Arrest Cuban leader Fidel Castro? Put Chinese President Jiang Zemin on trial for the Tiananmen Square killings? "God forbid!" is the unexpected answer from US conservatives upset by the Pinochet case.
The conservatives, dismayed that an international judicial system might arise outside US control, say the detention of Gen Augusto Pinochet in Britain undermines Chilean sovereignty and threatens internal reconciliation.
The logical corollary is that their ideological enemies among world leaders should also enjoy immunity, if they follow Gen Pinochet's example and give up power peacefully.
"I would gladly trade Fidel Castro a comfortable exile in Spain for his decision to step down and allow Cubans to live in freedom," said Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The senator, joint author of the Helms-Burton legislation against foreign firms handling pre-revolutionary Cuban assets, has opposed any rapprochement with President Castro.
Another conservative, Mr Gary Dempsey of the Cato Institute said: "The Pinochet affair portends a very hazardous future. Would (Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat have negotiated at all if he thought the American government might arrest him and try him for acts of PLO terrorism?"
Liberals like Mr Larry Birns pour scorn on their arguments. "If an American had been killed in Cuba, Helms would be screeching. But he's never said a word about the Americans killed in Chile under Pinochet.
"It's selective indignation masking a lack of analysis, ideology dressed up in the garb of legalese," added Mr Birns, who is director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
Successive US administrations have for long devoted time and energy to hunting dictators they disagreed with, like Gen Noriega of Panama. But almost alone among western democracies, however, the US has seen merit in releasing Gen Pinochet.
US government qualms about an international justice system came to light in a big way during negotiations in Rome this year on an International Criminal Court (ICC). The United States voted against the final version of the agreement on the ICC, ostensibly for fear that US soldiers could face trial abroad for acts committed during peacekeeping. Critics of the US position said it really wanted to control the prosecution process by tying it to the UN Security Council, where it has veto power.