Epstein Secrets

y. Saudi Arabia these days is all too reminiscent of the dying decade of the Soviet Union, during which one decrepit leader succeeded another, from Leonid Brezhnev to Yuri Andropov to Konstantin Chernenko, before a younger and more open-minded Mikhail Gorbachev arrived too late to save a stagnant society and e

ior Saud royals. But what may seem safe to them is dangerous for the country. Saudi Arabia these days is all too reminiscent of the dying decade of the Soviet Union, during which one decrepit leader succeeded another, from Leonid Brezhnev to Yuri Andropov to Konstantin Chernenko, before a younger and more open-

Russian nationalists that Russia is ruled by the Jews. There used to be murky circles in the Soviet Union of my childhood in which it was held that Leonid Brezhnev and his Politburo were Jews. Today's nationalists, monarchists and other "real Russians" like to point out that Putin's entourage includes people

ct government involvement in the markets." Tantawi's skepticism of neoliberal economics has little to do with his loyalty to the socialist model of the Soviet Union, where he received his training as a young officer. Rather, he resents the potential of privatization to encroach on the military's vast economic

ns in 1947, 1949 and 1954 that all broke down according to tribal, regional and sectarian interests. Hafez finally ended the chaos by becoming the Leonid Brezhnev of the Arab world: He staved off the future by institutionalizing fear, even as he did nothing to nurture a civil society out of the country's inhe

w short years, even as Saddam had directly killed perhaps four times that many over the previous third of a century. Then there are the examples of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. When the Soviet state collapsed, it led to a rash of ethnic and regional wars across the Caucasus and Central Asia -- tens of thous