Having collapsed just over a month ago, peace talks to end the Syrian strife resumed today amid the "fragile" truce brokered by US and Russia. So that makes the following even more intriguing:
Stephen Sestanovich offers up a remarkably bad defense of the importance of “credibility”:
A great power values credibility so opponents know not to challenge its interests. That’s why Susan Rice, his own national-security adviser, said the damage done by backtracking on the “red line” would be severe.
A Syrian monitoring group says ISIS group commander Omar al-Shishani better known as Omar the Chechen has been ‘clinically dead’ for several days after a US air strike in northern Syria. Israel National News reports: “Shishani is not able to breathe on his own and is using machines. He has been clinically dead for several days,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Abdel Rahman said the notorious red-bearded commander, known as Omar the Chechen, was in a hospital in the northern province of Raqa, ISIS’s bastion in Syria.
Julia Ioffe talked to some Russian officials and experts about the silly idea that refusing to attack Syria in 2013 encouraged Russian intervention in Ukraine, and this is what they told her:
“Wow, it’s kind of a revelation what you just said,” said a very surprised source from the Russian Foreign Ministry, who was not authorized to speak on the record, on hearing the question. “It’s not tied to any kind of reality. These things are not connected to each other in any way.”
Obama reportedly rejects the bogus “credibility” argument related to threats and use of force:
Obama generally believes that the Washington foreign-policy establishment, which he secretly disdains, makes a fetish of “credibility”—particularly the sort of credibility purchased with force. The preservation of credibility, he says, led to Vietnam. Within the White House, Obama would argue that “dropping bombs on someone to prove that you’re willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force.”