Maybe Iranian President Hassan Rouhani knew that shaking hands with President Obama can be the kiss of death.
Rouhani may have been thinking about his life expectancy when he refused to meet with Obama on Tuesday, knowing that several other world leaders who opted to shake hands with Obama over the years have suffered decidedly less than happy endings.
Two years after Obama shook hands with Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy at the G-8 summit in Italy in 2009, Khadafy was dead, tortured and killed by foes after a 42-year reign of terror.
In May 2011, Obama shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad — and just this past March, the communist leader died of cancer.
Egyptian despot Hosni Mubarak shared a handshake with the Leader of the Free World at the White House in September 2010.
The ailing 85-year-old former president is now under house arrest in a military hospital outside Cairo.
Another leader on a different scale, who Obama has greeted with a hearty handshake several times, isn’t doing so great, either.
Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who Obama has been photographed greeting, was found guilty this past June of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, then using his office to cover it up.