Epstein Secrets

e Iranian nuclear program does not make one a warmongering neoconservative, and actually extends even to Christians. Yesterday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israeli

ct. Emblematic of his brutal rule was the crushing of the uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, in which tens of thousands of Syrians were killed. Hafez had originally designated his eldest and favorite son, Bassel, as his successor, and Bassel, the chief of presidential security, was perfect for th

understand him in the context EFTA_R1_01992731 EFTA02681516 33 of the Assad family's dominance of the Syrian political scene. Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled Syria with an iron fist for three decades, including enforcing draconian emergency laws in 1963 that helped him eliminate political opponent

as publicly stated that if Iran decided to do it, it could have the bomb within a year and the means to deliver it a year or two later. And perhaps Panetta is wrong — perhaps there is less time than he thinks. Or, as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak put it earlier this month, those who advise Israel

s to put down the rebellion there against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is the remake of a really bad movie that starred Bashar's father, Hafez, exactly 30 years ago this month. I know. I saw the original. It was April 1982 and I had just arrived in Beirut as a reporter for The New York Ti

February in the Syrian town of Hama, led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Word had it (there were no Internet or cellphones) that then-President Hafez al-Assad had quashed the rebellion by shelling whole Hama neighborhoods, then dynamiting buildings, some with residents still inside. That May, I got a visa

President Obama said "I don't think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do." That didn't square with the view of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who's been reported as saying he expects an Israeli attack this spring. Nor does it square with public warnings from Israeli Defense EFTA00687006

ly wrong: Assad's is an oppressive, minority-Alawi regime. It came to power via a 1970 coup. In 1982, the current dictator's father, then president Hafez al- Assad, brought artillery and killed over twenty thousand Islamist rebels in the town of Hama. The son is less efficient and likely to lose powe

hat killed bin Laden, and U.S. officials boast of eliminating two more of Al Qaeda's top operatives in Pakistan in recent months. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has called drones "the only game in town," and President Obama recently dismissed concerns about civilian casualties, insisting that he is not orde

s Alawites and Sunnis under one banner. Although Sunnis initially tolerated the growing clout of the Alawite community, resentment resurfaced when Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite and the father of the current president, seized power in 1970. When he proposed a new constitution three years later that mandated a se

g India, U.S. President Barack Obama said, "India is not just a rising power; India has already risen." And just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called India a "linchpin" in the U.S. "pivot" to Asia, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the U.S.-India tie as a "critical bilater

the new Syrian state held free and fair elections 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 noth

ast 34 soldiers killed. Yesterday, the FSA attacked the headquarters of the Air Force Intelligence Agency at Harasta near the capital Damascus. Since Hafez al-Assad, an air-force officer and Bashar's father, seized power in a coup in 1970, the AIA has been the nerve center of the regime's security system. Also th

piece of his reelection strategy. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031955 --- PAGE BREAK --- 16 Advisors: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon. On the issues: Afghanistan/Pakistan: "We have put al Qaeda on a path to defeat," Obama announced last June