Epstein Secrets

defense budget has doubled over the same period. Few would believe that these arms have been merely gathering dust in Syrian army warehouses. The Kremlin's Middle East policy is also looking self-defeating in the case of Iran. This might not be apparent on first glance. Moscow has been acting as a me

goes back to early twentieth-century Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's forceful campaign to westernize the country after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. But the campaign was less successful than it seemed. Though the cosmopolitan elites who ran Turkey after Ataturk were largely secular, out in the

defense budget has doubled over the same period. Few would believe that these arms have been merely gathering dust in Syrian army warehouses. The Kremlin's Middle East policy is also looking self-defeating in the case of Iran. This might not be apparent on first glance. Moscow has been acting as a me

oes back to early twentieth-century Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's forceful campaign to westernize the country after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. But the campaign was less successful than it seemed. Though the cosmopolitan elites who ran Turkey after Ataturk were largely secular, out in the

or does it want radical Islamists to take over the Arab state that hosts the last Russian naval base in the Mediterranean. Hence, Lavrov says, the Kremlin is not supportive of regime change in Damascus. But it may have no choice. Moscow considers the uprising in Syria to be, to some extent, the handiw

menians, for example, had lived side by side with Ottoman Muslims for some six centuries until the rise of modern nationalism. Similarly, no one in the Ottoman Empire ever suggested that Kurds were actually "mountain Turks" whose true identity should be restored via cultural assimilation. The Ottoman state had i