Ghosts of Totalitarian Regimes Past

Oh, I almost forgot to post this cartoon I had in The Daily Universe on Thursday:


I was worried that this cartoon was a little confusing, because it sort of implements and combines a bunch of random ideas. I'll explain my thought process:

1) With all the uprisings in the Middle East, from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya and beyond, I imagined all the revolutions with a dam breaking. The dam would also be a map of the Middle East/North Africa. (At first I was going to draw the borders like cracks in a concrete wall, but I decided to just make it a map. That was easier.)
2) Now, who would try to hold back the dam? Some Middle East leader.
3) I wanted to think of how to draw some generic Middle East dictator, but what would he look like exactly? Then I thought I could draw Saddam Hussein to represent Middle East bad guys in general.
4) Well, since Saddam is dead, I came up with the idea of "Ghost of _____ Past," and to draw Saddam as a ghost.

So, I've got maps and dams and ghosts and Saddam Hussein all put together in a cartoon. What do you think? Was it a stretch? Or does it make sense?

Well, doesn't matter, because it ran in the paper on Thursday whether or not it's comprehensible, haha.