Word: strongman
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...Even if Washington was happy to see Khomeini's Iran bogged down in a proxy war with Saddam's forces, the Iraqi dictator quickly disabused anyone who believed that he was the strongman to guarantee Middle East stability. In 1990, just three years after the costly Iran-Iraq war ground to a halt, Saddam, having built up one of the largest militaries in the region, decided to resolve tensions with Kuwait over oil rights and boundary lines by invading. But he underestimated the response from the international community and a U.S.-led multinational force routed his tank divisions. From...
...Although long regarded as a bastion of moderate Islam, Indonesia has experienced a religious revival since 1998, when democracy activists helped end the 32-year rule of strongman Suharto. Given unprecedented space to express their religiosity, members of the nation's 210 million Muslim population have built thousands of religious schools and mosques, some of which adhere to more conservative interpretations of Islam. The spiritual flowering has also emboldened radical elements, who have orchestrated a series of bombings that have claimed hundreds of lives in Jakarta and the resort island of Bali since 2002. And despite the fact that...
...Managua hotel ballroom, schmoozing local and foreign investors, Ortega sounds like a changed man. "We won't eradicate poverty by eradicating capital or alienating investors but by joining forces with them," he says. Ortega is playing to the audience, but even former rivals believe that his evolution from communist strongman to nascent capitalist may be genuine. Says Morales: "Daniel Ortega deserves a chance to vindicate himself...
...That's why Washington is so desperately seeking a new strategy for Iraq. The present one clearly isn't working, and each of the alternatives - from "cut and run" through partition, finding a new strongman regime or bringing in the neighbors to sort things out - carries more peril than prospect. The Tet Offensive analogy offers a false choice between an ignominious retreat and a dogged determination to stay the course...
...past and future of the Panama Canal weigh heavily on Martín Torrijos, like a freighter inching through a lock. It was Torrijos' father, the late Panamanian strongman Brigadier General Omar Torrijos, who persuaded the U.S. to sign a 1977 treaty handing over the canal to Panama, which it did six years ago. Now Torrijos, 43, who was democratically elected President of Panama in 2004, is stumping to persuade his countrymen to undertake a more than $5 billion expansion of the 50-mile-long waterway that bisects the isthmus...