Politics

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.

Exclusive: In Official Washington’s propaganda world, the U.S. government and its “allies” are always standing for what’s right and good and the “enemies” are the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some emails to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry To justify U.S. “regime…

The Pentagon have said that up to 10 US Navy sailors are being detained after a vessel broke down and drifted into Iranian territorial waters. The boats are in Iranian custody and Iran has said the crew will be returned “promptly”. A Pentagon spokesman told the Associated Press they lost contact with the vessels as they moved through the Gulf between Kuwait and Bahrain. “We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly,” the  spokesman Peter Cook told AP.

Tensions were already running high between Tehran and Washington in the wake of Iran's move to test-fire a next generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile with the range to hit Israel. 

And then the IRGC conducted a live-fire rocket test within 1,500 yards of a US aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Now, in a further escalation, Iran has reportedly seized two US Navy ships. 

Tonight President Obama will deliver his last State of the Union address at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Since this will be the last one of these speeches that he gives, Obama will presumably spend a fair amount of time talking about what he considers his legacy accomplishments. This is one of Obama’s last opportunities to define how he wants his presidency to be remembered, and I suspect that will take precedence over trying to outline an agenda for the coming year.