Epstein Secrets

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

watched with dismay the fate of his fellow Arab dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, who yielded too quickly to protests; and the violent end of Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, who fought until the bitter end -- has he resolved to follow neither path? To understand Assad's political behavior from a psychological

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

nforcement of a no-fly zone. It was interpreted by NATO as justification to use force against the Libyan government leading to the assassination of Muammar al-Qaddafi. Do you think that's what is motivating the Russians to prevent the Arab League efforts to get a resolution on Syria? Yes. The no-fly zone questio

insula and before it slipped out of the hands of the Arabs into those of the Persians and the Turks. Yet decades earlier, Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez -- a man of supreme cunning and political skill -- had ridden the military and the Baath Party to absolute power, creating a regime in which power

ge him. Then, the revolt doubled back to Libya. This was the kingdom of silence, the realm of the deranged, self-proclaimed "dean of Arab rulers," Muammar al-Qaddafi. For four tormenting decades, Libyans had been at the mercy of this prison warden, part tyrant, part buffoon. Qaddafi had eviscerated his country,

ck 2. The Daily Beast Syria: The Lost Bequest of Hafez Assad Fouad Ajami January 23, 2012 -- Bashar, son of Hafez Assad, has a son by the name of Hafez. But as the defiance and bloodletting in £yria would seem to suggest, Bashar needn't worry about training his son for future rulership. The house t

eign policy lacks a guiding set of principles. Why surge troops into Afghanistan only to draw them down before the mission is complete? Why condemn Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya for his crimes against his own people and remain almost indifferent to the same crimes EFTA00660824 when committed by Bashar al-Assad in