Lileks has some thoughts. He also comments on the vapid stupidities of the left in the matter:

This is not the time to lament the dictator, but of course that’s what many did. As his appointed hour grew nigh, the humanitarians of the world found a new champion.

“He held the country together!” Well, if President Bush gassed New York and California and outlawed the Democratic Party, he could impose the same sort of remarkable cohesion.

“He was a counterweight to Iran!” Yes. But perhaps it’s better to have a struggling democracy with American bases as the counterweight. If the U.S. had occupied Iraq in the 1980s, it’s doubtful that millions of Iraqis would have been sent to their death so Ronald Reagan could wear a military uniform and wave a shotgun for the cameras.

“We put him in power!” Hmm. How did that work, exactly? Right: We smuggled him into the country in Donald Rumsfeld’s steamer trunk with instructions to buy Russian weapons and a French reactor, then invade countries we really liked.

“He was relentlessly opposed to Islamist terrorists!” Except for those he paid and sheltered, of course. If he was sending money to people who blew up buses in New York instead of Jerusalem, people might have been more exercised.