Epstein Secrets

iled in a brutal four-year civil war. But while Washington's policymakers are focusing on Putin's actions in Eastern Europe, events in the eastern Mediterranean continue to unfold with their own momentum—and it's highly unlikely that the Kremlin, however preoccupied it is with managing the situation in Crim

Russian economy heavily based on its oil and gas resources. Sanctions against Iran also have EFTA00717211 prevented Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan from constructing export pipelines for their oil and gas through Iran to the Persian Gulf, allowing Russia to continue to exert a

t for the Syria-Iran axis. Russia is rebuilding its Soviet-era naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, which allows Moscow to reassert a plausible Mediterranean threat to NATO. Syria also provides Iran with a front line against Israel via Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that too can be a most effective anti-Weste

gion's resources that would bypass Russia. If Iran EFTA00660533 reverted to pro-Western alignment, the huge reserves of oil and gas landlocked in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and the like could flow directly out to the world without a veto from Moscow. According to an Oct. 16, 2008, Wall Street Journal r

02033696 EFTA02691523 10 Nevertheless, Washington has an important role to play in ensuring that the prospective economic bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean does not become a fresh reason for war. Washington should reemphasize to Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Turkey that developing offshore discoveries

limits. Indeed, these leaders are quite unwilling to countenance genuine reforms and their responses to the Arab revolutions have been dismissive. Kazakhstan's President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, initiated an instant election rather than a palpably stage-managed referendum to give him life tenure because th

his own people or launching them against his enemies in ne=ghbouring countries. His repeated utterings of "putting the region into fl=mes from the Mediterranean to the Caspian" if he is touched does not to ma=y ring as hollow as before. This could have possible detrimental consequen=es to Kazakhstan's oil an

m the Mediterranean to the Caspian" if he is touched does not to ma=y ring as hollow as before. This could have possible detrimental consequen=es to Kazakhstan's oil and gas interests in the Caspian. The opposition and the rebels are so diverse and split that a likely scenar=o for the post-Assad era with hi

om Russia and Iran, triggering the risk of a broader conflict. That is highly unlikely. Iran lacks the military muscle to make an impression in the Mediterranean, although it might attempt to persuade Lebanese Hezbollah to launch reprisal terrorist operations. Though an opportunist power, Russia pursues a p

razil, Argentina and Sweden, that went down the road toward nuclear weapons but stopped and went back. There are even a few — Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan — that inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union collapsed but soon gave them up voluntarily. And yet, in the Iranian case, we continue to be

s economic crisis The EU is challenged to its south by the collapse of the security cordon built laboriously over four decades along the southern Mediterranean and to its southeast by the collapse and sectarian civil wars of Syria and Iraq. Both of these are the sources of the radical Islamist terror and

rtugal Ireland United Kingdom Denmark Norway Sweden Switzerland Canada Australia New Zealand EEMEA Czech Republic Egypt Hungary Israel Kazakhstan Nigeria Poland Romania Russia Saudi Arabia South Africa Turkey Ukraine United Arab Emirates Asia (ex-Japan) China Hong Kong India Indon