Epstein Secrets

e minister and declaring that he "leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet." It didn't take long for those words to boomerang. No sooner had Mr. Maliki returned to Baghdad than he launched what looks like an attempted coup against the country's top Sunni leaders. Though the outcome is still in doub

n a Cold War against a U.S.-led alliance that includes several Western and Arab states. Iran has worked on building this axis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and in addition to Syria includes two strong non-state actors: Hamas and Hizbullah. Syria has been the bridge for Iran in the Arab EFTA_R

nder the auspices of the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council. In Iraq, the Saudi government will continue to pursue a hard-line stance against the Maliki government, which it regards as little more than an Iranian puppet. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia will act to check the growth of Hezbollah and to ensur

r. The opening to China is a story Kissinger has told before: how he and Nixon had discerned that country could become a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union; how he secretly flew to China after feigning illness in Pakistan; how he and Premier Zhou Enlai hammered out the diplomatic basis for EFTA_R1_020

mostly Sunni Muslim political coalition that is at odds with the Shiite prime minister, Nouri Maliki. Iran has sided with the Assad regime and the Maliki government, setting the stage for an Iran-Turkey influence contest, including the threat of proxy wars in the region. Turkey and Iran have a long

ct government involvement in the markets." Tantawi's skepticism of neoliberal economics has little to do with his loyalty to the socialist model of the Soviet Union, where he received his training as a young officer. Rather, he resents the potential of privatization to encroach on the military's vast economic

e been supporting opposing camps. Since Iraq's first democratic elections in 2005, Iran has supported the Shiite-backed Dawa party of Nun Kamal al- Maliki, while Turkey has backed the secular pan-Iraqi movement of Ayad Allawi. Following months of contention after the 2010 elections, Maliki formed a go

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

ld h=ve tried harder to extend the American presence. Moreover, they said=the president has not done enough to pressure Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al=Maliki to reconcile with the Sunni minority, and they said Mr. Obama's f=ilure to do more to help moderate rebels in next-door Syria has emboldened more r

helped unleash change. For decades, th= Middle East was locked in place by the Cold War and petro politics. The U=S. supported countries opposed to the Soviet Union and rich in oil—Persian Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Egypt s=arting in the mid-1970s—while the Soviets supported their friends— Syri=, Iraq, Libya at

sects. The Shiite Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially attended the summit. The Saudi King invited eight sects to the dialogue: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'I, Hanbali (i.e. the four Sunni schools) and the Shiite al-Jaafari, al-Zaidi, al-Abazi and al-Zahiri sects, which exist in the Gulf region,

itarian countries are bound to either democratize or run out of economic steam. Indeed, Acemoglu and Robinson predict that China will go the way of the Soviet Union: exhausting its current economic success before transforming into a politically inclusive state. This tale sounds good, but it is simplistic. Altho