The Syrian military’s air defenses would face retaliation if Syria attempted to respond to U.S. air strikes that are expected against Islamic State targets in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday. President Barack Obama’s authorization of the use of American air power against Islamic State’s strongholds in Syria has raised the question of whether […] Read More → 
Senator John McCain, one of the last non-anguished interventionists in Washington (his Sancho Panza, fellow Republican Lindsey Graham, is another), had a very good last week. He watched President Barack Obama decide to drop bombs on Syria, a policy McCain has long endorsed. He saw the non-interventionist wing of his party suddenly revise its views […] Read More → 
Michael Snyder, Is Obama really that clueless about what is going on in the Middle East? Why would Barack Obama want to give hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons to groups inside Syria that are selling weapons to ISIS and regularly fighting alongside them? Is he really that clueless about what is going on […] Read More → 
President Barack Obama will tell the public tonight that the U.S. will expand an offensive to destroy Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, using American air power to back local ground forces. Obama will say the offensive fits within a strategy the U.S. has pursued in recent years in places such as Yemen and Somalia, […] Read More → 
U.S. warplanes launched four air strikes against Islamic State militants threatening western Iraq’s Haditha Dam early on Sunday, witnesses and senior officials said, broadening Washington’s campaign against the fighters. The leader of a pro-Iraqi government paramilitary force in the west said the strikes wiped out an Islamic State patrol trying to attack the dam - […] Read More → 
President Barack Obama formally notified the U.S. Congress on Monday that he had authorized air strikes and humanitarian airdrops over the weekend in the Iraqi Shi’ite town of Amerli where Islamic State militants had trapped the civilian population. Iraqi security forces backed by Shi’ite militias on Sunday broke the two-month siege of Amerli and entered […] Read More → 
Iraqi army and Kurdish forces closed in on Islamic State fighters on Saturday in a push to break the Sunni militants’ siege of the Shi’ite town of Amerli, army sources said. Two officers said Iraqi troops, militia and Kurdish peshmerga were advancing from four directions on the northern town, which has been surrounded by Islamic […] Read More → 
Israeli air strikes launched before dawn on Tuesday killed two Palestinians and destroyed much of one of Gaza’s tallest apartment and office buildings, setting off huge explosions and wounding 20 people, Palestinian health officials said. Israel had no immediate comment on the attacks that took place as Egyptian mediators stepped up efforts to achieve an […] Read More → 
Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday to halt fire and resume peace talks, but violence continued unabated with Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip and Hamas militants firing rockets at the Jewish state. A senior Egyptian diplomat said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had informed Sisi that Hamas was prepared to come […] Read More → 
Hamas-led gunmen in Gaza executed 18 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel on Friday, a day after Israel tracked down and killed three top Hamas commanders, the highest-ranking militants to be killed in the six-week war. Seven people were shot dead in front of worshippers outside a mosque in one of Gaza’s main squares, witnesses […] Read More → 
Propaganda theater ahead of U.S. invasion of Syria Over the past six months Islamic jihadists in Syria have taken at least ten hostages from Western countries, including Spain, Denmark and France. The hostages were traded for ransom, but in the wake of the alleged execution of journalist James Foley the latest captives may suffer a […] Read More → 
The United States on Saturday launched several more air strikes in Iraq at Islamic State, including ones targeting members of the Islamic militant group who are positioned around the country’s largest dam, near Irbil. Islamic State captured the Mosul Dam last month in its surprisingly swift and deadly run across northern Iraq in recent months. […] Read More → 
Israel and Gaza Strip militants started a five-day cease-fire amid disclosures that ties between Israeli and U.S. leaders had been strained by Israeli conduct during the monthlong conflict. The extension of the truce early today until midnight Monday puts off for now the threat of a return to hostilities that killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, […] Read More → 
Rich Galen I know most of you are not terribly interested in foreign affairs. In fact, my experience has been that when I write a column based on something going on somewhere outside the borders of the U.S. of A. my normally quick-to-hit-the-SEND-key readership is just about silent. Crickets. Nevertheless … President Barack Obama […] Read More → 
Even as warplanes dropped the first U.S. bombs on Islamic militant targets in northern Iraq, President Barack Obama faced doubts inside his administration and out that the limited mission he circumscribed was enough to shift the balance in a conflict threatening to tear Iraq apart. Backed into a corner after months of steadfastly avoiding direct […] Read More → 
Israeli aircraft pounded the Gaza Strip today after militants fired rockets into the country’s south, reigniting the region’s monthlong conflict and leaving efforts in Cairo to extend a cease-fire in tatters. Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said renewed rocket fire before and after a three-day truce expired at 8 a.m. was “unacceptable, intolerable and shortsighted. […] Read More →