Epstein Secrets

wakening, the current administration has taken successive positions on Egypt—all to little effect. And when the president of the United States says Assad "must go," but has no idea how to achieve this (and later does nothing when Assad crosses the chemical-weapons red line)—well, it does not inspire

s more valuable than the cash was the public show that Obama couldn't keep his allies in line and happy. Not Russia— EFTA00678196 Putin would back Bashar al-Assad till the very end which, given American impotence, virtually guaranteed Assad's survival. By the time Putin offered Obama a joint initiative to rid

nd the next day Saudi Arabia responded with a statement condemning Russia and stating, "[Vladimir] Putin has lost Arab hearts with his support for [Bashar al-]Assad." The fight spilled over into the Saudi Twittersphere the moment Russia moved into Crimea, with Saudi hashtags accusing Russia of moving

orably toward stability and prosperity. Will Russian aggression force the administration to spend more time and money reassuring skittish allies in Central and Eastern Europe going forward? Officials are already hinting, as did the Quadrennial Defense Review, that the rebalancing concept actually applies to more than how

In addition, various political figures and commentators have praised or come to the defense of despotic rulers including Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Bashar al-Assad. 6. Modem authoritarians can be expected to dou- ble down on their drive to neuter civil society as an incubator of reformist ideas and political

o defend embattled allies like Syria's 8ashar al-Assad. There is also growing replica- tion of what migh

Observatory delegation gave the referendum an enthusiastic thumbs-up.3 Moscow has paid considerable attention to evolving political developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Despite their relatively recent histories of Soviet subjugation and communist rule, a number of these countries have seen the rise of populist or

b Spring. Emboldened by the fall of the pro-American Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Tehran has subsequently watched with disquiet the isolation of Syria's Bashar al-Assad and the potential loss of llamas, not to mention the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Liberation Mythology Presumably, the Iranian regime can a

e. The harder they squeeze Syria, the more likely they are to anger the other non-Arab power with regional ambitions, Iran, which remains loyal to Assad. And Assad could retaliate by fomenting unrest within Turkey's borders. The result has been a diplomatic and public relations nightmare for Turkey

engineers, scientists and professionals were part of Russia. The Jewish world shown at the museum gave rise to a remarkable burst of energy across Central and Eastern Europe. This world has now disappeared. In 1939, when the number of Jews worldwide peaked at 16.7 million, fully one half lived in the broad swath runnin

ns like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Organization of American States, and to defend embattled allies like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. There is also growing replica- tion of what might be called authoritarian best practices, vividly on display in the new Chinese law on nongovernment

held them for two months before their release.”' Yet at the same time, the Kremlin was al- legedly fostering anti-fracking demonstrations in parts of Central and Eastern Europe.”? Russia organizes bogus election-monitoring missions that give a stamp of approval to polling in Crimea and other authoritar- ian settings, while e