Epstein Secrets

ou. We became pretty chummy with all these guys. Traveling with secretaries of state, we always went to Cairo first to consult with our good friend Hosni. Successive CIA station chiefs had very close personal relationships with the king of Jordan. There was little need to delve deeper, and it was a r

s Mubarak, Jordan's King Hussein, Tunisia's Ben Ali, Yemen's Ali Saleh, Morocco's King Hassan II, Saudi Arabia's kings Fand and Abdullah. The PLO's Yasir Arafat rounded out the group photo. America's arrangements with the acquiescents (and their sons, relatives, and successors) weren't pretty, but they wer

of Americas' authoritarians had a role to play and a dramatic persona to accompany it. There was the good King Hussein, the wily but indispensable Arafat, the enigmatic yet much-courted Assad, the cruel Saddam, the crazy (like a fox) Qaddafi, and the plodding but reliable Mubarak. The United States

, analytical chops, and capacity to write in English that would make him so indispensable to the only Palestinian who really counted in those days -- Yasir Arafat. Erekat was a unique figure -- neither a fighter (no nom de guerre for him), nor a PLO insider, nor an organization man from Tunis. Rather, he was a

ortunity? Saeb Erekat: Though I was not the chief negotiator at that moment, the connection between [then Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin and President Arafat made everyone around them, including myself, feel that peace was possible. There was significant progress in all tracks until Rabin's assassination b

much differently than did American and European policymakers. The Gulf monarchies were shocked that the United States "abandoned" Egyptian President Hosni HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029717 --- PAGE BREAK --- Mubarak in his time of need in early 2011. Their leaders expected the United States to push for Mubarak a

, analytical chops, and capacity to write in English that would make him so indispensable to the only Palestinian who really counted in those days -- Yasir Arafat. Erekat was a unique figure -- neither a fighter (no nom de guerre for him), nor a PLO insider, nor an organization man from Tunis. Rather, he was a

ortunity? Saeb Erekat: Though I was not the chief negotiator at that moment, the connection between [then Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin and President Arafat made everyone around them, including myself, feel that peace was possible. There was significant progress in all tracks until Rabin's assassination b

much differently than did American and European policymakers. The Gulf monarchies were shocked that the United States "abandoned" Egyptian President Hosni HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029804 --- PAGE BREAK --- Mubarak in his time of need in early 2011. Their leaders expected the United States to push for Mubarak a

n which case the world's irritation and futile Palestinian unilateralism will harden. Yitzhak Rabin did not stand on the White House lawn with Yasser Arafat for a photo-op. The Israeli warrior understood the necessity of a two-state peace. To get there at last, "It's essential that we become more sophisti

aris, or London. This is not an American administration overly outraged by the viciousness of dictatorships. Even in Egypt, Obama only turned against Hosni Mubarak when he was left with no other choice - although doing so against an old ally while sparing Assad suggests that Obama is like the coward who