Epstein Secrets

f of Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate, Salah Nasr, was convinced that the American Embassy in Cairo was behind the jokes going around about Nasser, by then the president. The directorate assigned dozens of offices throughout Egypt to collect the jokes and study their meaning. These were writte

olutions against Iran for its nuclear program and signed the interim agreement last November. However, Obama also angered Russia by deceiving it in United Nations negotiations over intervention in Libya. (The U.S. claimed its purpose was limited to humanitarian intervention.) And Russia, for its part, backed

A. Cook is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square. He blogs at From the Potomac to the Euphrates. Asharq Al-Awsat Gaza tunnel trade: Matter of life and death for Hamas Kifah Zabo

creasingly clear, is a paramilitary covert action, supported by the United States and most of its allies, to help the Syrian rebels accomplish what the United Nations could not. Annan's new memoir, "Interventions," is a study in the failure of a noble idea. And it should cause readers to reflect why, in so many c

monarchy and proclaims the Republic of Egypt. 23 June 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected President of the Republic of Egypt. 26 July 1956 President Nasser of Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal. 29 October 1956 Suez Crisis. Israel invades Sinai (Operation Kadesh) with the covert assent of France and the

ted Nations, and not Israel alone, could delineate on a map and demarcate on the ground the line of withdrawal. Such a line had to be, to the best of the United Nations’ knowledge, in conformity with Lebanon’s international boundar- ies. On this basis, and with the consent of the parties, the UN Secretary-General coul

the Security Council and eventually recommend that it should confirm that Israel had ended its occupation. This understanding led to an agreement for the United Nations to negotiate with the Governments of Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Through intense, difficult, and stormy tripartite negotiations over five months, the

s in Benghazi. Libya had few significant air defense systems and no friends; it was relatively easy to construct a coalition of the (semi-)willing in the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League to oppose the man President Ronald Reagan once dubbed the "mad dog of the Middle East"' -- a tin pot and often bizarre dict

s. The first three military coups that followed Syrian independence were engineered by Sunni officers. This was followed by the disastrous union with Nasser's Egypt in 1958 when Baath party leaders, following their pan-Arabist nationalist logic, merged their country's identity into that of their more powe