Mr Mugabe is still there, seemingly ducking and weaving – and haggling?

From the point of view of diplomatic technique, this is another awkward Bad Leader moment.

When a Bad Leader finally runs out of road, he (it is almost always a he) above all wants to save his own sorry skin and ideally some sort of reputation too.

Plus around him are all sorts of malign growths which have developed in his shadow and have every reason to keep him propped up in place, so as to protect their ill-gotten gains and privileges for as long as possible.

Meanwhile millions of people whose lives and hopes have been wrecked by this tiny elite urgently want an end to their misery, but also feel that somehow justice should be done so that the Bad Leader and his cohorts do not at the end tip-toe away from their crimes unpunished and without being called to account for what they have done.

Thus the leading democrats’ conundrum. Do you try to prise away the Bad Leader’s powerful core supporters with promises of some sort of life under a new, better system, or at least a possible amnesty? Or do you forcibly bring the whole evil structure crashing down with the risk of plenty of chaotic bloodshed (including maybe your own) and no clear road to success?

If you do try to bring some of the Bad Supporters on board you risk opening yourself to the charge that ‘nothing has changed’ and that all your promises were hollow. But maybe you can spin that by noisily talking about ‘national reconciliation’ and the need to ‘look to the future’?

This problem has arisen many times in recent history. See the debates still rumbling on in Poland over the deal struck by Solidarity with the Communists, which President Kaczynski and many others think was too generous to the erstwhile oppressors. 

Or take the fall of Milosevic, where Zoran Djindjic managed to get some of the worst Milosevic gangsters to arrest him – who else would or could do it? Those same gangster structures murdered Djindjic too when he came after them.

South Africa finessed this problem to some extent by its Truth and Reconciliation process. Even if the worst apartheid oppressors were not all punished, they at least were forced to confront their victims.

There is no clear answer. Bad Leaders necessarily create a filthy moral and political wasteland around them, making it next to impossible for anyone honest operating there to stay and look clean.

My view?

Bad Leaders should not escape unpunished. If they do so, their evil influence will linger on and poison the atmosphere.

Freedom can put down deep strong roots only in clean, clear soil with fresh water. Those who want freedom may have to pay a high price to get it, adding to all the other high prices they have already paid suffering during its long absence.  

One thing alone is sure. The ‘international community’ will not be braver than the people on the ground, and will come up with all sorts of reasons for ‘avoiding bloodshed’, ‘showing restraint’, ‘being merciful’ and ‘conciliatory’.

And all sorts of people fatuously will try to claim that even the likes of Mugabe are far better than Western Imperialism.

Why? Because as well as the small number of Really Bad Leaders there are plenty of Fairly Bad Leaders out there who have a great interest in not seeing crime punished anywhere, thereby setting a firm precedent for honesty and decency. 

In the seedy circumstances of international politics, too much Honesty and Decency could be … unhelpful.