Epstein Secrets

— and dangerous. If, as Mr. Obama said recently at the United Nations, he believes that it is in America's best interest "to see a Middle East and North Africa that is peaceful and prosperous," he needs to make sure the Arabs are part of, and don't lose from, any future bargain with Iran. Marwan Bishara i

er to attend a Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka next month because of Tamil opposition in the south. Similarly, his government, despite promises to Bangladesh, will not present a bill to parliament on swapping a chunk of territory along a messy border with West Bengal for fear of a local backlash there.

means what it says. Only a year after troops withdrew from Iraq, that country is not talked about in Washington, like an embarrassing relative. In North Africa, the US EFTA00683486 military has taken a back seat while the work of toppling Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and driving back the jihadists in Mali has

m countries and territories had fertility declines of 50 percent or more. The sharpest drops were in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait, which all recorded declines of 60 percent or more over three decades. EFTA00683491 Fertility in Iran

m and democracy, more than 500 million Muslims now live in Muslim-majority countries that are commonly classified as democracies - Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Senegal, Mali, and Albania. But, for almost 40 years, not a single Arab- majority country has been classified as a democracy, so a democratic transi

rab countries than notions based on imported ideologies such as communism, nationalism, and socialism. Ibn Khaldun's analysis was based on his native North Africa, but it can be adapted to the conditions of the Mashreq, or Levant-where similar historical conditions prevailed. As Albert Hourani explained in his

t partially succeeded in distancing al-Qaeda's message from core Islamic values. Concerned about this eroding base, bin Laden counseled affiliates in North Africa and Yemen to hold back on their efforts to develop a local Islamic extremist state in favor of attacking the United States and its interests. HOUSE_O

Sudan is not in the conventional Middle East, so let's ignore the genocide there. Let's ignore, also, the West Pakistani massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) totaling 1.25 million in 1971. Or 200,000 deaths in Algeria in war between Islamists and the government in 1991-2006. But a simple, strictly Middle