Epstein Secrets

nday's vote by a landslide, has reason to trumpet its foreign policy accomplishments. Under the "zero problems" policy, Turkey's relations with its Middle Eastern neighbors are better than at any time since the founding of the republic. Regional trade is booming: Turkey's exports to the Middle East more than

choose their friends from all communities, sectarianism remains a real problem in Syria. The ruling family was born into the historically oppressed Alawi community. The Ottomans regarded Alawis as heretics rather than as "people of the book," and Alawis -- unlike Christians, Jews, and mainstream Shi

March, Syrian friends have told me, its shabiha militia tried to spark social breakdown in Latakia by pretending to be a Sunni mob while it shot up Alawi areas and an Alawi mob as it terrorized Sunni neighborhoods. Syrians say the regime is arming Alawi villages and wishfully thinking of a repeat of

yahu said. "It's an Iranian- backed terror organization committed to Israel's destruction." On Sunday he told his cabinet that for Israel, living in the Middle East required self-sufficiency and toughness. "In such a region," he said, "the only thing that ensures our existence, security and prosperity is our st

ti- Semitism. It has also combined its continuing alliance with the West with a growing tone of independence, making the former more respectable in Middle Eastern eyes. This has made the AKP a "model," or at least a source of inspiration, for more progressive Arab Islamist parties that have emerged victoriou

some extent, the handiwork of the United States and its European allies. This perception is fundamentally wrong: Assad's is an oppressive, minority-Alawi regime. It came to power via a 1970 coup. In 1982, the current dictator's father, then president Hafez al- Assad, brought artillery and killed over

t more important, the Russian and Chinese hope has been that the United States would continue to treat them as secondary issues while it focused on the Middle East. The decline of al Assad and the resulting dynamic in the region increases the possibility that the United States can disengage from the region. Th

tegists believe that it would be greatly to their country's advantage if Syria were dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of a small Alawi state around the port-city of Latakia in the north-west, in much the same way as Iraq was dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of

FTA00659891 their first contested leadership election in 7,000 years, how should we understand the speed, scope and variety of change transforming the Middle East? A year ago, the narrative was simple -- Arabs had awoken from their millennial slumber and demanded to be citizens, not subjects. But since then,

e a rat out of his drainage pipe in Libya? Or something profoundly cruel, such as the YouTube video of a Syrian man buried alive by shovel-wielding Alawi thugs taunting the victim to recite "There is no God but God and Bashar is his Prophet"? Or, alternatively, will we look back and see photos of Sau