Epstein Secrets

ast will have a more profound effect on Europe than on the United States. Just as Europe moved eastward to encompass the former satellite states of the Soviet Union after 1989, Europe will now expand to the south. For decades North Africa was effectively cut off from the northern rim of the Mediterranean becau

he public space, there was now the cult of the rulers, the unbounded power of Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hafez al-Assad in Syria and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. The traditional restraints on power had been swept away, and no new social contract between ruler and ruled had emerged. Fear

od chance the other side will come out on top? Change happens Yet big, unexpected changes do happen. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of the Soviet Union. And getting on the wrong side of change carries its own substantial costs. Moreover, when change is inevitable, caution can prolong a crisis, whil

s. The government was authoritarian but also determinedly secular and pro- Western. The cracks, however, were larger than anyone thought: President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had carefully hidden the extent to which illness had weakened his control of the government; his ties with other centers of power, such as

ast will have a more profound effect on Europe than on the United States. Just as Europe moved eastward to encompass the former satellite states of the Soviet Union after 1989, Europe will now expand to the south. For decades North Africa was effectively cut off from the northern rim of the Mediterranean becau

he public space, there was now the cult of the rulers, the unbounded power of Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hafez al-Assad in Syria and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. The traditional restraints on power had been swept away, and no new social contract between ruler and ruled had emerged. Fear

Jews—were the shapers of history in the Middle East. We created reality; others watched, baffled, paralyzed, afraid. In 1989, Americans gloated as the Soviet Union, our former rival for Middle Eastern supremacy, retreated ignominiously from the region. When Saddam Hussein tried to challenge us from within, we

that in fact Hamdi had not struck him—and she was acquitted). But there was enough tension and discontent within the country—and in particular with Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali— that had it not been for the unfortunate Bouazizi, some other incident might well have caused the overthrow of the regime. Next, for a rev