Epstein Secrets

erations, waves of democracy had swept over other regions, from southern and EFTA_R1_00234067 EFTA01845121 eastern Europe to Latin America, from East Asia to Africa. But not the Middle East. There, tyrants had closed up the political world, become owners of their countries in all but name. It was a b

ian feud. Yemen, meanwhile, was the poorest of the Arab states, with secessionist movements raging in its north and south and a polarizing leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had no skills save the art of political survival. The feuds of Yemen were obscure, the quarrels of tribes and warlords. The wider Arab tumult

's leaders more than to see the United States dithering about whether Arab democracy is in American interests. The ripple effects are felt even in East Asia, where a former U.S. ambassador says he's heard that the North Koreans are telling the Chinese "if this is the best the Americans can do in Libya,

ny question that Assad is watching Gaddafi's brutal tactics for precedents that will serve the Syrian's own savage regime. The same holds true for Ali Abdullah Saleh, holding out against his people and against the odds in Yemen, whose lawless territory harbors some of the most dangerous members of al Qaeda. The

rotesters were suddenly rallying thousands, and then tens of thousands, of their fellow citizens to demand the ouster of the regime, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family for 43 years. Meanwhile, across a narrow expanse of water on Saudi Arabia's northeast border, protesters in Bahrain rallied in the hun

ton got a number of things wrong. The authoritarian transition was not a universally applicable formula for development. It worked reasonably well in East Asia, where there were a number of figures like Lee Kwan Yew, Park Chung-hee or the Chinese Communist Party leadership, who used their autocratic powers t