Epstein Secrets

gence of a Kurdish state is important. The first is that unlike other developments in the Middle East -- such as in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, which involve only two states or two non-state actors, such as the Arab-Israel conflict, the division of Iraq into Arab and Kurdish sect

, and Bahrain. Although Iranian-Saudi enmity dates back many decades, it became acute after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, began to spread his revolutionary brand of Shia Islam across the region. The impact was not immediately evident. Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980

entral Asia, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin, on April 13, publicly urged these states to make timely reforms lest they be swept away like Tunisia and Egypt. Russia is seeking stability because it will prevent these other states from drawing closer. To achieve this, Karasin has recommended the

e of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad should be understood in the context of Iran's internal rivalries. Since the death in 1989 of the revolution's father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — whose austere nature and anti-Americanism set the tenor for Iran's post-monarchic order — Tehran's political elite has been broadly divided into

six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore," the president said. The uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and Libya had affirmed "that we have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals. The status quo is

ood. And in Iran in 1979, individuals who were ardent secular nationalists donned Islamic garb and supported the Islamic Revolution and its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. For them, Islam became a more potent outlet for nationalist ambitions than the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had lost political legitimacy. Th

in the post-conflict phase, the wartime obstacles will prove to be the easy part. The situation in Libya is much more challenging than in Egypt and Tunisia, where the military broke with the strongman and showed him the door, averting full- scale war, and enabling the preservation of the state machinery

ran's opposition leaders are limited in their ambitions: they remain committed to the Islamic Revolution and the principles of its leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but they want to reform the establishment within that framework. "The Green opposition is not questioning the foundation of the system as happene