A leader (that’s British for editorial) in tomorrow’s Telegraph, entitled Be gentler to dictators, takes off from the murder indictment of Pakistan’s former President Pervez Mushharaf and argues that dictators should be allowed to live in exile rather than be prosecuted–or worse. “One of the biggest reasons why dictators cling so obsessively to power is that they know what awaits them if they lose office,” the Telegraph editorialist (leaderist?) writes. “For the sake of a healthy political system, former rulers should be allowed to retire with dignity.”

There’s a prudential argument for the Telegraph’s position. Give dictators/strongmen/coup leaders a way out, and they may take it rather than subject themselves and (if they care about them) their fellow citizens to a bloody struggle. Musharraf must be wishing that he had not left what the Telegraph describes as “a life of comfortable exile near the Edgware Road,” a thoroughfare lined with heavily Muslim-patronized shops. Similarly, Hosni Mubarak must be wishing he could have retired from office a few years ago and settled in a villa on the French Riviera. Certainly the possibility of a comfortable exit would induce some tyrants to leave rather than remain and fight. The idea struck me of a gated community atop one of the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean–La Ville des Tyrans, perhaps.