21.   The eerie scene is just one of the many signs of the iron grip the lengthening drought has on this part of South Texas.

22.   The International Monetary Fund thought its program to save Indonesia would be carried out because President Suharto understood his own interests and had an iron grip on his country.

23.   The iron grips of wary diners had pulled it loose.

24.   The party still has an iron grip on the national levers of political power.

25.   They have an iron grip on statewide offices.

26.   Asia has followed the trend, too, as China and Vietnam loosened their iron grips on society after seeing that communism failed their people.

27.   But he has lived almost his entire life in Syria, where his father ruled with an iron grip and showed zero tolerance for dissent.

28.   But this year, betting on maintaining his iron grip on power, he changed the constitution to allow for direct elections and called an early ballot.

29.   Ecevit has failed to encourage potential successors in his Democratic Left Party, over which he and his wife Rahsan exert an iron grip.

30.   He has since ruled Syria with an iron grip.