Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” roars Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III. He wants to put his life of crime behind him and go legit, but circumstances conspire against him. It’s a frustration shared by tyrants. Being one, Marcel Dirsus says, is “like being stuck on a treadmill that one can never get off”.
But then, losing control can be a devastating experience. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal killing at the hands of rebels after four decades of misrule was a lesson in the transience of autocratic power.
