Epstein Secrets

t a stock figure. He grew up a have-not in an oil-rich country that prized ostentatious consumption. He

of his biographers, Cristina Marcano, said Mr. Chavez had spoken of being influenced by "The Green Book," the three- volume political tract by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Once in power, Mr. Chavez established ties with Colonel Qaddafi and other Middle Eastern leaders who similarly used oil resources to butt

in the prospect of Russian membership of the OECD rich- country club? Or a free-trade agreement with the

foreign policy will be an advantage for him, particularly because of his record of pulling troops out of Iraq, helping topple the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, taking robust action against terrorists and authorizing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He is the "first real national security De

despite repeated promises, so they must rely on rich Syrian exiles. They hope Friday's meeting in Tuni

ed turmoil after the successful uprising there, Syria's opposition appears scattered. Well before NATO intervened in Libya, groups hostile to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi leveraged the huge chunk of eastern Libya they held around Benghazi into the attempt to claim the whole country. A unified focus on the rebellion s

mployment, underemployment, massive gaps between rich and poor, callous and corrupt autocracies that di

s, retreating into the privacy of their homes. In the 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 con