Producer Nancy Updike shares a pattern that she's noticed recently: eleven steps that Middle Eastern dictators have been taking on the path to losing power.

The story of a clandestine radio station the CIA set up back in the good old, bad old days of the 1950s, to overthrow Guatemala. The coup succeeded because of the immense power of radio.

In Tehran in 2004, Omid Memarian confessed to doing things he'd never done, meeting people he'd never met, following plots he'd never heard of. Why he did that, and why a lot of other people have confessed to the same things, is all in the fine print. This American Life producer Nancy Updike tells the story.

In Iraq, everyone from the militant group known as ISIS to the government security forces and shiite militias have been putting on such a deliberate show. Each faction has its own videos, parades, flags, propaganda and counter-propaganda.

The newspaper Military Times did a survey of 2000 active duty servicemen and women, asking them about the new president. Presented with the statement, "As president, Barack Obama will have my best interests at heart," 36 percent agreed...43 percent disagreed.

This American Life producer Nancy Updike tells the story of Conrad Crane, the head of the U.S. Army Military History Institute.