Word: ruler
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...tradition is unknowable. But as long as Saddam himself is around, trouble will be close by. He is, after all, the same Saddam whose air force crippled the U.S.S. Stark with an Exocet missile three years ago. (A mistake, said Baghdad, and apologized.) Saddam sees himself as the rightful ruler of the Arab world -- and he is embarked on a nuclear-weapons development program that the CIA says could be successful in three to five years. Thus the unstated third prong of Bush's strategy is actually to topple Saddam, perhaps by letting him stew long enough for domestic Iraqi...
...nearest he ever got to combat was assassination. As a student, he had joined the Baath Party, an underground anti-Western, pan-Arab socialist movement. The party put him on a team assigned to murder Iraq's military ruler, Abdul Karim Kassem. Saddam and his confederates sprayed Kassem's station wagon with machine-gun fire as it sped through downtown Baghdad, but they missed their target. Although bodyguards killed several of the assailants, Saddam escaped with a bullet in his left leg. In the glorified words of his own hagiography -- the truth is less dramatic -- he carved out the bullet...
...reasons that Gorbachev cut a deal with Yeltsin are apparent enough. Now that a rival runs the vast Russian republic, which embraces nearly two-thirds of the Soviet Union's 289 million people, the President is no longer the undisputed ruler. Rather than challenge Yeltsin further, Gorbachev appears to be eager for compromise. "It's important for them to coordinate economic policy," explains a Western diplomat in Moscow, observing that if they cannot work out a common policy, Gorbachev is "going to get left behind...
Finally, late last month, the authoritarian ruler of Zaire for all but five of its 30 years of independence was ready to speak. As his compatriots -- who had taken to calling their President "Mobutu Sese Sescu" -- crowded around radios and TVs set at full volume, Mobutu gave his answer to the stunning events in Eastern Europe. Reversing positions he had tenaciously reavowed only months before, Mobutu announced that he would allow two parties aside from his to compete for power and would turn the day-to-day running of the government over to a new Prime Minister. "Wisdom comes...
Although the former ruler is legally entitled to communicate with the outside world, U.S. officials contend that he is intimidating witnesses who may be called to testify against him and is urging followers to harass the U.S.-backed government of President Guillermo Endara. "He's saying such things as our case against him is weak and that he will return once he gets off," says a Bush Administration official. "That scares an awful lot of people. He's also running a faction of the opposition, and his objective is to provoke as much instability as he can. Obviously, that...