Epstein Secrets

ions of = military strike are not widely discussed. This ominously echoes the run up to the war in Iraq.ap> When Washington was preparing t= invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, little consideration was given to what ca=e next. Ten years later, the mistakes are evident. Iraq did not pose the immediate security threat t

Iraq.ap> When Washington was preparing t= invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, little consideration was given to

> When Washington was preparing t= invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, little consideration was given to what ca

th of Iran's involvement in the fig=ting. It is entirely conceivable, in other words, that a post-Assad regime in Syria would be explicitly pro=96a1 Qaeda or even more openly pro-Iran. Either result would be unacceptab=e to Israel. Of course, an extended civil wa= in Syria does not serve Israel's inte

q War. Then, the primary concern was that Saddam Hussein's regime would use weapons against another count

ia if the opportunity arose. This threat is not analogous to concerns expressed in the run-up to the Iraq War. Then, the primary concern was that Saddam Hussein's regime would use weapons against another country or deliberately transfer them to a terrorist group. Further, it was suspected that Iraq might hav

the Iraq War. Then, the primary concern was that Saddam Hussein's regime would use weapons against anoth

out of Syria. Particular attention should be paid to preventing them from being transferred to Hezbollah and Iran or falling into the hands of al- Qaeda. Washington should also develop contingency plans with these countries and the Syrian opposition to prepare a disaster response plan for the possib

in northern Iraq, and Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein's clan, and they have laid siege to Samarra, the

in northern and western Iraq, the insurgents control much EFTA00706969 of Mosul, the most important city in northern Iraq, and Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein's clan, and they have laid siege to Samarra, the site of one of Shiism's most storied shrines. It would be no surprise if the next few weeks brought t

ica's nominal ally, Saudi Arabia. As a result, a Sunni-Shiite regional conflict has been escalating over the past decade. There was no Al Qaeda in Saddam's Iraq. The United States birthed it through the invasion. It then beat Al Qaeda down, before allowing its affiliates to regroup by leaving and doi

t against an independent Kurdish state within the next decade. Syria and Iraq are in a state of implosion; Middle Eastern borders are up for grabs. Qaeda affiliates have already done their grabbing. They control wide swathes of Syria and Iraq 13 years (and trillions of dollars) after the United States

, as Muhammad Sahimi wrote in Tehran Bureau, the reason that the Qods Force was established in the 1980s: to train Iraq's Kurds (and Shia) against Saddam. Interestingly, noted the same author, Soleimani and his generation of fellow IRGC commanders never got over the fact that the West (and indeed the

actor with an agenda independent of the mainstream Syrian opposition, given the growing reports of the emergence on the battlefield of various al- Qaeda affiliated jihadist groups. Syria's borders with Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq have become increasingly porous — Sunni insurgents and jihadists once en