David Ignatius: speaking on behalf of Arab oil autocracies

"The United Arab Emirates may not be a perfect place, but it’s a lot freer and more progressive than Iran, say, or Russia or China. Saudi Arabia has its problems, but it isn’t an Iran-style menace, either."   Forget about his propaganda, he is factually incorrect.  You can criticize the president in Russia but if you were to do that in the UAE, you will be imprisoned and your passport confiscated.  And Iran and Saudi Arabia are both repressive, but certainly Saudi Arabia is more repressive than all the other countries of the region.