If ever there was a transformational leader, it was Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

The only female prime minister of Great Britain died Monday after a stroke at age 87. In 12 years at 10 Downing St., Thatcher took a nation on the verge of collapse and international irrelevance and restored its place on the world stage.

Early on, she used a staredown with Argentina over the little-known Falkland Islands to re-establish the image of British military muscle. The Russian media nicknamed her the "Iron Lady," and it stuck.

Her belief in market-based solutions was anathema to Great Britain's leaders until she became prime minister in 1979. And like Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thatcher was a world leader who believed in herself.


She was a kindred spirit and close friend to President Ronald Reagan, a fondness the British press characterized as a schoolgirl crush. Many historians say it was Thatcher's early gut-level conclusion that the West could "do business with" Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that transformed U.S.-Soviet relations.

Lady Margaret Thatcher transformed our world. Few earn that simple epitaph.