Syria

Among the presidential candidates of the Republican Party and their foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill the cry is almost universal:

Barack Obama has no strategy for winning the war on ISIS.

This criticism, however, sounds strange coming from a party that controls Congress but has yet to devise its own strategy, or even to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Syria.

Congress has punted. And compared to the cacophony from Republican ranks, Barack Obama sounds like Prince Bismarck.

More evidence has emerged that reveals how Turkey directly aids ISIS, with help from Washington and other NATO-allied countries.  Foreign support lets terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya thrive. Without it they’d become a spent force, unable to operate effectively on their own – what media scoundrels never explain, perpetuating the myth of US war on ISIS.

Policymakers and media people—as well as anyone interested in the Middle East, Islam, terrorism, and related issues—need to be talking about al-Jazira. I am not talking here about the Qatar-based media operation that we usually call al-Jazeera. Rather, I am referring to those regions of Eastern Syria and Northern Iraq that have been in the news so much recently because they are the main stamping grounds of ISIL, and the core of the Islamic State, the Daesh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has hinted that Russia may be able to offer Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum should he need to flee Syria.  The Russian leader said if President Assad were pushed from office early, Russia would grant him asylum. “We granted asylum to Mr. Snowden, which was far more difficult than to do the same for Mr. al-Assad,” Mr Putin said in an interview on Tuesday. Washingtonpost.com reports: Putin was referring to Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled to Moscow after releasing reams of classified documents about U.S. surveillance programs.

A tongue-in-cheek report issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that Russian officials are “praising” U.S. President Barack Obama for his development of a “miracle bomb” after the U.S.