|
 George
W. Bush (2001-2009)
1946- .
U.S. President, 2001-2009.
Republican.
 Barack
Obama (2009-2017)
1961- .
U.S. President 2009 to 2017. Democrat.
 Donald Trump (20017-2021 and 2025- )
1946 - .
U.S. President 2017 to 2021 and 2025 to the present. Republican.
 Joe Biden (2021-2025)
1942- .
U.S. President 2021 to 2025.
Democrat.
|
 Tony
Blair (1997-2007)
1953- .
Member of the British Labour Party.
British Prime Minister, 1997-2007 .
 Gordon
Brown (2007-2010)
1951- .
Member of the British Labour Party.
British Prime Minister, 2007-2010.
 David
Cameron (2010-2016 )
1951- .
Member of the British Conservative
Party. British Prime Minister, 2010-2016.
 Theresa May (2016-2019)
Member of the British Conservative
Party. British Prime Minister, 2016-2019.
 Boris Johnson (2019- )
Member of the British Conservative
Party.
British Prime Minister 2019-2022.
 British King Charles III (2022 to the present )
Became British king upon the death of his mother Elizabeth in September of 2022.
 Rishi Sunak (2022-2024 )
Member
of the British Conservative
Party. British Prime Minister 2022-2024 ... after Liz Truss
served briefly (only September and October of 2022) as Prime Minister.
 Keir Starmer (2024 to the present )
Member of the British Labour Party. British Prime Minister since 2024.
|
 Lionel
Jospin (1997-2002 )
1937- .
Socialist Party Prime Minister of
France, 1997-2002.
 Nicolas
Sarkozy (2007-2012)
1955- .
Leader of the Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP). President of France, 2007-2012.
 François
Fillon
1954- .
Member of the Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP). Prime Minister of France, 2007 to the present.
 François Hollande
President of France, 2012-2017.
 Emmanuel Macron
President of France since 2017. A member of the Renaissance Party since its founding in 2016.
|
 Gerhard
Schröder (1998-2005 )
1944- .
German Chancellor, 1998-2005.
Member of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
 Angela
Merkel (2005-2021)
1954- .
German Chancellor, 2005-2021.
Member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
 Olaf Scholz (2021-2025)
German Chancellor, from 2021 to 2025. Member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
 Friedrich Merz (since 2025)
German Chancellor, since 2025. Member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
|
OTHER
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY NATIONS |
THE
ENGLISH-SPEAKING COMMONWEALTH |
|
AUSTRALIA
 John Howard (1996-2007)
1939- .
(Liberal) Australian Prime Minister,
1996-2007.
 Kevin Rudd (2007-2010 and 2013)
1959- .
Labor Party Australian Prime Minister, 2007-2010 and briefly in 2013.
 Scott Morrison ( 2018-2022)
1968- .
Liberal Party Australian Prime Minister, 2007-2010 and briefly in 2013.
 Anthony Albanese (since 2022)
1963- .
Labor Party Australian Prime Minister, since 2022
CANADA
 Stephen Harper (2006-2015)
1959- .
Conservative Party Canadian Prime Minister, 2006-2015.
 Justin Trudeau (2015 to 2025)
1971- .
Liberal Party Canadian Prime Minister, 2015 to 2025. Son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
 Mark Carney (since 2025)
1965- .
Liberal Party Canadian Prime Minister, since 2025.
|
Vladimir
Vladimirovitch Putin (2000- )
1952- .
Russian
President, 2000-2008.
Russian Prime Minister, 2008 to 2012. Then he resumed the Russian
presidency in 2012 ... and has held that position since then ... and
constitutionally no longer needs to step down after serving another
4-year term. In short, he has made himself Russian
"President-for-Life."
Putin was first named Prime Minister by
Russian President Boris Yeltsin in August of 1999. He was a political
unknown at that time.
On January 1, 2000, when Boris Yeltsin
resigned as President, Putin took the spotlight--especially in his heavy-handed
move to crush rebellion in Chechnya.
With 69% of eligible voters participating
in the national presidential elections on March 27, 2000, Vladimir Putin
was elected president on the first ballot with over 52% of the votes; the
next largest contender, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party,
drew almost 30% of the vote; and Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Liberals,
drew just under 6% of the vote).
In
2022 he launched an invasion of the Crimean Peninsula ... whose
strategic naval site was supposed to be shared byboth Russia and
Ukraine. In short, he wants all of Ukraine to come again under
Russian control ... or certainly at least the eastern third of the
country where the Russian language is dominant.
Dmitry
Medvedev
1965- .
Russian
President, 2008 to 2012.
First Deputy Prime Minister, 2005-2008, then Russian Prime Minister,
2012-2020, and Deputy Chairman fo the Security Council of Russia since
2020.
Medvedev served as Putin's campaign
manager in Putin's run for the Russian presidency in 2000, and eventually
was named as First Deputy Prime Minister.
in 2008, with Putin's support (at the time, Putin
was ineligible to run again for the office of Russian President) Medvedev
won the presidency with 70% of the vote. Medvedev turned around
and named his mentor Putin as Russian Prime Minister. The
two have played power back and forth since the beginng of the 21st
century ... with Putin always the dominant figure and Medvedev playing
a fully supportive role. |
|
Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Polish President since 1995-2005.
 Bronisław Komorowski
Polish President from 2010 to 2015.
 Andrzej Duda
Polish President from August of 2015 to August of 2025.
 Karol Nawrocki
Polish President since August of 2025.
|
OTHER
EAST EUROPEAN NATIONS |
UKRAINE
Victor
Yushchenko
1954- .
President of Ukraine, 2005-2010.
Yushchenko's opponent, Yanukovych,
had supposedly won the presidential election of 2004. But claims
of voting fraud were so strong - and the mysterious apparent poisoning
of Yushchenko so shocking - that the run-off election had to be run a second
time. The second vote, following much political agitation around
the country (the 'Orange Revolution'), produced dramatically different
results: this time Yushchenko won with 52 percent of the vote ...
to Yanukovych's 44 percent.
But his popularity dropped dramatically
over the next years - and he received only 5.5 percent of the vote in the
2010 elimination round in his run for presidential reelection. He
was thus forced to drop out of the race early.
Victor
Yanukovych
1950- .
President of Ukraine 2010-2014.
He had served earlier in 2002-2004 as Ukrainian Prime Minister under the
presidency of Leonid Kuchma and 2006-2007 under the presidency of his former
political opponent Victor Yushchenko.
An ethnic Russian rather than an
ethnic Ukrainian - as are most citizens of Southern and Eastern Ukraine.
He won the 2010 vote against Yulia Tymoshenko, his 49 percent to her 45.5
percent. (She was subsequently arrested on questionable 'corruption'
charges - ironic since Yanukovych's own background is murky with convictions
of crime and questionable claims to have truly achieved all the academic
honors he boasts).
 Yulia
Tymoshenko
1960- .
Ukrainian Prime Minister from 2007
to 2010. Leader of the All-Ukrainian Union or "Fatherland" party.
She lost the 2010 presidential elections to the pro-Russian Victor Yanukovych.
She was subsequently arrested and imprisoned by the new Ukrainian government
of Yanukovych on charges concerning state energy usage - charges
considered by many as simply a traditional heavy handed attempt at intimidation
of the country's political opposition.
 Petro Poroshenko
President of Ukraine 2014-2019.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
1978- .
President of Ukraine since 2019. A Russian-speaking Ukrainian
seeking full unity between the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking
portions of the population ... and an end to all the political
and economic corruption afflicting the country. He studied law,
but instead became involved in the entertainment industry as creator,
producer and ultimately actor ... in his TV series Servant of the People,
running from 2015 to 2019, acting the role of Ukrainian
President! When in 2019 he actually ran politically for the
office, he was elected by 73% of the voters in a run-off election
against Poroshenko.
When Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of
2022, Zelenskyy stood his ground with his troops ... encoraging the
Ukrainians to resist with all their might this bullying of
Ukraine by Putin and his Russian troops.
BELARUS
 Alexander
Lukashenko
1954- .
President of Belarus since 1994.
Considered the last true East European dictator. |
|
MEXICO
 Vicente
Fox
1962- .
President of Mexico, 2000-2006.
Running as an Independent, he was the first individual in 71 years to win the presidency against a PRI (Institutional
Revolutionary Party) candidate.
 Felipe
Calderón
1962- .
President of Mexico, 2006-2012. A member of the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN).
 Enrique Peña Nieto
1966- .
President of Mexico, 2012-2018. A member of the older Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) - PRI
 Andrés Manuel López Obrador
1953- .
President of Mexico from 2018 to 2024. A member of the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement) - Morena
 Claudia Sheinbaum
1962- .
President of Mexico since 2024. A member of the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement) - Morena. She previously served as the Head of Government for Mexico City, 2018-2024.
VENEZUELA
 Hugo
Chávez
1954- .
Venezuelan President, 1999-2013. A Socialist promoting a "Bolivarian Revolution" in Venezuela.
Hostile to both American foreign policy and interests and to capitalism
in general.
 Nicolás Maduro
1962- .
Venezuelan
President, 2013 to the
present. His election was highly disputed by popular protest in
2014 ... as was his reelection in 2018 and then in 2024. Ssome
seven million Venezuelans have fled the country because of
deteriorating political conditions under his authoritarian rule.
BRAZIL
 Fernando
Henrique Cardoso
1931- .
President of Brazil, 1995-2003.
Widely appreciated as having brought Brazil's soaring inflation under control.
 Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva
1945- .
President of Brazil, 2003-2010
and now again since 2023.
A former metalworker and then co-founder of the Brazilian Workers'
Party. Once out of office, he was arrested and twice imprisoned
on questionable charges, 2017-2019 ... charges which the Supreme
Federal Court dismissed. He then ran again for the office of
presidency, winning, and taking office the beginning of 2023.
 Dilma
Rousseff
1947- .
President
of Brazil, 2011-2016. Member of the Brazilian Workers'
Party. Lula's Chief
of Staff (2005-2010). She was impeached and removed from office in 2016
on charges concerning financial corruption involving her political
organiztion and the large Brazilian oil corporation, Petrobras.
Former President Lula was actually imprisoned over the matter.
She also was not popular with the political Left over her strong
anti-LGBT position and her promotion of the Amazon River Basin
hydroelectric dam projects ... and faced a lot of opposition from
government workers, including in that category university professors.
After her removal from office she was replaced by Vice President Michel
Temer ... who proved to be very unpopular ... and consequently did not
run for the presidency in 2019.
Jair Bolsonaro
1955- .
President
of Brazil since 2019. A former military man and long-time
Senator, he represents the very conservative side of Brazilian politics
(anti-LGBTQ and very pro-American in foreign policy).
BOLIVIA
 Evo
Morales
1959- .
Bolivian
President, 2006-2019.
A Socialist with strong support among the country's Indian or
'Indigeous'
population for his efforts to turn politics away from domination by
Bolivians
of European descent. The election results of 2019 were so dubious
that Morales stepped down because of the resignation of a number of
members of his cabinet and because of the protests sweeping the
country. An interim government under the Vice President Jeanine Áñez was put in place ... until things were settled down enough to hold new elections (2020)
Luis Arce
1963- .
Bolivian President
since 2020. Former finance Minister under Morales, he swung
Bolivia back to Morales's style of Socialism ... after interim
president Jeanine Áñez had moved the country briefly (one year only, 2019-2020) in a direction to the Right (capitalism and free enterprise).
ARGENTINA
 Néstor
Kirchner
1950-2010.
President of Argentina, 2003-2007.
A little-known politician who with only 22 percent of the vote nonetheless
went on to victory when the former Argentine President Carlos Menem (with
24 percent of the vote) withdrew from the race. Kirchner went on
to confront the Argentine military over their cruelties during the period
1976-1983. Under his presidency the poverty rate in Argentina fell
dramatically.
 Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015 and since 2019)
1953- .
President
of Argentina, 2007-2015 and Vice President from 2019 to 2023. She ran
for the presidency after the completion of her husband
Néstor's
term of office ... and with 45 percent of the votes won well ahead of her opponents
(22 per cent lead over the closest rival). She was reelected President in 2011.
Mauricio Macri (2015-2019)
1959- .
President of Argentina, 2015-2019.
 Alberto Fernández (2019-2023)
1959- .
President of Argentina, from 2019to 2023.
 Javier Milei (since 2023)
1970- .
President of Argentina since 2023. He is well-known for his flambouyant personality, with conservative political tastes.
|
|
|
 Junichiro
Koizumi
1942- .
Japanese Prime Minister, 2001-2006.
Something of a non-conformist member of the Japanese Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP).
Japan's run of
brief prime ministers since Koizumi:
Shinzo Abe - 2006-2007
Yasuo Fukuda - 2007-2008
Taro Aso - 2008-200
Yukio Hatoyama - 2009-2010
Naoto Kan - 2010-2011
Yoshihiko Noda - 2011-2012
Yoshihide Suga - 2020-2021
 Shinzō Abe
1954- .
Japanese Prime Minister, 2006-2007 and 2012-2020.
 Fumio Kishida
1957- .
Japanese Prime Minister, 2021-2024.
 Shigeru Ishiba
1957- .
Japanese Prime Minister since 2024.
|
 Hu
Jintao (2002-2012 )
1942- .
General Secretary of the Chinese
Communist Party, 2002-2012. President of the People's Republic
of China, 2003-2013.
 Wen
Jiabao
1942- .
Prime Minister of China, 2003-2013.
 Xi Jinping
1953- .
General Secretary, Communist Party since 2012; President of China since 2013.
 Li Keqiang
Prime Minister of China, serving from 2013 until his death in 2023.
 Li Qiang
Prime Minister of China, serving since 2023.
|
|
 Atal
Bihari Vajpayeeh
1924- .
Prime Minister of India, 1998-2004.
 Manmohan
Singh
1932-2024 .
Prime Minister of India, 2004 to 2014. The first and only Sikh to serve as prime minister..
 Narendra Modi
1950- .
Prime Minister of India
since 2014. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (not
part of Gandhi's and Nehru's Indian National Congress!) ... a rather
militantly Hindu organization. |
|
|
 Tibet's Dalai Lama (since 1940)
He
was born in 1935 as Lhamo Thondup. He was selected to be prepared
to be Tibet's leader as early as 1937 ... only two years old at the
time. He was then chosen to be the Dalai Lama in 1939 and
formally enthroned in early 1940 ... only 4 years old at the time.
 Kim Jong-il (1994-2011)
1983- .
North Korean "Eternal Leader" and Grand Marshall (dictator), 1997-2011.
 Kim Jong-un (since 2011)
1983- .
North Korean "Supreme Leader" and Grand Marshall (dictator), 2011 to
the present.
|
|
PAKISTAN
 Pervez
Musharraf
AFGHANISTAN  Hamid
Karzai
1957- .
Afghan President, 2001-2014.
 Ashraf Ghani
1949- .
Afghan President, 2014-2021. When Biden pulled American support from the Afghan government (and society) in August of 2021, the Taliban took control of the country ... forcing Ghani to find assylum in the United Arab Emirates.
IRAN
 Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei
 Muhammad
Khatami
President of the Islamic Republic (Iran),
1997- .
 Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad
President
of the Islamic Republic (Iran), 2005-2013. An ultra-conservative who
dislikes intensely Western society and all its stands for ...
especially since it seems to have "infected" so deeply his own Persian
/ Iranian culture.
 Hassan Rouhani
1948- President
of the Islamic Republic (Iran), 2013-2021. He attempted to
improve relations with the West ... and improve civil rights in Iran.
 Ebrahim Raisi
1960-2024 President
of the Islamic Republic (Iran), 2021-2024. He had a background in
having Iranian ppolitical prisoners put to death ... earning him the
name "Butcher of Terran." He was of course also a Muslim
"hardliner" as Iranian president ... and supported strongly any
anti-Western political alliance (such as BRICS, the Russian invasion of
Ukraine, and jihadist attacks on Israel). He died in a helicopter
crash.
 Masoud Pezeshkian
1954- President
of the Islamic Republic (Iran), since 2024. He is obviously not a
Muslim cleric ... but someone with a medical background ...
and someone who proclaimed himself to be a "moderate" politically.
But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (with Iran involved in both
giving and receiving attacks in the process ... including an Israeli
attempt on his life) has suceeded in pushing Iran deeper into
religious militancy.
IRAQ
 Saddam
Hussein
 Muqtada
al-Sadr
1973- .
Son of a highly respected Iraqi Shi'ite
scholar, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who died
in 1999. Muqtada followed his father's strategy of building his personal
political power through populist appeals to the Iraqi urban poor.
Muqtada also organized his own military unit, mostly designed to harass
American troops remaining in Iraq in order to get them to leave immediately,
and to support a conservative Shi'ite political/cultural revolution in
Iraq once the secularizing Americans departed.
 Nouri
al-Maliki
1950- .
Iraqi prime minister, 2006-2014.
Actually elected by the new Iraqi parliament ... and highly
supportive of America's role in Iraq (bringing the Shi'ites to power in
Iraq instead of the Sunnis).Various Iraqi Prime Ministers who followed: Haider al-Abadi - 2014-2018 Adil Abdul-Mahdi - 2018-2020 Mustafa al-Kadhimi - 2020-2021  Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani
Iraqi
prime minister since 2022. He has been supportive of the
continuing presence of American and NATO troops in Iraq serving to
train the Iraqi military ... although he is coming to see that their
presence is no longer needed ... since the destruction of ISIS and the
end to Sunni jihadist activity in Iraq.
TURKEY 
Recep
Tayyip Erdogan
1954- .
Prime Minister of Turkey, 2003 to
the present. Chairman of the Justice and Development Party - advocating
for the restoration of the Islamic character of Turkey and focusing Turkey's
foreign policy less towards Europe and more towards an active role in Middle
East politics.
SYRIA
Bashar
al-Assad
1965- .
President of Syria, elected to replace
his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000 who died that year after governing Syria
and comanding the Baathist Party of Syria for nearly 30 years.
But Bashar came under challenge from street demonstrators during the "Arab
Sprin" of 2011.
President
Obama did his best to have Assad overthrown, issuing military support
to one of the several groups attempting to take control of the country
... which at the time was caught in a very bloody civil war (millions
of Syrians forced to flee the country). But with Russian and
Iranian support, Assad was able to hold onto power ... and bring the
country back under some degree of order. America lost big in the
deal ... Russia and Iran gaining important political positions at the
Eastern end of the Mediterranean because of their support of Assad!
JORDAN Abdullah II
19662- King of Jordan since 1999.
PALESTINE
Yassir
Arafat
1929-2004.
1st President of the Palestinian
National Authority, 1996-2004. Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization and the Fatah political party since its founding in 1959 -
until 2004.
 Mahmoud
Abbas
1935- .
Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization and the Fatah political party since 2004. President
of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005.
Ariel
Sharon
1928-2014.
Israeli Prime Minister, 2001 - 2006.
A member of the ultra- conservative Likkud Party, becoming its leader in
2000. He left Likud in 2005 to form a new Kadima party. But
in January 2006 he suffered a stroke which left him almost totally incapacitated.
 Ehud
Olmert
1945- .
Israeli Prime Minister, 2006 - 2009.
A member of Sharon's Kadima party.
 Benjamin
Netanyahu (2009-2021)
1949- .
Israeli Prime Minister, 19966-1999, 2009-2021 and since 2022. Chairman of the ultra-conservative Likkud Party.
SAUDI ARABIA 
Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia (Abdullah
bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud)
1924-2015.
King of Saudi Arabia, 2005-2015. Crown Prince and Regent from 1998 to 2005, succeeding his
brother Fahd to the throne in 2005.
 Salman of Saudi Arabia (Salman
bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud)
1935- .
King of Saudi Arabia, 2015 to the
present. Crown Prince from 2012 to 2015, succeeding his
half-brother Abdullah to the throne in 2015. He is the last of the seven sons of Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.
EGYPT Hosni
Mubarak
1928-2020.
President of Egypt, 1981 to 2011.
Overthrown by street demonstrators during the "Arab Spring" of 2011.
 Mohamed Morsi
1951-2019.
President of Egypt, 2012 to 2013.
 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
1954- .
President of Egypt, since 2014.
LIBYA  Muammar
Qaddafi
1942-2011.
President of Libya, 1969 to
2011.
Overthrown (executed on the spot) by a rebellion - the anti-Qaddafi
Bengazi rebels supported strongly by American airpower and French
military assistance - that began in the East of the country (a
spill-over of the "Arab Spring" in neighboring Egypt) and spread
westward
across the country during the summer and fall of 2011.
MOROCCO  Muhammad
VI (King of Morocco)
1963- .
King of Morocco since 1999. |
|
 Thabo
Mvuyelwa Mbeki
1942- .
President of
South Africa, 1999-2008. President of the ANC, 1997-2007.
 Jacob
Zuma
1942- .
President of
South Africa, 2009 to 2018. President of the ANC from 2007 to 2017.
 Cyril Ramaphosa
1952- .
President
of
South Africa since 2018. President of the ANC since 2017.
He has been behind the big push to seize White farmlands ...
without any compensation! Although he himself is a
multi-billionaire businessman, the South African economy has not done
well under his presidency. South Africa's participation in BRICS
has also been of little economic benefit to South Africa.
|
|
 Kofi
Annan
1938- .
Secretary-General
of the United Nations, 1997-2006. Ghanaian.
 Ban
Ki-moon
1944- .
Secretary-General
of the United Nations, 2007 to 2016. Korean.
 António Manuel de Olivera Guterres
1944- .
Secretary-General
of the United Nations since 2017. Portuguese. |
|
THE EARLY YEARS OF THE 21st CENTURY:
A FORMING HISTORY |
 Miles
H. Hodges
| | | | |
