Epstein Secrets

gime—a vital interest to the Tehran regime, as noted. Suleimani also appears to run the "Iraq" account for Tehran, coordinating with Prime Minister Maliki in support of extralegal killings of defenseless Iranian dissidents inside Iraq by a special unit of Iraqi forces attached to the Prime Minister's

ian military junta; the two men have spoken more than 25 EFTA00707193 times since the July couplike event that deposed the elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi. But Hagel has also been holding the hands of other Arab leaders of the (relatively speaking) moderate camp, who are uniformly worrie

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

ng-term interests. Having operated in the Iranian strategic orbit in the past, Hamas might now wish to embrace its old identity as a branch of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas's decision, if real, will take time to implement. Since its founding in 1987, the organization's bread-and-butter stance has been armed res

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

rter for The New York Times. I quickly heard terrifying stories about an uprising that had happened in 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 neighborho

. In Egypt, Washington has set a red line for the Muslim Brotherhood leadership: it must adhere to the peace treaty wi

ce President Tariq al-Hashimi's security detail. Hashimi fled to Turkey and is unlikely to return soon to Iraq, where he was sentenced to death after Maliki demanded his trial in absentia for murder and financing terrorism. The threat to Issawi, a moderate technocrat from Anbar, galvanized Iraqi Sunnis, w

g underground and is now suddenly legal: the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. "Liberal people are feeling some concerns that they made the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood can now take it. This is not true," Esam el-Erian, one of the party's leaders, insisted to me. But that is exactly what the urban, secular moderates,

t collapse soon, if not through street power, then perhaps through the shattering of the delicate balance in the upper echelons of Baghdad. Last week Maliki hinted that he may resign and call new elections, just five months after forming his second cabinet. Two months ago, large and angry demonstrations b

under 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 ensure

i national security or strategic interests are at stake, the kingdom will pursue its own agenda. With Iran working tirelessly to dominate the region, the Muslim Brotherhood rising in Egypt and unrest on nearly every border, there is simply too much at stake for the kingdom to rely on a security policy written in Washingt