Epstein Secrets

region, made clear that there were limits to what the United States would do to nurture democracy, whether there, or in Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia or Yemen. The president's goal, said Ms. Rice, who discussed the review for the first time in an interview last week, is to avoid having events in the Middl

ention, when necessary. She was among those who persuaded Mr. Obama to back a NATO air campaign in Libya to avert a slaughter of the rebels by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But Mr. Obama drove the process, officials said, asking for formal briefings in the Situation Room and shorter updates during his daily intellige

and tires ablaze, and fired at locals indiscriminately. News about Syria was suddenly given top priority on TV networks around the world, trumping Yemen, Libya and Japan. Even the Doha-based al-Jazeera, which has had good relations with the Syrian government for years, could not stay silent and imm

am glad we have a president who sees America that way. That argument cannot just be shrugged off, especially when confronting a dictator like Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But, at the same time, I believe that it is naïve to think that we can be humanitarians only from the air — and now we just hand the situation off

uld not confuse stagnation with stability. The fact that the royals continue to rule when autocratic regimes have been swept aside in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and perhaps soon in Syria, doesn't mean this U.S. ally is stable. The kingdom faces multiple problems: Unemployment is 40% among 20- to 24-year-old

foreign policy will be an advantage for him, particularly because of his record of pulling troops out of Iraq, helping topple the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, taking robust action against terrorists and authorizing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He is the "first real national security De

uch as Tunisia and Egypt, a form of democracy may in fact develop. But places that are less states than geographical expressions, such as Libya and Yemen, are more likely to produce hybrid regimes. Within such systems - with which history is very familiar - militaries, internal security services, tri

s, retreating into the privacy of their homes. In the public space, there was now the cult of the rulers, the unbounded power of Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hafez al-Assad in Syria and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. The traditional restraints on power had been swept away, and no new social con

o smaller units that would then be more reliant on foreign support or protection. Sudan has already split into northern and southern states, while Yemen, Iraq and possibly a few others are similarly susceptible to subdivision into smaller statelets. This raises difficult issues about the inviolabili

for nondemocratic regimes are always preferable to hard ones, even if the process takes some time. A moral argument can be made that monsters like Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and Kim Jong-il in North Korea should be overthrown any way they can, as fast as we can, regardless of the risk of short-term chaos. But t

Egyptian military, and by force of arms rather than moral suasion, could reinvigorate activists in violent struggles elsewhere, especially Syria and Yemen. President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Yemen, with its weak state, splintered national army, and strong tribal affiliations, may be the region's closest a

litical scientist. "The brutality of the Assad regime in Syria and the Saleh regime in Yemen is still being felt," he said. "But with the demise of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the light at the end of the tunnel is a lot less dint." Or, he added, Libya may yet follow Yemen to chaos. "Libya still has its chance of becoming

anny of four decades, was stirred to life and conquered its fear after witnessing the upheaval that had earlier overtaken Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In Istanbul this month, I encountered the variety, and the normalcy, of this rebellion in extended discussions with prominent figures of the Syri

ed turmoil after the successful uprising there, Syria's opposition appears scattered. Well before NATO intervened in Libya, groups hostile to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi leveraged the huge chunk of eastern Libya they held around Benghazi into the attempt to claim the whole country. A unified focus on the rebellion s