Iran to be invited to next round of talks on Syria: U.S. official

Reuters ^ | 27 Oct 2015

[amorphous]

Iran will be invited to participate in talks in Vienna on Friday to discuss ending the conflict in Syria, a dialogue aimed at finding a framework for political transition in Damascus, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday.

An official in the region, however, told Reuters that Iran had already been invited by the United States and Russia, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian would attend the talks, while the presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was still under discussion.

Zarif and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call earlier on Tuesday to discuss ways to resolve the Syrian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Lavrov also spoke to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the ministry said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry will travel to Vienna, and from there he will head to Central Asia for discussions with counterparts from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

[amorphous]

The U.S. is considering increasing its attacks on ISIS through more ground action and airstrikes, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday.

Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. "won't hold back" from supporting partners carrying out such attacks or from "conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground."

The White House, however, has yet to make a decision on the options for upping the campaign against ISIS, according to defense and administration sources. They said that further involvement on the ground was one of the possibilities being presented.

The ground option Carter mentioned to the committee was part of a three-prong effort -- which he dubbed the "three Rs" -- to adapt the U.S. policy on countering ISIS.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-27/proxy-war-paradox-us-put-more-boots-ground-iraq-baghdad-looks-moscow

[Diogenesis]

Iran and the White Mosque remain at War with America.

Aided completely by the complicit, sociopathic-liar GOP.

[amorphous]

Over the course of the past four weeks, Russia has captured the world’s attention with Moscow’s “unexpected” intervention in Syria’s protracted civil war.

While it wasn’t difficult to predict some manner of intervention by The Kremlin (the world has long known Putin to be a staunch Assad ally and both Russia and China have voted together on the Security Council to prevent the conflict from being referred to The Hague), what was surprising to some observers was the rapidity and efficiency with which Moscow deployed to Latakia.

Russia’s swift buildup and subsequent air campaign took the West completely off guard as Washington and its European and regional allies apparently assumed Moscow would adopt a similar strategy to that pursued in eastern Ukraine where Kremlin support has been more tacit than explicit.

For those interested, we present the following infographic which endeavors to outline “everything we know” about Russia’s deployment in Syria from sorties flown out of Latakia, to overflight denials, to cruise missile strikes.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-27/everything-we-know-about-russian-intervention-syria-infographic

[amorphous]

It’s certainly getting complicated. Things are moving pretty rapidly too, since Russia has gotten involved.