Epstein Secrets

ch and to whom. The administration could change course and decide that living with Assad is better than the danger of a fragmented Syria overrun by Al Qaeda- backed jihadists. (Former CIA Director Michael Hayden endorsed that option last week, telling a Washington audience that it might be "the best ...

again dashing the hopes of pro-U.S. factions in the opposition. Meanwhile, other forces were competing for influence in the Syrian snake pit, too. Al Qaeda and its allies sponsored jihadist groups that imported aspiring terrorists from Iraq and other countries. Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Persian Gu

i al-Maliki's spokesman told the BBC were suspicions of "corruption." The Russian press has tried to lay blame for this on U.S. pressure exerted on Maliki during his visit to Washington last October, his first ever since winning the premiership in 2006. (He had had already traveled twice to Moscow in

cy project fail. So no matter the original reasons for the war, in the end, it came down to this: Were America and its Iraqi allies going to defeat Al Qaeda and its allies in the heart of the Arab world or were Al Qaeda and its allies going to defeat them? Thanks to the Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq,

e minister and declaring that he "leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet." It didn't take long for those words to boomerang. No sooner had Mr. Maliki returned to Baghdad than he launched what looks like an attempted coup against the country's top Sunni leaders. Though the outcome is still in doub

43 EFTA02708696 What so many Americ=ns, including their leaders in government, have long failed to understand =s that this was what bin Laden and AI-Qaeda wanted all along. The intent o= the bloody attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was to lure the U.S. and its allies into attacking=the

ld h=ve tried harder to extend the American presence. Moreover, they said=the president has not done enough to pressure Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al=Maliki to reconcile with the Sunni minority, and they said Mr. Obama's f=ilure to do more to help moderate rebels in next-door Syria has emboldened more r

yst cited by the Journal, remarked, "Iran's geopolitical policies have failed. We have lost Hamas, overstretched Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now have al Qaeda spilling from Syria to Iraq." Iran benefits most, so the doves appear to reason, when the Sunnis are not being driven into an alliance out of fear

ing place in the Iranian establishment over whether its regional policies—backing Shi'a and Shi'a-friendly forces like Hezbollah and the Assad and Maliki governments to the hilt in brutal civil wars-is working. According to The Wall Street Journal, Iranian doves are pointing to the recent regional ch

ears (and trillions of dollars) after the United States went to war in Afghanistan to dismantle the jihadi state within a state of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. This is not a terrific denouement to America's post-9/11 wars. The blame game is in full swing. Aficionados of the counterfactual are having a fie

the Sunnis will be even more isolated than before. President Obama's call for a multiethnic governing coalition aside, it is inconceivable that Mr. Maliki will now reverse his policy of excluding Sunnis from governance. In short, despite the rapid success of the Sunni campaign, it is a kamikaze attack

llujah on Jan. 25, after a month of anti-government protests in Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin provinces and elsewhere for which thousands turned out. Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are re-mobilizing. Iraq teeters on the brink of renewed insurgency and, potentially, civil war. This cris

ce President Tariq al-Hashimi’s security detail. Hashimi fled to Turkey and is unlikely to return soon to Iraq, where he was sentenced to death after Maliki demanded his trial in absentia for murder and financing terrorism. The threat to Issawi, a moderate technocrat from Anbar, galvanized Iraqi Sunnis,

llujah on Jan. 25, after a month of anti-government protests in Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin provinces and elsewhere for which thousands turned out. Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are re-mobilizing. Iraq teeters on the brink of renewed insurgency and, potentially, civil war. This crisi

ce President Tariq al-Hashimi's security detail. Hashimi fled to Turkey and is unlikely to return soon to Iraq, where he was sentenced to death after Maliki demanded his trial in absentia for murder and financing terrorism. The threat to Issawi, a moderate technocrat from Anbar, galvanized Iraqi Sunnis, w