The global crisis of leadership

President Abraham Lincoln, who fought to preserve the Union against the Confederacy (at the cost of nearly one million American lives), put America on the path to a greatness unmatched by any other in the history of nations.

"I am not bound to win," Lincoln is attributed to have said, "but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have."

Nelson Mandela bravely chose truth and reconciliation instead of senseless revenge and retribution. His example demonstrates that it is possible to reconcile between the oppressed and the oppressor.

As David Foster Wallace said, real leaders are people who "help us overcome the limitations of our own individual selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own."

But look at our sorry array of leaders today, among so many others worldwide, who deserve nothing but scorn and shame:

Russian President Putin, whose hunger for ever more power is surpassed only by his corrupt and insatiable greed, when the Russian economy is in tatters and the people suffer from his dictatorial outbursts and imperialist dreams.

He could have made Russia an integral part of the European community, and together lifted the continent to new heights that neither could achieve on their own.

President Erdogan of Turkey, whose religious zealotry and blatant compromises of human rights are depriving the people of their freedom and destroying his country piece by piece.

Instead, he sadly forfeited a momentous opportunity to create a successful model of an Islamic democracy that would have had an enormous impact on the Arab world, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who made demagoguery a form of art and whose ideological zeal robs the Israelis and Palestinians alike of peace which they cherish and need.

He fails to grasp that an Israeli-Palestinian peace could usher in a renaissance to the region accompanied by a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, and literally change the course of history.

President Bush, who waged a reckless war in Iraq-a war of choice that turned the region into an inferno and set a vicious sectarian war in motion with no end in sight.