Beyond Great ForcesNovember/December 2019 157Syria, and other core issues. Had one o them taken power instead,
that leader might still have pivoted to the Middle East and away
from Europe, but it is far less likely that he would have acted so er-
ratically or personalized politics to such a degree. A more pragmatic
head o state might have cracked down sooner on the Islamic State
(or )—for years, Erdogan allowed the group to use Turkey as a
jihadi highway to Syria—cooperated more with Saudi Arabia and
other opponents o Assad, or even tried earlier to strike a deal with
the Syrian dictator.
At times, egoists can approach absurdity and drag their countries
into outright disaster. Idi Amin, who seized power in Uganda in a
1971 coup, took on more and more titles as his ego ballooned, eventually
becoming “His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji
Dr. Idi Amin Dada, ¥, ²¢, «, ¤.” Uganda’s foreign policy swung
wildly: a country that had taken a pro-Western, pro-Israeli stance
soon struck up a close relationship with the Soviet Union and Muam-
mar al-QaddaÄ’s Libya and openly supported terrorists. At home,
Amin expelled Uganda’s Asian minority and killed hundreds o thou-
sands o civilians from rival ethnic groups. With his circle o support
steadily shrinking, he blamed Tanzania for his country’s problems
and, in 1978, invaded it. Tanzania promptly counterattacked, driving
Amin into exile.
LIABILITIES AND ASSETS
Some leaders drag their countries or causes down, needlessly reduc-
ing their performance on account o their own particular weaknesses.
On paper, Ayman al-Zawahiri has the perfect résumé for the head o
a terrorist group. As the journalist Lawrence Wright has recounted,
Zawahiri formed his Ärst terrorist cell in 1966, when he was only 15
years old, to plot against the Egyptian regime. He then spent several
years in Egypt’s jails, moved to Pakistan to aid the anti-Soviet jihad
in Afghanistan, and was by Osama bin Laden’s side in Pakistan when
al Qaeda was founded, in 1988. So when U.S. forces Änally caught up
to bin Laden in 2011, Zawahiri was the obvious successor as leader o
the terrorist group.
Yet al Qaeda’s star has dimmed under Zawahiri’s leadership. Al-
though the fall o secular autocrats, such as Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, and the outbreak o civil wars around the Arab
world presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for jihad’s leading