world beyond the borders of his own country (the German people and economy in Hitler's case, oil in Saddam's case). And these characteristics can be tied together in a final one; Saddam should be deposed before he gets too powerful, just as Hitler should have been.

Let's consider the first two factors in this section. Saddam is not necessarily brilliant, nor is he necessarily wise to the outside world. But he has managed to maintain his power over a vast stretch of time, a feat that few other dictators accomplish (and in this sense he is really closer to Stalin than Hitler, both of whom he emulates). Saddam has so consolidated power in his own country that it is unlikely he will go anywhere or die of anything but natural causes. In other words, if anything is going to happen to Saddam, it is going to have to come from outside of Iraq. There is proof enough of this in his own people's failure to depose him at the end of the first Gulf war, when he was at a low point in power. It is now virtually out of the question.

The biggest thing that separates Saddam from other bad guys and makes him more dangerous, however, is his unpredictability. Before he invaded Kuwait in 1990, observers from all quarters were sure that he wouldn't actually go through with it. Everyone watched as he mobilized most of his military and set them up right on the border, and then let them sit there for a while. But everyone knew it must be a bluff, because everyone knew it would be suicide for him to actually invade Kuwait. As it turns out, it almost was; it was suicide for his military and many of his soldiers, though not for him. But that was due to the miscalculation of the Bush administration at the time--they thought that certainly the Iraqi people would depose him after he was weakened. They were tragically wrong, of course.

As if to underscore his unpredictability, he did not take this humbling to heart, but instead focused only on the part that proved the virility of his power: he was still around when the gunfire stopped and the dust settled. So when U.N. sanctions were really ticking him off in 1994, he gathered troops at the Kuwaiti border once again, preparing for an invasion. He did not invade this time, because of quick U.N. intervention. The thing to keep in mind is that there is no evidence indicating that he wouldn't have invaded, that it was just a bluff. If the U.N. would have rolled over and ignored his antics, he just might have. Clearly this is no ordinary bad man here, just hoping to maintain his comfortable position as leader of his own country. In fact, entertaining speculations on what Saddam won't do has become a bankrupt business in the U.S. government. So many were trying, asking the question "What would I do if I were in Saddam's shoes?" and coming up with answers that proved to be wrong, that one top CIA official issued the decree "We will not predict what Saddam Hussein will not do."

Saddam is a megalomaniac. Like Hitler, Saddam has grand designs on the world. He seeks political and military power more than wealth and security. He wants to go down in history as "the leader of the Arab nation" and the "leader