Epstein Secrets

a WikiLeaks cable that brilliantly foreshadowed how environmental stresses would fuel the uprising. Sent on Nov. 8, 2008, from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to the State Department, the cable details how, in light of what was a devastating Syrian drought — it lasted from 2006-10 — Syria's U.N. food and

Whatever the case, the attempt to include Iran in the talks should come as no surprise -- for months, UN Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi has privately and publicly lobbied Western and Arab countries to allow Iran into the Geneva process. While Secretary of State John Kerry has said t

Great Game of geostrategic importance is being played out= On the one side there is a regional axis of allies going from Teheran throu=h Baghdad to Damascus and to Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the diplomatic pro=ection of Moscow and Beijing. On the other side there is a block of count=ies in full politica

the table. On the table western powers= Russia, China, Iran and the UN are calling for a diplomatic and political=solution, spearheaded by UN envoy Brahimi. Under the table a vicious milit=ry escalation is being conducted by both sides with close intelligence co-=peration at the highest level through th

think about various options that may or may not exist," John Kerry said while in Beijing. One can only imagine the profound effect this has had in Damascus, where Assad's inner circle must be spending sleepless nights wondering about options that "may not exist." Is this like the tooth fairy or maybe a

. (Assad even seized the assets of the opposition's negotiators while they were in Geneva and declared some of those negotiators to be terrorists.) Brahimi thought, as few leaders do, of actual Syrians. "I am ev ry, ev ry sorry, and I apologize to the Syrian mule," he movingly said. Brahimi had done h

96 The first objection is that there is no clear strategy for intervention. Do we want foreign armies to destroy Assad's war machine and march on Damascus? The answer must be no. The intervention needed would be aimed at two precise objectives. The first is to enforce the arms embargo already approved

ncluding two missions led by Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, two diplomats of the highest standing. Thanks to inside knowledge, we can report that Brahimi has offered the fairest and the most realistic compromise formula. More recently, Moaz Al-Khatib, the nominal head of the Syrian opposition, has go