The Great Dictator

The current New Statesman has decided to publish a rather curious list of the top ten dictators. I say strange because it includes Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay who's been out of power since 1989 and who died last month. Nonetheless the list is as follows:

Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan
Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran
Kim Jong-il of North Korea
Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan
Hu Jintao of China
Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea
Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai
Alfredo Stroessner, former leader of Paraguay

So of the top ten we have the following:

US allies - 3 (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE - aka Dubai)
Major US trading partners - 1 (China)

Axis of evil - 2 (Iran, North Korea)

Personally I'd have left off Stroessner and added Mugabe. The Algerian and Burmese juntas also deserve consideration.

There's also a poll where you can vote. Bush is currently second to Castro so, as they used to say in Philadelphia, vote early and vote often!