Path to Becoming a Tyrant - Part Two

  

you've seen how following the tyrant's playbook can help you rise from obscurity and seize total control of your nation. But, believe it or not, gaining power was the easy part. From day one of your reign, you'll be beset by enemies and treacherous rivals eager to bring your regime to a quick and likely violent end. It's a lesson one of history's most famous leaders learned the hard way.

Julius Caesar (46-44 BC) was Killed by former allies less than two years after naming himself dictator for life.

Laurent Kabila of Congo (1997-2001) Assassinated by one of his own child soldiers who got out of line. And then there's Liberia's Samuel Doe (1986-1990) Captured and tortured on camera before being murdered by a rival warlord.

But you can avoid their fate by using the playbook to put potential rivals in their place. And nobody did this better than the Butcher of Baghdad: Saddam Hussein. Who ruled Iraq for 24 years by never forgetting the mantra all tyrants must follow: "Kill or be killed."

2. CRUSH YOUR RIVALS

“I will pick up my gun and fight to the end.” - Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was a brute. His way to stay in power was to make sure that anybody he even suspected might be an opponent, would be dead. But before we get into how Saddam masterfully used the playbook to stay one step ahead of his rivals, here are some facts about how he made it to the top.

From a very early age, Saddam Hussein believed in power. When he was young, Saddam would carry a metal rod, and he'd use this metal rod as a way to threaten and intimidate others. But he also used it to torture small animals.

At age 20 he joined the BA’ATH party and became a key enforcer. he participated in the assassination attempt in 1959 of the leader in Iraq, General  Abd al-Karim Qasim. And that really gave him a badge of honor within the Ba'ath Party.

In 1968 he helped organize a coup that BA’ATH party to power. After the coup, one of his cousins, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, becomes the president. And Saddam was appointed vice president.

But Saddam was destined for bigger things. Saddam was a vice president for ten years, but in the meantime, he was actually taking alliances and creating friendships with different aspects of the government.

Saddam went one day to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and told him,

"You're getting older. I hear your health is not in great shape. Time for you to retire."

Or to put it another way... You have a choice of either being executed or having a peaceful transition of power. The next day, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr goes on TV and says, "I'm retiring."

So, now you know how Saddam rose to power, let's talk about how he kept it.   Starting with the first crucial period of any tyrant's reign, when you'll have to show what it means that there's a new sheriff in town.

2.1 ESTABLISH DOMINANCE

 

There are certain rhythms to dictatorships. Right after they seize power is actually a very unstable time. In order to stay in power, you have to be ever-vigilant. You have to make sure that anybody who is a potential rival is controlled and put in their place. And those will even include some of your first and closest allies with dangerous ambitions of their own. Even a minor slight, if not dealt with, maybe a signal to rivals that, "Oh, this guy is vulnerable."

These fair-weather friends are now waiting in the wings to try to take you down. So don't give them a chance.

The following guys didn't.

Every general on The Great March with Mao was dead within a few years. Almost everybody who fought the revolution in Cuba on behalf of Fidel Castro was dead within two years. Joseph Stalin's original comrades in the USSR also All died in a short time.

But Saddam did them one better with a surprise move for the ages. One of Saddam's friends tells him that there are people who are murmuring and not happy about Saddam's takeover from al-Bakr. So then Saddam called for everyone in the Ba'athist party to attend Congress on July 22, 1979. And Saddam comes with his famous cigar. And he says,

"There are people in this room who are opposing my leadership."

And then a man by the name of Mashadi, a senior member of the Ba'ath Party who was highly regarded, begins to give a rehearsed speech. In it, Mashadi confesses to having plotted a coup or conspiracy against the Iraqi leadership, including Saddam Hussein.

Which, in truth, was entirely made up. Which, in truth, was entirely made up. Mashadi had been tortured by Hussein and he brought Mashadi's wife and daughters to the prison, and Hussein told Mashadi he had a choice.

He could either sit there and watch the guards rape his wife and his daughters and then kill them, or he would confess.

Mashadi chose option two. The confess.

And one by one, Mashadi begins to read out the names of Ba'athist officials who were, according to him, accomplices and conspirators. And then a member of the police dressed in plain clothes, the security forces, would come and escort out this person.

Some of these men are begging him, like, "Please, no, no." And it was a bizarre spectacle of feigned loyalty but also fear. You could see the fear in the eyes of many of these men who felt at any moment their names could be arbitrarily read.

Outside the meeting room, the purged party members learn their fate. More than 20 are sentenced to die. The rest get prison time. They think they're lucky until they're forced to conduct the executions themselves.

It extinguishes any doubt about what Iraq's new leader is willing to do to protect his authority. And in case anybody didn't get the memo the video of that meeting was sent all around, including to Iraqi embassies abroad. And the message was, "Look what happens when people are betraying the regime and their leader. That's the way they're gonna end."

What better way to kick off a new era? Now that your rivals know what you're capable of, they'll have no choice but to raise their game as well. How do you make sure you keep the upper hand?

2.2 BE EVERYWHERE

To survive as a tyrant, you need to have eyes, ears, and muscles you can rely on everywhere. For a dictator to keep any threat to his power from rising up, the only way to do that effectively is to do it in the shadows.

That's why every dictator's best friend is an effective and ruthless secret police.

During the Great Terror of the late 1930s, Joseph Stalin's secret police, the NKVD, presided over the arrest and execution of nearly a million so-called enemies of the people, accused of opposing Stalin and his regime.

In Uganda, Idi Amin enforced loyalty through his State Research Bureau, which was staffed by members of his tribe, as well as local criminals and mercenaries from abroad.

Haitian dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier's enforcers were nicknamed "the Tonton Macoute" or "Bogeyman” after a character in folklore who kidnaps and eats unruly children.

 The idea of a secret police in Iraq began in 1964 with the Jihaz Haneen, which was a security apparatus that Saddam helped found. After Saddam ascended to the presidency, he created a special secret, secret police, a sub-unit. And it's comprised entirely of members of the tribe and family that are bound by blood and oath of loyalty to Saddam Hussein.

In Iraq in the 1970s, everyone knew these people. They drove the same kind of cars, they dressed kind of the same. They even had the same mustache. So much for the secret part. But no matter how much you empower your secret police, you need something else to show your rivals that there's nowhere to hide. A trusty network of informants.

In Saddam's Iraq, spying was everywhere. Everyone spied on the other. The Ba'athists are everywhere spying on you. So, in your own family, for example, the only way your parents, or elderly people would speak is in the middle of the garden, blasting out the radio far away from them, and then they would whisper to each other. And that's how they talked with each other in the '80s.

Now when the playbook says, "Be everywhere," it's not just talking about inside your borders. When dissidents would make their way into other parts of the world, Saddam would not hesitate to demonstrate that they were reachable to him, regardless of where they were.

This leads us to Iraq's former Prime Minister Abd ar-Razzaq al-Naif. Al-Naif was a progressive politician and Saddam's longtime nemesis. But after Saddam and the Ba'athists seized power al-Naif was forced to flee with his family. He moved to Great Britain and started speaking out, publicly criticizing the government.

Unamused, Saddam begins exploring options for how to silence his worst critic. A pair of friendly neighborhood assassins pay al-Naif a visit. But they hit al-Naif's wife instead. She survived, by the way, and the gunmen were ultimately arrested.

So now Saddam sends elite agents from his secret police from Iraq to London. Where these skilled professionals tap their informants to keep track of al-Naif's every move, waiting for the opportunity to strike. This time, they don't miss. The assassination leaves behind a chilling message for Saddam's critics. No matter where you run, Saddam will find you.

Murder and mayhem are always a solid play. But Saddam didn't rule by fear alone, and neither should you. For the next tactic in the playbook,  you'll see how to appeal to another of your rivals' soft spots. Their greed.

2.3 BUY LOYALTY

Whoever said you can't buy affection, probably didn't try hard enough. What an inner circle needs to stay loyal is actually very simple. They need to get more from the leader than they believe they can get from anybody else. The efficient way to stay in power is essentially giving the coalition bribes and opportunities to be corrupt. Sounds pricey, Right? So where's the money coming from? Most of these regimes are highly sophisticated operations of kleptocracy. What is kleptocracy exactly? I'm not talking about that kid at school who got busted for shoplifting wine coolers. Kleptocracy involves stealing the resources of your entire nation.

Step one. Nationalize your natural resources. Oil, gold, natural gas. If it's valuable, it needs to be controlled by the State, aka you.

Step two. Put your people in charge. You'd never play a big game without paying off the referee. So don't start despoiling your country without making sure all decision-makers are on your team first.

Step three. Control all trade. Set artificially high prices, hold back goods to create demand, and tack on some exorbitant taxes. Then watch the cash flow in.</i>

By mastering this technique, Saddam Hussein, once a penniless shepherd's son, got his net worth up to a cool two billion dollars. Not bad.Right?

But as tempting as it might be to keep the riches to yourself, a smart tyrant knows the value of sharing. Saddam was able to plunder the resources and the oil wealth of the State. But he used these proceeds to not just enrich himself, but also as a form of patronage.

He bought the loyalty of other senior party officials. All this generosity isn't cheap. But ignore this tactic at your peril. Some tyrants find that they have wasted so much of the government's money, so much of the people's money, that they don't have enough left over to take care of their inner circle. They wind up dead very quickly. And if you're smart,  also set aside a little extra to share with the common people.

In the 1980’s One famous thing Saddam would do, he would surprise Iraqis, by visiting someone's home. And the first thing he would do is open their refrigerator. He had this image of himself that he was the man who would bring all Iraqis food. And when he sees an empty refrigerator, he makes sure that he shows that there are people being loaded with gifts. So that's the charm, but it's mingled with the fear.

The end goal is to make people in the public say that,

" No, actually everything is okay. This dictator is a good man. He's doing the right things, right policies. I like him."

Who doesn't want to be liked? But don't go soft now. Once your inner circle gets a piece of the action, they're going to keep demanding more. Time to develop a new skill, to remind them you're still the boss, and they're not.

2.4 MASTER MIND GAMES

Most successful dictators engage in ritual humiliation of everyone around them, including their closest collaborators. And they do this very early on so that the rules of the game are understood.

And why are these displays such a key part of the tyrant's playbook? because they're pathological narcissists.

Tyrants are deeply insecure. Their response to any sort of criticism is attack. You don't want somebody thinking "I have a better way to do things." Ideas are very bad for dictators.

Keeping your rivals scared and off-balance is so much better. Saddam told friends how he killed one of his best friends, who was a minister. His wife went to Saddam and said, "Please release him." And he said, "Tomorrow, you will find him at your home. "The next day... Saddam sends his body cut in pieces in a coffin, to his wife. Stories like this were a form of control. Whether or not they were true was not the point. The point was to demonstrate that he could do these things. The potential was there.

In 1979, under Ayatollah Khomeini, had the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which Saddam looked at with great concern. So, there was now this new Iranian regime that was calling for a rebellion, an uprising, an overthrow of Saddam. And it actually had the resources to make it happen. Saddam decided to preemptively attack Iran. He really believes that it is going to be a short war and that within a month, the regime will collapse.

Saddam Hussein's war against Iran has now lasted not three days, but ten long months. There was a lot of rumblings among some ministers. "This is a dead end." "Where is it going to end?" so, before his restless allies got any bad ideas, Saddam decided to give them a little attitude adjustment.

One day in the early '80s, Saddam ordered a group of top ministers to report for a trip to a destination unknown. with blacked-out windows that slowly drove them in circles around Baghdad. They arrive at a remote palace outside of the city. The men are directed to put all belongings into envelopes marked with their names. They're made to wash with disinfectant, then forced to wait in silence for hours. They have been waiting in silent terror for hours. Finally, Saddam arrived. He speaks for 30 rambling minutes. Having seen their leader's brutality firsthand, the men prepare for the worst. Instead, Saddam invites them to a lavish supper. Gives them one thousand dollars each and has them driven home. But the message is clear. Next time they might not be so lucky. It was his way of instilling fear, of projecting his power and authority. It was a form of psychological manipulation. What he was doing was keeping fear alive. And he did it with intention. When times get tough, sometimes fear is all you have.

 The Iran-Iraq War lasted eight years. He lost a lot of soldiers. And at the end, Khomeini was far more popular and stronger in the whole world. How frustrating. When your ill-fated plans lead to national disaster, you can count on facing even graver threats to your rule. Some from the most unexpected places. Time to show how far you're willing to go to preserve your power.

2.5 EVERYONE IS EXPENDABLE

Surviving as a tyrant means making tough decisions. And you can't allow your emotions to get in the way, even when it comes to blood. Saddam had zero tolerance for any hint of rebellion or betrayal from members of his own family. And he would not hesitate to arrest them, detain them, execute them, torture them, whatever he needed to do.

 After being crushed by coalition forces in the first Gulf War, Saddam needs to quickly reaffirm his authority. Even if that means taking on his nearest and dearest. Saddam's two daughters were married to Hussein Kamel and his brother Saddam Kamel. They were all third cousins, second cousins. Saddam placed the older brother, Hussein Kamel, in charge of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

Saddam really was almost besotted with him. Saddam thought "This is a great young man, who might be even one day my successor." Which came as unwelcome news to Saddam's eldest son and notorious psychopath Uday. Uday was truly cruel and sadistic. He was jealous of Hussein Kamel. Hussein Kamel is beginning to sense that Uday is going to make it more and more difficult for him. You know, sooner or later, kill him.

So, one night under the cover of darkness, the brothers flee to Jordan with their wives and children. Hearing the news, Saddam is less than pleased. Especially when he learns Hussein Kamel is demanding asylum and talking to CIA agents about Iraq's chemical weapons program. But Saddam knows just how to respond. He calls his daughters and swears the Kamels will be forgiven if they return home. He must have been pretty convincing since they all returned to Baghdad. But Saddam greets them with something other than open arms.

He forces his daughters to divorce the Kamels. A few days later, Saddam's government claims the brothers are killed in a shoot-out with vengeful relatives at the family estate. But others tell a different tale. Saddam sent a death squad, led by his own sons Uday and Qusay, to take the Kamel brothers out. The aftermath is even more dramatic. They take the dead bodies attach them to a car, and drive the car, dragging the dead bodies of Saddam's sons-in-law into the entire city. He horrified the whole country. That, "This is what I can do to my sons-in-law if they disobey me."  That's how Saddam kept his rivals underfoot until the 24 years of his reign.

Nothing lasts forever. But to survive nearly this long you're going to need to deal with threats even more challenging than treacherous rivals. Because they're coming from inside your population.

Fear not. The playbook has some handy tricks to keep any restless citizens under control.

But they're not pretty.

The next stop is Uganda, to meet the man who mastered the art of terror to preserve his reign. The question is Are you ready to follow his lead?

 

See you in chapter 3.

(Based on the How to Become a Tyrant Television documentary released by Netflix. All credit goes to them.)

Kasun Sapumohotti