A leader, especially a political leader, of high stakes succeeds if s/he is able to keep the personal strictly separate from his/her professional duties. A country or institution is not a leader's personal possession or fiefdom.
Some were able to in the past; but several found it challenging. Mixing personal interests and emotions with leadership duties became their nemesis.
George Bush Junior was doing alright though under constant pressure for not being up to the intellectual demands of the Oval Office in the eyes of the left-of-center media. But the biggest blot on his Presidential role came when he could not avoid developing a personal grudge for Saddam Hussein because the dictator had once said that he would hurt Bush Junior’s father, Bush Senior.
The records of many other political leaders have similar shortcomings. Among the well-known ones are Robert Nixon, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Donald Trump, and the man in the frame right now, Vladimir Putin.
Putin may have ignored the West’s continued suspicions of Stalin and the Soviets in spite of the yeoman contribution made by them in WW II. He also seemed recently in his camaraderie with Trump to have forgotten the Western media’s mockery of the drunk Russian statesman Boris Yeltsin. But Vladimir Putin couldn’t digest the West maintaining distance from him in spite of his deep longings to make a place for himself in a line-up of great contemporary Western leaders. He could see that Angela Merkel, the former German Chancellor seemed to care; but no one else really did. And that severely frustrated and angered Putin.
The deep hurt from a perceived insult which Putin nourished in his soul turned him into the monster whose murderous rampage we now see.
In a democracy there are some limits to how much a self-obsessed personality can go out of control at the helm. But not in an autocracy. Many autocrats reach the heights of political office only because of their exceptional ability to succeed with accomplishing personal goals through the political system by putting down others. Yet when they get to the top they cannot remain there in peace for long because the challenges of the job easily provoke their weaknesses with self-interest leading to a mighty fall.
Vladimir Putin is the latest world leader to fall into the trap of self-aggrandizement. It has bloodied his hands with the blood of an entire Ukrainian generation. And for that he might become the latest leader not to escape justice.
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