His job is probably the least envied. As president of a restive Iraq, Jalal Talabani is at once of the world's most crucial, and most inexplicable, leaders. And in its superb profile of the man known as Mam Jalal (the Kurdish term for uncle), The Guardian tries to understand the mind of the man who has 'kissed the cheeks of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran'.

Jon Lee Anderson, who has written the profile over months of meetings with Talabani, including sitting with him as the late President Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, describes him as ' (having) the fat cheeks, brush moustache and large belly of a storybook pastry chef...renowned for his political cunning, his prodigious love of food and cigars, his sense of humour, his unflagging optimism, and his inability to keep a secret'.

Involved in politics since he was 13, Talabani is fantastically wealthy and has made what could have been a mere figurehead post into a powerful one with his 'experience, contacts, and savvy'.

Early in his career, as an important leader of the Kurds, Talabani even made a deal with Saddam, who was then the deputy president, to obtain more rights for his people, and considered the US 'the enemy of the Iraqi Kurdish people'.

The profile charts Talabani's rise to power, speaking to aides and friends of the man who was a Marxist, a Maoist and closely allied with the Arab nationalist movements.

And it answers a question often raised recently - where was Talabani at the time of Saddam Hussein's 'clumsy and brutish' execution?

His media advisor tells Anderson - "Remember what he did in Paris when the death sentence was announced, and he went into his bedroom for an hour or so? This time, it lasted three or four days. No one saw him."

Also read: The rise and fall of Saddam Hussein

Photograph: Spencer Platt/ Getty Images