Epstein Secrets

ticularly if he was seen to be working for you. 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

th Mubarak. But his candidacy also carried with it the societal assumption that he would be backed by the quiet but very real support of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Also, some Egyptians may have voted for Suleiman because of his obsessive opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing him as a necessary

ade tentative steps in that direction: Members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, accompanied by the deputy interior minister and

ing ground for Islamist extremism and violence that -- barring a dramatic improvement in relations between the Bedouins and the central government in Cairo -- threatens Egypt and the region at large. Sinai's lawlessness recently sparked an international incident: On Aug. 18, gunmen carried out a string o

further Turkish initiatives. Turkey's loss, however, may turn out to be Egypt's gain. Freed from the stagnant rule of former President Hosni Mubarak, Cairo is now expected to play a more active role in Arab affairs. Instead of continuing Mubarak's policy, conducted in complicity with Israel, of punishing

As a consequence, Egypt's transition process will likely rush forward. What are the next steps? The basic sequence of events is clear, but the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has not revealed many of the details. Nor has it shared decision-making power over the sequence and rules in any serious way. The amended arti

United States for the perpetuation of his reign. The High Council of the Armed Forces currently rules Egypt, and the military shows no

applied to the Middle East for so long that nothing, it seems - no amount of extraordinary change - can silence them. After the successful revolts in Cairo and Tunis, the slanders abated. Soon, however, the old messages depicting the Middle East as extreme, fundamentalist, and hostile to democracy began