Epstein Secrets

rine over the past six decades, Israelis can't be faulted for scratching their heads and wringing their hands. As designed by its founding father, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first grand strategy was based on the idea that the fledgling Jewish state could most effectively confront hostility from neighboring Ara

lity of radical Syrian Islamists with an anti-Western agenda rising to power would undermine U.S. interests in the Middle East. Two U.S. senators, John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), visited the Syrian-Turkish border during April 2012 and demanded that the United States take military action ag

comes could be expected if U.S. military action is taken against Assad. Obama would be wise to follow Israel's lead on Syria, and not the advice of McCain and Lieberman. Instead of heeding the advice of these two hawkish senators, the Obama administration should pursue a more realist foreign policy vi

local LynagQgue. He worked on a kibbutz as a dairy farmer and shepherd, and at the age of 24 he became a personal aide to Israel's founding leader, David Ben-Gurion. "Little did he know it at the time, but milking cows and herding sheep prepared him well for a long career in Israeli politics," Israeli Ambassado

ward Taft, Herbert Hoover and George H.W. Bush. Six others tried and lost: James Cox, Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Al Gore and John McCain. Interestingly, even the three successful ones had only one term as president. A caveat: Beware of any grand pronouncements about the presidency b

st resounding drubbing (in the popular vote) in history. Some of the candidates had an easier time distancing themselves from unpopular presidents. McCain was clearly a rival and opponent of George W. Bush. Stevenson was very different from Harry Truman, but he was, in effect, asking for not a third t

iably described their country as the only democracy in the Middle East. Although Israel as imagined by Theodor Herzl and built by the generation of David Ben-Gurion was never intended to be a replica of the Anglo-American model—its political culture, even now, is closer to that of the European social democracie

rescription for unending U.S. involvement in warfare in the Middle East. "There's only one thing worse than military action against Iran," Senator John McCain has said, "and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." But any careful look at the balance sheet on this issue yields the opposite conclusion. Military acti

than military action against Iran," Senator John McCain has said, "and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." But