I do not think that any leader has to be a brutal monster to stay in power. This is the same sort of crap that we heard from Trujillo in the DR, The Shah of Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, Franco in Spain, Stalin in the USSR, and the British in India, and even Ireland. Of these, all now elect their leaders. Only Iran is oppressive.
The Egyptian government just sentenced over 100 protesters en masse to death. What kind of shit is that? Morsi was elected in a mostly democratic election, the army overthrew him and held undemocratic elections with many people not allowed to run, and they ended up with a dictatorship worse than Mubarak's. Morsi was a bumbling fool, but he was better than Sissi.
The governments of Syria and Egypt have always treated the people like an enemy to be conquered and oppressed, and they express themselves in a like manner. Stria and Egypt have NEVER had any sort of really democratic elections. They may have a lot of factions, but so do countries like Botswana and India and Ecuador.
Indonesia is the largest majority Muslim country in the world, and they recently had free elections.
