in one shekel and one concession, one square meter to anybody who is not doing this, I think very quickly there will be a process which will encourage the strengthening of democratic forces.

In general the Arab world, there are--in this book we give at least, I don't know, 30, but there are dissidents in Arab world, who today are public dissidents.  They are on the Internet you can find them.  There are hundreds of people who are suffering in the prisons, persecuted and so on.  You ask members of Congress--I did it on the hearing--what they know about them, and they know usually nothing.  I ask on the hearings that in the last two weeks two dissidents were arrested, one in Libya, one in Syria.  What was done in the United States of America to change it?  And well, somebody cared, somebody didn't care, and then the head of the Committee on Security in Europe said, "You know, you're right."  That was we were having the lists of refuseniks, and every Senator in Congress, when--and as the  (?)  was taking it to Soviet Union, that must be our policy towards the Arab country.  If there were the policy, I believe a democratic process will emerge.

QUESTIONER:  Thank you.  Farid Ghadry, Reform Party of Syria.  Thank you, Mr. Sharansky.  I wish 18 million Syrian could have heard your speech.  You have given them a lot of hope.

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, maybe we'll put my book in Arabic.

[Laughter.]

QUESTIONER:  There you go.  I wanted just to make a small statement.  Dissidence inside Syria is getting stronger.  There's a nascent democratic force that's rising.  It's still behind the scene.  It's still hiding.  We're in contact with them.  But they're getting stronger and stronger, and we're delighted to see that.

The notion that if the regime of Assad today is removed, that extremist Islamists will take power in Syria is far from the truth.  Syria is a secular country today.  And if we had parliament today, and free voting in Syria, 15, 20 percent probably of the population will vote for the Islamists or the Islamic Brotherhood, which is exactly the same number of parliamentarians in the Jordanian system.  So there's no threat today from those forces.

However, if we don't have a new policy for Syria that we can aggressively pursue from this country for the next four years, three years from now we may look back and we say, "How did we let the Islamists just grow and grow and grow, and why didn't we do anything about it today?"

My question to you--and it may sound a little bit illogical--but my question to you relates to the country of Israel.  How could a country like Israel, which is a democracy, help grow the democracy inside Syria, help grow the democracy for Syrians?

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, I'll tell you frankly that I think our opportunities of Israel to influence actively on encouraging of democracy in Syria are very limited, though of course it is America and Europe who have to lead this policy.  But what Israel can do, and should do, we should not make any concessions to the dictators, and that's why--you know, when it came to the negotiations with Syria about Golan, the party which I created, it was written in its platform the paragraph which was ridiculed by left and right in Israel.  It said that the depth of our concessions should be the depth of democratic reforms in Syria.  And those on the right who didn't want any concession said it's ridiculous.  What it has to do with democracy?  And those of the left, who were saying it's ridiculous.  There will never be democracy in Syria.  So we shall always--forever we'll keep Golan.

But I believe that's building truth of this principle.  We can make our contribution to encouraging democracy, but the answer has to be given, of course, in the capitals of the free world.  And I think--I don't know what you think--that some of the decisions of the American administration of the last year are going in this direction.

MR. DEMUTH:  We have time for three more questions, beginning with this gentleman here.

QUESTIONER:  Michael Allen, Visiting Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy.

MR. SHARANSKY:  Where?

QUESTIONER:  Visiting Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.

MR. SHARANSKY:  Yes.

QUESTIONER:  You've written and spoken recently of the need to develop a Helsinki-like mechanism to promote democratization and reform in the Arab world.  Helsinki worked partly because the West was united against the Soviet threat in those days, which is far the case today.  And if one looks at, for example, the Greater Middle East Initiative, which some people would say was a kind of Helsinki light that was put on the table at Sea Island, that was effectively diluted and emasculated in fact by a kind of unholy alliance of Arab and European regimes.  So what is the prospect of that kind of mechanism being effective or taking off while are these transatlantic tensions, to put it mildly?

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, in fact, this question, strangely enough, is connected with the question about the role of the United Nations, about the negative role of the United Nations.  In fact, speaking of the hearings in the American Congress some months ago, I said that I believe that there is already a mechanism like Helsinki type at least, and that's charter of Alexandria, which America helped to do, but in fact which was written by supporters of civil societies in Arab countries.  But what they have written in this charter, they said that that must be the aim--these institutions have to be promoted in all Arab countries.

America was strongly it seemed behind it.  The Arab leaders said that not only they are not accepting it, but the summit has to be about implementation with them, we are not coming to the summit.  And so what was the response of America?  Okay, now we have to educate, we have to teach, we have to convince.  And that's exactly what we dissidents were afraid when Helsinki Act was signed, that it would be lip service, that it would be a new Yalta.

To take this Alexandria Charter as a Helsinki final act, and to declare that now the policy towards all these regimes will be defined by their attitude to these paragraphs, not to wait when they'll be educated enough and they will accept it.  It's like if the West didn't wait until Soviet Union will accept the third basket, and in the meantime was helping them to get the most favored nation role with all the benefits.  But to stop all these benefits and to say that now the criteria is what will be with this Alexandria charter.  I'm sure that the United Nations is not a partner in this because United Nations is exactly these regimes which said that they don't want this charter.  But the united free nations, they are the real partners for this.

QUESTIONER:  Meyrav Wurmser, the Hudson Institute.  Minister Sharansky, I very much enjoyed your lecture, but there is a little bit of a caveat.  In the Middle East context, when you talk about the democrats, certainly if you look at the Palestinians and, Farib Ghadry notwithstanding, even the Syrians, those who are the most democrat in their society tend to be at least as anti-Israel if not more anti-Israel as are the dictators.  How do we solve that?  We all want the democrats to come to power, but how do we deal with the fact that, you know, you're not going to help matters in some ways?

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, I don't know whether it is true or not to say that democrats in Arab countries hate us as much as dictators.  I don't know whether it's true.  But even if it is true, I was saying it for years, and I believe in it, and I was writing it, that democracy that hates you is better than dictatorship which loves you because for different reasons.  There are democrats who hate us, but the power of their activities directed how to change the life of their people for the better and not how to destroy us and not how to have us as the enemy.  When these democrats are coming to power, even if they hate us, but they don't need us as the enemy, they need to find good solutions for their own people, and that's why they can become our partners in finding mutual solution for our people.  That is what I'm saying.  That's what I believe in.

And by the way, I do believe that if today the hatred is so strong in these Arab countries, it's because the regimes were interested to inflame, to strengthen this hatred all the time.

MR. DEMUTH:  And the final question?  If you could wait for the microphone.

QUESTIONER:  [Off microphone, inaudible.]

MR. SHARANSKY:  Well, first of all, I'd like to welcome Igor Morashenka [ph], who is, let's say, new generation of dissidents, of people who are resisting to nondemocratic changes inside Russia.  I mentioned that I believe that the West has to follow very carefully what's happening in Russia, and that these developments have to influence directly, have to be linked to the policy of the West towards Russia, which of course, as Charles was saying, at the times when we had mutual enemy like Iran, so we have to take it into account, and maybe there are some other reasons why we have to be interested for relations.

But then we have to remember that every retreat from democracy in Russia is a threat to our security and stability.  Together with this it's very important that Russia knows the lesson and the leader of Russia believe that the way for--to restore the power of Russia, they need cooperation with the West, and he really is the one who definitely believes that not confrontation with the West, but the way of cooperation with the West is needed to solve his own problems, and we have to use it.

So that's why I now say when we don't really--unfortunately, where there is no clear strategic policy for Russia to take, so whether they should stop Putin from coming to G-7, or they stop fulfilling that agreement or another agreement, but definitely, if I understand correctly your question, I think the rest, the free world, the leaders of the free world have to be much more persistent and insistent in direct linkage, because what is happening inside Russia with the question of democracy and what are relations between the leaders of the free world and Russia.

MR. DEMUTH:  In bringing the session to a close, I have to say I neglected my most important responsibility in the session, which was to urge everybody to stop by the Barnes and Noble desk in the reception hall and purchase a copy of The Case for Democracy on the way out.

I'd like to congratulate Natan and his co-author, Ron Dermer, on the publication of this book, and hope that it does very, very well.

I'd like to thank Natan and Charles Krauthammer for their very extraordinarily deep and persuasive presentations, and I would like to wish Natan the very best in his continuing career as a practitioner of democracy.

We're adjourned.

[Applause.]