One of the last (we hope) Asian strongmen OLD-SCHOOL Asian strongmen have become an endangered species. The future of even Central Asia's venerable strongman tradition has been in doubt since the death in 2006 of Turkmenistan's Sapurmurat Niyazov, who called himself "Turkmenbashi", the father of the Turkmen. The daddy of them all, Genghis Khan, is probably spinning in his grave at Mongolia's turn toward namby-pamby multi-party democracy. Indonesia's Suharto and the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos are long gone, their countries now democracies, albeit messy ones. The top dog in Myanmar's regime, General Than Shwe, is old, ailing and--it is said--circled by would-be successors. In other authoritarian states like China, Vietnam and Laos, the party, rather than any particular dominating individual, is in charge. ... ...
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