Leave the Dummies alone

Strategypage discusses why inept dictators always talk about evil outsiders trying to ruin their country, as a power play.

...Among recent singers of this tune are, in addition to Ahmadinejad, are Venezuela’s caudillo Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwe’s geriatric president Robert Mugabe, Libya’s weird “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution” Muammar al-Gaddafi, and North Korea’s erratic “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. These bogus claims are intended primarily for domestic consumption, since these strongmen find it useful to pretend dictatorial rule is essential to protect their countries from the dread foreign imperialists.

But why would any rational “foreign imperialist” want to bump off these guys? They’re some of the most inept national leaders in history, each of whom has run his country into poverty, isolation, and brutality on the pretense of protecting it from evildoers, foreign and domestic, while enriching himself and his cronies....