In the past decade, working as a US diplomat and then as a human rights advocate, I’ve had the perversely unique opportunity to meet on occasion with one of the longest-serving dictators in the world, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
These three- or four-hour marathon meetings were right out of central casting, with an out-of-touch octogenarian autocrat spouting vitriol against the British, democracy, and American corporate interests while sipping tea and speaking in an English accent even Queen Elizabeth would envy.
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