Better late than never

The conclusion of a New York Times editorial for December 16:

The one thing on which everyone now agrees is that this man caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his own people and kept most of the rest in fear and misery. Ironically, that was a vision first painted nearly 15 years ago by international human rights groups, during a period in which American presidents, as well as most of the rest of the world, treated him as a valuable ally and a bulwark against Iranian extremism.

At which time we were treated as unAmerican flakes, as I recall. Some things, it seems, never change.