Epstein Secrets

that lingered in the EFTA00703397 national security bureaucracy that in not so subtle ways suggested that anyone who was Jewish could not work on Middle Eastern issues because they would serve Israeli as opposed to American interests -- a view typically held by those who also defined U.S. and Israeli intere

the United States did was basically reassure the Saudis that some of the more wild interpretations of American policy that were floating around in the Middle East about the United States—leaving the Middle East, throwing over the Saudis, and allying with Iran—were just exaggerations. Syria seems to be a stick

ed that in the 19th century. America does so today and will have to continue to do so even if Putin becomes a vegetarian pacifist. But get a grip, Mandelbaum said in an interview: "Putin is not some strange creature from the past. He is as much a product of globalization as Davos Man." Putin runs a petr

that while global economics does not eliminate geopolitics, it does indeed trump global geopolitics today. It's the key to trumping Putin, too. As Mandelbaum (my co-author on a previous work) explains in his book, it is not either-or. Geopolitics never went away, even as globalization has become more imp

speaking in Cairo, no less—that "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East—and we achieved neither." The U.S. was now committed to pushing for change, though not at the expense of sacrificing key American security interest

ry's political culture and getting age- old adversaries to reconcile. The primary foreign policy tools that served us so well in the cold war, said Mandelbaum, "guns, money, and rhetoric — simply don't work for these new tasks. It is like trying to open a can with a sponge." To help another country change

uperpower confrontation. Post-cold-war foreign policy today is largely about "affecting the internal composition and governance of states," added Mandelbaum, many of which in the Middle East are failing and threaten us more by their collapse into ungoverned regions — not by their strength or ability to p

r's Al Udeid Air Base is the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which oversees a vast area of responsibility extending from the Middle East to North Africa and Central Asia. CENTCOM forces are deployed in combat roles in Afghanistan as well as at smaller bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the Un

ide every autocracy is a democracy dying to get out, but that might not be true in the Middle East." It was true in Eastern Europe in 1989, added Mandelbaum, but there are two big differences between Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Many Eastern European countries had a recent liberal past to fall b