For generations Washington has tolerated many dictatorships across the Middle East, always in hope of increasing American power and influence. The U.S. deals out a limited friendliness in return for oil rights, sites where air and naval bases can be placed and (in the case of the Palestinian Authority) many dubious and unredeemed promises of peace.

But this week President Donald Trump took a large and unprecedented step in that direction. He made it clear that he not only tolerates Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, president of Egypt, he indicated something very like affection for him.

“We agree on so many things,” Trump said warmly after his meeting with Sisi at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.”

Sisi has brought a measure of stability to Egypt, which is what Trump means by “fantastic job.” But it’s hard to see the difference between Sisi’s stability and any other dictator’s repression. His police shoot peaceful protesters, his courts send his critics to jail, and the politicians who should properly be his opposition have been frightened into silence. There are those who say privately that he’s even worse than Hosni Mubarak, whose three decades as president were ended in 2011 by protest rallies.

Mubarak was replaced by Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, democratically elected in 2012. But a year later he was turned out, after huge protests of angry citizens denounced his performance in office.

Sisi, the head of the armed forces, saw his opportunity. He mounted a coup that ousted Morsi. He then outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, sent many of its members to jail and charged Morsi with conspiring to commit terrorist acts with foreign groups. A long list of other charges followed.

Sisi will do anything to avoid the death-by-mob strategy that unseated his two predecessors. One of his security officials told Reuters that “We have taken several measures to ensure activists don’t have breathing space. Several cafes and other meeting places have been closed. Some activists have been arrested in order to scare the rest.”

But these methods deal only with Egyptians whose opinions could challenge Sisi’s political position. Egypt has not succeeded in stopping, or even slowing down, the threat from international terrorists with determination and sophisticated arms.

Terrorist atrocities happen in Egypt with unsettling regularity. In 2015, the ISIL claimed responsibility for bringing down a Russian passenger airliner over Sinai, with 213 deaths. Journalists have reported a common remark uttered in Cairo: “At least we are not Iraq or Syria.”

Sisi, defending his policies, says, “We don’t have the luxury to fight and feud.” He says all political parties in Egypt should join as “one inclusive coalition.” Probably he would like “one inclusive media system” as well. Sisi closed down the pro-Brotherhood media outlets when the Brotherhood was branded as terrorist. The private media play the president’s game, and when they break ranks they find their editors arrested. Three journalists for Al Jazeera, the Qatari television network, were jailed for allegedly harming national security.

Under Sisi, the terrorism law makes it a crime to seek to “harm the national interest” or “compromise national unity,” two provisions that in themselves make genuine journalism impossible.

Human Rights Watch believes Sisi’s government flagrantly abuses human rights through mass detentions, military trials of civilians and hundreds of death sentences. “Sisi has provided near total impunity for security force abuses and issued a raft of laws that severely curtailed civil and political rights, effectively erasing the human rights gains of the 2011 uprising that ousted the longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.”

The case of Giulio Regeni reveals the police-state atmosphere that Sisi’s government has created. Regeni was an Italian working on his PhD at Cambridge University. He was in Cairo, conducting research on the independent labour unions of Egypt. In January, 2016, he was abducted and tortured to death. His mutilated corpse was found in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo. He had suffered from many broken bones, stab wounds from an ice pick, a brain hemorrhage and a broken cervical vertebra. He was apparently tortured for days.

He may have been abducted by a criminal gang specializing in foreigners, or by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood hoping to embarrass the Egyptian government, two explanations that were officially mentioned. But because of his labour research and his left-wing political views, Egyptian police have been suspected of involvement. In April 21, 2016 Reuters reported that three Egyptian intelligence officials and three police sources independently claimed he was in police custody before his death.