America can increase its standing in the world immeasurably by how we react to the democratic uprising in Egypt. As President Barack Obama just said the other day to Hosni Mubarak, who promised change and a hint of democracy in Egypt:
I told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.
We can also clear the air on extraordinary rendition and torture, and quite possibly turn Osama bin Laden into a relic just like Mubarak by showing that we will be the United States that the world once believed in:
"If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear - never to see them again - you send them to Egypt."
