Epstein Secrets

ther bureaucracies, and thus had no legitimacy. Marcus Aurelius was one thing; Tunisia's Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Syria's Bashar al- Assad, quite another. Certainly, the Arab Spring has proved much: that there is no otherness to Arab civilization, that Arabs yearn for univers

r supply have diminished. There are three reasons. First, the most substantial fallout from the Arab world's recent upheaval is behind us. Syria's Bashar al-Assad continues to fight for survival and Yemen continues to flirt with failed-state status, but the Gulf's major oil-producing states are quite stable.

cracies, and thus had no legitimacy. Marcus Aurelius was one thing; Tunisia's Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Syria's Bashar al- Assad, quite another. Certainly, the Arab Spring has proved much: that there is no otherness to Arab civilization, that Arabs yearn for universal values

: sons who had not risen through the military or other bureaucracies, and thus had no legitimacy. Marcus Aurelius was one thing; Tunisia's Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Syria's Bashar al- Assad, quite another. Certainly, the Arab Spring has proved much: that there is no otherness to Arab c

said to be American-supplied. This humiliating defeat shows the rise of the Islamist rebels, most of whom oppose political dialogue with President Bashar al-Assad's regime and call for the establishment of a Qur'anic-based state. It also demonstrates the near-collapse of the FSA, which the west had hoped would

s no military solution for Syria, although that may be self-evident, I do not believe that every player in this game believes that. Does President Assad believe that? President Assad believes that at the end of the day you need a political solution. But I believe that those who are pushing for a U.S

a fruit vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire , sparking a revolt that spread across the Arab world. Beginning with Tunisia's Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali, dictators fell from power, and it seemed that a democratic revolution might transform the region. Yet now, on the third anniversary of EFTA0070641

filiations, may be the region's closest analogy to Libya — without oil, said Paul Sullivan, a Georgetown political scientist. "The brutality of the Assad regime in Syria and the Saleh regime in Yemen is still being felt," he said. "But with the demise of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the light at the end of the

urselves," said Ahmed Ounaies, a former Tunisian ambassador who served briefly as minister of foreign affairs after the ouster of President Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali. 'We have to listen to our values, our aspirations, our present, against all the past that we have lived. It is a hard test, and success is not assu