Zimbabwe's Coup Is Nothing to Celebrate

As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.

Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, argued in a recent paper that most dictators fall for reasons proving that they are all too human: hubris, a propensity for needless risk, liberalization impulses that lead to a slippery slope, picking the wrong successor, counterproductive violence. Mugabe, 93, is no exception; he groomed the wrong person to succeed him and relied too much on his military. When he tried to change his pick, the generals decided they'd had enough.