Epstein Secrets

dministrations, Gates gets credit for stabilizing Iraq, though the key decisions that led to success--a surge of troops and the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus to oversee the strategy--predated his arrival. Petraeus says Gates knew that his real contribution was to buy time in Washington for the strategy t

iddle East these dictators remain the exception to the rule, and this is why quasi monarchies of the iron-fisted Assad or the crazed and tyrannical Qaddafi are now under assault. THE PLACE where benevolent autocracy has struck deep and has systematic roots is Asia. Any discussion of whether and how de

required to hold the state together. To be sure, Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali neither ran police states on the terrifying scale of Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad nor stifled economic progress with such alacrity. But while Mubarak and Ben Ali left their countries in conditions suitable for t

ange. "We all are on the same side here, trying to make the country safe." At the center of the debate was Obama's newly appointed CIA chief, Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus sided with the White House, recognizing the need to strike a balance between maintaining a strong relationship with Pakistan and aggressi

rones, the way you went after terrorists was you sent your troops," says Goure. "You sent your Navy, you sent your Marines, like Reagan going after Qaddafi in the Eighties. You bombed their camp. Now you have drones that can be operated by the military or the CIA from thousands of miles away." The low

o neutralize. It reinforces mounting criticism that Obama is "abandoning" Afghanistan, a false and nasty charge. One lion has yet to roar: General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and soon-to-be CIA director. Everyone knows his position likens to Gates'. But just maybe, Obama

Erdogan was one of the first world leaders to call on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down, yet one of the last to ask the same of Libya's Qaddafi. In Syria, meanwhile, the Turkish government remains unable to let go of Bashar al-Assad: It has condemned the violence but not the perpetrator. T