Epstein Secrets

n between our troubles with Syria and Iran is pretty straightforward. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is Iran's closest ally, and its link to the Arab Middle East. Syria has provided the land bridge for the transport of Iranian weapons and militants to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Without Syria, Iran's pretens

kely see Israeli- Palestinian negotiations as a bottomless pit for diplomatic energy rather than as a priority. If Obama is reelected, he will have no Middle East hands to whom he can turn. Mideast advisor Dennis Ross has left; Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, departed for

ill in all likelihood leave when a new secretary of state is appointed or a few months later. In January 2009, Obama appointed Mitchell as special Middle East envoy on his second day in office. That kind of priority will not be assigned to the "peace process" in January 2013 -- no matter who wins. The ne

ence of recent incumbents offered no guidance. No President since Dwight D. Eisenhower had served two full terms. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson, overwhelmed by the war in Vietnam, had declined to run for reelection in 1968. Richard Nixon resigned less than seventeen months into his second

the region, blames Egypt's violence on the Jews; pretty much everyone else blames it on the U.S. The Obama administration had a grand strategy in the Middle East. It was well intentioned, carefully crafted and consistently pursued. Unfortunately, it failed. The plan was simple but elegant: The U.S. would wo

terrorists and radicals, further marginalizing them in the Islamic world. Finally, these groups with American support could bring democracy to more Middle Eastern countries, leading to improved economic and social conditions, gradually eradicating the ills and grievances that drove some people to fanatical an

grand strategy would demonstrate once and for all that liberal Democrats were capable stewards of American foreign policy. The bad memories of the Lyndon Johnson and EFTA_R1_00441461 EFTA01964622 Jimmy Carter presidencies would at last be laid to rest; with the public still unhappy with George W. Bush's f

nt Jimmy Carter and in every administration since (except George W. Bush's), Dennis Ross has played a bigger role in setting American policy toward the Middle East than perhaps any other official who didn't occupy the Oval Office. Most recently, Ross was special assistant to President Obama and the National Se

nship between a sitting President and his living predecessors is rarely easy. According to "The Presidents Club," by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, Lyndon Johnson sometimes drafted the popular former President Dwight D. Eisenhower into his publicity schemes, which frustrated Ike, who complained to aides about

st Ba=k cities of Ramallah or, as has been mooted, Jericho. The message will be =hat, for all the talk of a Washington foreign policy pivot to Asia, the Middle East is still a US priority and t=e Palestinian issue has not been forgotten. The prestige of a presidential=visit will strengthen those Palestinians who

he presid=nt and the spook oversaw a stealth war, and the president became his own t=rgeting officer. (Obama going over kill lists recalls President Lyndon Johnson chttp://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=lyndon%20Johnson&site=3Dwnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews &output=xml_no=dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=

smuggle a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes to Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir, who he had known from their earliest Zionist days together in the Midwest. Since Justice Goldberg had very few clerks—he served only three terms—he was able to remain close to all of us. He invited us to his famous Passov

re, his private barber was cutting his hair. I was seated next to him while he got his haircut, and he dictated notes to me. It wasn’t as bad as what Lyndon Johnson would do, requiring aides to join him in the bathroom. While working at Kay, Scholer, I had the first fancy restaurant meal of my life. I was asked