Epstein Secrets

ory. Perhaps that's because things in Afghanistan are still muddled; will it end like Vietnam — an EFTA00659900 abject, helicopters-flying-out-of-Kabul, people-hanging-on-the-skids defeat — or in an unsatisfying and untidy sort-of victory, like Iraq? From a traditional point of view, neither option

5 Lucy Ashton of The Financial Times reported on a growing trend of radical Islam in Syria: Conservative Islam is a relatively recent phenomenon in Aleppo, known for centuries as a cosmopolitan trading city whose merchants "could sell a dead donkey skin to a king", according to a local proverb. Now, h

wing its partnership with friendly autocrats even as it engaged the hostile regimes in Damascus and Tehran. The United States was to remain on the Kabul hook for a while longer, but the greater Middle East would be left to its Furies. When a revolt erupted in Iran against the theocrats in the first

mpted even the Arab League, which has a history of overlooking the follies of its members, to suspend Damascus' membership. The fight still rages, Aleppo and Damascus have not risen, and the embattled ruler appears convinced that he can resist the laws of gravity. Unlike in Libya, no foreign rescue m

March 2009. A political and economic alliance was forged with Turkey (and visas abolished), which allowed trade to grow along that border, benefiting Aleppo. The Old City of Damascus was revitalised, ancient courtyard houses restored and hotels and restaurants opened to cater for the growing number of tou

evelopment challenges and global conflicts often seem intractable, and that has to be a little discouraging at three in the morning in the skies over Kabul or Cairo. “You can’t just look at these conflicts and issues and say, ‘O.K., that’s been solved,’” Hillary says to me at the end of an interview, sta

oms and Latakia for some time. Elaraby: When I flew to Syria 10 days after taking office, they also tried to tell me that there had been no riots in Aleppo or Damascus. I was told that gun battles had only occurred in a few towns near the border, because rebels had fired on security forces there. HOUSE_

it—as they had in Lebanon and Somalia, that they didn't have the stomach for a fight. The Arabs barely took notice when America struck the Taliban in Kabul. What was Afghanistan to them? It was a blighted and miserable land at a safe distance. But the American war, and the sense of righteous violation,