Epstein Secrets

has now returned to the administration, this time as the assistant secretary of defense. His new appointment makes him the Pentagon's point man for East Asia and the Pacific at a time whe 38. Jane Harman served nine terms as a congresswoman from California, stepping down in 2011 to lead the Wilson Cen

of the Islamic one. Cairo wishes to regain its political weight in the region, from North Africa to the border with Iraq, without being a number in Ankara's or Tehran's credit. In addition, President Mohamed Morsi does not need lessons from the Islamic Republic, as he belongs to a movement which was

are too many other powerful nations involved in the Middle East for France to play a primary role there. Even less can France play a major role in East Asia, despite the fact that it had been a major colonial power there. The one place where France can reassume a major role is Africa, because for the mo

re to become an energy hub for transporting non-Russian gas to Europe. Cyprus and Russia formed close defense ties in the 1990s, and Moscow rejects Ankara's claim to North Cyprus in the conflict over the island. Ankara and Nicosia have yet to delineate a maritime boundary, so Turkish attempts to explo

from them. In the ultimate irony, for all the apprehension it has unleashed elsewhere, the pivot has not produced an equal degree of reassurance in East Asia. There the promise and rhetoric of the pivot has been measured against tangible realities, like defense cuts that leave the U.S. Air Force scrappin

li nuclear weapon. As for the Sunni-Shiite arms race, the critical reaction to an international agreement would be not in Washington but in Cairo, Ankara and Riyadh. Even if the Western powers express confidence in Iran's commitment and pledge a vigorous economic and military response to any Iranian

is the Middle East these days? What would be the most deft, sophisticated and effective way for us to respond to China's growing assertiveness in East Asia? What kinds of creative new alliances, entered into honestly and maintained in good faith, could bolster America's aim of remaining the world's pr

port of the Gulenists. Erdogan will get lower numbers, but beyond that it is hard to predict, particularly the all-important cities of Istanbul and Ankara, the bastions of his power. The wild card is the declining economy. Deepening political instability, high-reaching corruption, Erdogan's incessant

watching to determine whether America will, as Webb puts it, "live up to its uncomfortable but necessary role as the true guarantor of stability in East Asia, or whether the region will again be dominated by belligerence and intimidation." China today represents the most fundamental geopolitical challeng

ility into its calculations from the start, then, the feeling is, it did little to show it was taking the matter seriously. The appearance is of an Ankara that was so fixed on Bashar al-Assad's departure that other matters were never considered properly. The sad fact in all this that Turkey is nowher

Security and its Strategic Foresight Initiative. He previously served in the US State Department as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific (1989- 1993), on the Secretary's Policy Planning staff (2004-2008) and on the National Intelligence Council Strategic Futures Group

ing Afghanistan and Iraq and for killing and wounding over a million people." Conversations with senior Turkish political operatives familiar with Ankara's political culture and negotiating style suggest a three-part explanation: frustration with the long EU accession process, bluffing, and the need