Epstein Secrets

p 2.0: Superpower Suicide? EFTA00718102 Patrick Porter May 2, 2014 -- Though Russian troops gather on Ukraine's border, and civil war devastates Aleppo, the view from Washington still sees the 'big story' of this century as the rise of China and the mischief it entails. The big question is about th

f appeasement and weakness, from President Richard EFTA00718105 Nixon's realignment with China, to Ronald Reagan's arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. Both Thucydides and Lippmann were pessimistic about democracy, believing that it needed elite guardians to steady the ship. But one need not rejec

5 Lucy Ashton of The Financial Times reported on a growing trend of radical Islam in Syria: Conservative Islam is a relatively recent phenomenon in Aleppo, known for centuries as a cosmopolitan trading city whose merchants "could sell a dead donkey skin to a king", according to a local proverb. Now, h

Abu Qurah in Jordan, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — to be reliable partners in the effort to undermine Communism and Arab nationalism. After the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the United States continued to foster alliances with Islamist groups to undermine governments that did not cooperate with the "Ne

the bigger fight against Assad, allowing his forces to gain the upper hand and make tactical gains in Homs, Damascus and even the rebel stronghold Aleppo. Emboldened, Assad and his henchmen, with the backing of Iran and Russia, have repeatedly reminded the opposition they will not go to Geneva to han

ms to be approaching an end," Jim Hoagland, the chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Post, wrote at the time. It was a common theme. When the Soviet Union unraveled a few years later, the largest of the 14 republics liberated from Russian dominion was Ukraine. While savoring their independence, many U

he intelligence EFTA00636706 report. The "most dangerous and barbaric" of these al-Qaeda fighters are about 250 Chechens, based in the suburbs of Aleppo and coordinated by an operative known as Abu Omar al-Chechani, the report says. Joining this core group of foreign fighters are about 2,000 young

n of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Obama's chief military adviser says, "The US military will be obliged to overtly confront China as it faced down the Soviet Union." By 2020, the Pentagon intends to station roughly 60 percent of its naval military forces in the Pacific, including six aircraft carriers and nume

lawite minority — begin. As a result, most Alawites are rallying to Assad, as are some Sunnis who have benefitted from his regime, particularly in Aleppo and Damascus, the capital. These pro-regime Alawites and Sunnis see the chaos and soccer riots in Egypt and say to themselves: "Assad or chaos? We'

erent policy or intervention. This is something they've been opposed to, and it was not a Cold War phenomenon. Ironically, interventionism was for the Soviet Union something they did in their part of the world [East Berlin, 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia, 1968] and they had no compunction at interventioni

to persuade Assad to allow more goods into beleaguered areas. Assad has recently offered Moscow to allow goods into some encircled areas including Aleppo but only if there is a ceasefire. The rebels have looked with justifiable suspicion at the government's behavior on this score. Even if Geneva pro

d States would have to prevent a second Holocaust. They worried for decades that American support for Israel would drive the Arabs into the arms of the Soviet Union. But their underlying concern—that a Jewish state, established against the opposition of its neighbors, would prove destabilizing and a threat to A

lected rebel EFTA00684590 fighters with surface-to-air missiles is a logical response to the persistent barrel-bomb attacks of Syrian cities like Aleppo and Homs. The Syrian Opposition, Explained There are believed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of groups fighting in Syria. These opposition grou

ill having made great strides toward nuclear capability. Such seemingly sober calculations miss the fact that the United States is not dealing with the Soviet Union but a beleaguered middling power that may still be coerced into more expansive concessions. In more than a decade of nuclear diplomacy, some analy

l Council. There was the senior diplomat who had grown weary of being a functionary of so sullied a regime. There was a businessman of means, from Aleppo, who was drawn into the opposition by the retrogression of his country. There was a young prayer leader, from Banyas, on the Syrian coast, who had

ran's regime gains legitimacy by demonising foreign powers. The cold war seems stable by comparison with a nuclear Middle East—and yet America and the Soviet Union were sometimes scarily close to Armageddon. No wonder some people want a pre-emptive strike. But military action is not the solution to a nuclear