Looking at the situation at Egypt is rather reminiscent of the way America handled Korea. The U.S. is reluctant to do anything too radical with Egyptian president/dictator Hosni Mubarak, because he is an important ally in a war against terror. (Apparently Joe Biden does not consider Mubarak to be a dictator, although it is hard to figure out what else to call a leader who has been ruling for 30 years in a supposedly democratic country.) Similarly, in the name of preventing the spread of communism, U.S. tolerated a series of dictators in Korea all the way from its independence to late 1980s/early 1990s. In fact, nearly all anti-American sentiment in Korea today can be more or less traced to this fact.

The Korean does not know what is the right thing to do here. But he hopes that Barack Obama knows enough history to understand the future implications of American tolerance of autocrats.