Epstein Secrets

some resources. Its leaders have even mulled publicly what for years would have been unthinkable — inviting the presidential guard loyal to rival Fatah back to help keep the border with Egypt open. (They quickly recanted.) The mounting pressure on Hamas has implications beyond the 141 square miles

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

s already stepped over the wreckage of the U.S.-Israeli effort to smash Hamas and brokered a unity agreement between the movement and Abbas' rival Fatah party, although its implementation remains bedeviled by deep rivalries and internal splits in Hamas over its terms. And nobody ought to be too sur

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

as already stepped over the wreckage of the U.S.-Israeli effort to smash Hamas and brokered a unity agreement between the movement and Abbas' rival Fatah party, although its implementation remains bedeviled by deep rivalries and internal splits in Hamas over its terms. And nobody ought to be too surp

nside 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 ba