ride the tiger

Definitions

1. 1

   To maintain control over something aggressive and dangerous.

   • The Germans had ridden the tiger of Islamic rage and resentment a long way – across the Red Sea into Eritrea and Somalia, into the inner sanctum of the Arabian desert, then winding through Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan […]
   • He has ridden the tiger with some skill. But the tiger is growing up slowly and Cambodia will find it more and more difficult to follow Communist policies abroad while keeping Communism down at home.
   • You can’t ride the tiger. That’s the lesson here: once populism has grasped the levers of power, even the richest man in the world cannot be sure of exploiting it for his own ends, or imposing his own agenda on the chaos.

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