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A picture of a screen taken from the television on February 22, 2011 shows Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gesturing while delivering a nationwide address in Tripoli. Gadhafi says he will stay in Libya as head of revolution as world powers mobilised to try to halt the bloody showdown between protesters and his security forces suspected of 'crimes against humanity' to keep him in power.

Moammar Gadhafi's refusal to step down has led to an unknown number of deaths and caused nearly 200,000 refugees to flee Libya. It's a bloody end to decades of dictatorship, and Gadhafi shows no signs of relenting. Is there any way for a dictator to leave power gracefully? We look to "two of the greatest losers of the last century" for clues. That's how Bill Keller describes F.W. De Klerk in South Africa and Mikhail Gorbachev in what was then the USSR. His profile of their departures will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.