General Leopoldo Galtieri, erstwhile dictator of Argentina, has passed away. In his column in Canada's National Post, Mark Steyn writes on Galtieri's defining failure, the Falkland Islands War, and how lessons learned might be applied to the current conflict in the Middle East.

Mrs. Thatcher liberated not just the Falklands, but also Argentina, at least from the military. Galtieri fell and democracy returned. The "humiliating defeat" of the junta tainted all the other puffed-up bemedalled tinpots by implication. And, whatever the problems of Latin America today, no one's pining for the return of the generals. Twenty years ago, the realpolitik crowd thought a democratic South America was a fantasy and that we had to cosy up to the strutting little El Presidentes-for-Life. Today, the same stability junkies tell us we have to do the same with Boy Assad and Co. They're wrong again. They always are.

There's lots more, and it's all worth reading.