Bringing Europe s Last Dictator in From the Cold

Ortega won thanks to an alliance with the heirs of Nicaragua s old dictator Somoza.

A dictator s sudden death almost always triggers political instability.

Most controversial of all has been Europe s last dictator, Belarusan President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has also taken a strong stand against the Belarusian dictator.

But, more importantly, no military dictator can succeed where Musharraf has so clearly failed.

Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator who ruled the hermit kingdom for the past three decades, has died at the age of 69.

They had a democratic constitution save in time of war, when a dictator was chosen from among the regular magistrates.

The obvious lesson to be drawn from 1979 is that America unwisely rested its entire strategic relationship with Iran on the shoulders of an unpopular dictator.

The court battle on whether or not to punish former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is now over.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il s fondness for Hollywood movies is unlikely to affect his nuclear weapons program.

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers hijacked the Iranian revolution in 1979, democracy became impossible the cleric had become a dictator.

Once he officially became Peru's Dictator, his government actions were in bad shape and were adversely affecting the indigenous population of Peru, whom he despised, as has already been mentioned

So in the 20th century, you had this vicious cycle in the Arab world where you have a dictatorship suppressing its own people including the Islamic pious, and they're reacting in reactionary ways.

Parliamentarians across Europe and the West must join their voice together in a well defined, united and ringing declaration that forces Western leaders to apply real pressure to Europe s last dictator.

Similarly, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il likes to watch Hollywood movies, but that is unlikely to affect his decision about whether to give up his nuclear weapons program.

CAMBRIDGE Not long ago, a Harvard colleague wrote to me that Saif al Islam el Qaddafi, a son of Libya s dictator, would be in town and wanted to meet me.

The obvious lesson to be drawn from 1979 is that America unwisely rested its entire strategic relationship with Iran on the shoulders of an unpopular dictator. When his regime crumbled, so did America s ability to realize its interests there.

The sudden death in late December of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan s authoritarian president for life who declared himself Turkmenbashi (Leader of all Turkmens), jeopardizes stability in a country that is an increasingly important supplier of energy to Europe.

First, in September, at the congress of Putin s political party, United Russia, Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev formalized what everyone anticipated, with Putin announcing his intention to return to the presidency in March and thus virtually declaring himself Russia s dictator for life.

A dictator s sudden death almost always triggers political instability. But it is doubly dangerous when it poses a risk of region wide destabilization and a scramble for influence among the world s greatest military powers the United States, Russia, and China.