But even with the death of Libyan dictator and Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia, there are still autocrats around the world are hostile to the United States, in particular, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran.
America the most determined enemies were bucking a sole surviving only in a world superpower, which spends on its military as all other countries combined. All are facing social and technological trends that have made their work more difficult by opening more borders for trade and travel, to promote ethnic and religious tolerance and connection to the world of high speed Internet.
But while the U.S. maintains its leadership role in world affairs, it would be a tempting target. Among the despots and authoritarian regimes hostile to U.S
• Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who survived CIA plots assassination, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the U.S. economic embargo, to graze and to oppose the U.S. for more than half a century. Castro, 85, officially stepped down as president in February 2008 because of illness, but handed over the reins to his brother Raul, and the revolutionary regime survives. Cuban-US trade is minimal and there are no diplomatic relations between the two countries. The U.S. accuses the Cuban government violates human rights and to silence dissent, and Havana portrays a victim of bullying the United States.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a left activist and former military officer who came to power in 1999 and instituted sweeping changes in the economic and social policies, including the expansion of state control over the oil industry. Chavez has accused Washington of plotting to invade Venezuela, called for the containment of the United States, rose in Cuba and has signed major deals with weapons by Russia, Venezuela to build a regional power. U.S. likes to portray Venezuela as more annoying than the opponent, but this could change if Chavez takes on a more aggressive policy.
• Kim Jong Il in North Korea, Stanlinist style nation with 1 million-strong army, which was a thorn in the side of the United States after the Korean War. In recent years, the U.S. tried to persuade Kim to give up its small nuclear weapons program by offering economic aid and diplomatic acts as a trump card. But the U.S. accuses Kim repeatedly refuse disarmament promises while selling weapons abroad experience. The U.S. and other countries accuse Pyongyang last year of failure of South Korean navy ship and fire the South Korean island.On the North Korean leader believed to seriously ill, the key to Washington's future relations with North Korea may be the son of Kim Jong Il and heir, Kim Jong Un.
• Iran hierarchy. Theocratic regime in Tehran has shown little tolerance for dissent and a deep and abiding hostility toward Washington after the overthrow of the US-backed regime of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Sides of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against U.S. and Israeli regular meetings of the UN General Assembly, but it is only one voice among many in the Iranian government, which Western analysts say consists of a mosaic of anti-Western groups. The current conflict with Washington grows out of concerns about Iran's support for terrorist groups in the Middle East and attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but mainly focuses on Tehran's nuclear ambitions. U.S. says Iran is laying the groundwork for a nuclear weapons program that could threaten the Middle East, the U.S. and Europe. Iran says it is interested only in peaceful nuclear technology.
• Not all dictators are considered enemies of the United States during the Cold War and beyond, many of them were regarded as stalwart allies. Today, the number of dictators tolerates criticism from the U.S., but as posing little threat to Washington's strategic interests, including President Alexander Lukashenko, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.
From the U.S. perspective, the survival of openly hostile dictatorial regimes may be less important than the growth of rival political and economic powerhouses like China, India, Brazil and Russia, a trend that some experts say could one day create a world in which the United States America is becoming a major power among many competing for influence and markets.
Decline and fall of Gaddafi, Saddam and others, does not mean age of hostile dictatorship to an end. As well as enemies can become allies, the allies could become rivals.
U.S. considered Saddam check on the power of the clerical regime in Iran until his invasion of Kuwait led to the deadly US-led war in 1991. In 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam became ace of spades in the deck of the U.S. military maps of its most wanted list. Eventually he was caught by American troops in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit and running the new Iraqi government in 2006.
Today the U.S. faces the challenge of helping to prevent the developing countries from slipping into authoritarianism. Although the Taliban leader Mullah Omar was driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001, it made an impressive return of movement and can once again become a major force in Afghanistan, in politics, as the U.S. leaves.
Gaddafi's death Thursday is just the beginning of the critical new phase in the history of Libya, said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The leaders of the Libyan uprising inherit divide the population and destroyed the economy and barely functioning state - all the decades of erratic rule paralyzed Gaddafi.
"He left Libya with a unique set of challenges," said Cordesman. "You would have to go back to Nero or Caligula to find someone who could impose his personal eccentricities of the state to the extent that Gaddafi has done."
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