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After this story broke this afternoon, conservative Twitter spent an enjoyable half-hour swapping links to some of the many statements Obama’s made over the years insisting on regime change in Syria. How about this classic, from all the way back in 2011? Or how about this one from just three months ago? Better yet, how about this one from a mere four weeks ago? With the possible exception of “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” no Obama lie has been told more often or better captures his failures as president.Obama wants regime change. Putin doesn’t want...

Following lengthy talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said the United States is not seeking regime change in Syria and that the U.S. and Russia see the conflict "fundamentally very similarly." "The United States and its partners are not seeking so-called regime change as it is known in Syria," Kerry said in a news conference inside the Kremlin, before immediately adding that the U.S. continues to believe that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has no possibility of remaining the country's leader in the future.

MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war. "The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Thursday that the Middle East was more secure when key dictators were still in power, and said too many Democrats and Republicans have supported toppling Middle Eastern governments to the benefit of the United States' enemies."Was the world, in fact, in the Middle East, a more secure place when Saddam Hussein was in power, when Moammar Gadhafi was in power, and when [Bashar] Assad wasn't fighting for his life in Syria?" asked MSNBC's Joe Scarborough."Of course it was," Cruz answered. "That's not even a close call."Cruz said Gadhafi did bad things but had worked...

WASHINGTON -- Between the chilly temperatures and the pace of the push-ups, there was plenty to complain about after eight lawmakers straggled into the park behind the Longworth House Office Building for their regular 6:30 a.m. workout. While the others in the group griped and groaned on a recent Tuesday, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, 34, her Hindu prayer beads wrapped around a wrist for her daily yoga meditation, said little. "Tulsi, you hearing a lot of whining?" asked Representative Markwayne Mullin, a burly Oklahoma Republican and former professional mixed martial arts fighter who leads the workouts, mocking the complaints of her...

In a move dubbed "surreal" by a leading UN watchdog, and as a campaign of daily Palestinian terrorist attacks continues to target Israelis, the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday adopted six resolutions - all of which bar none condemned Israel. Not a single mention was made of the Palestinian attacks, which have left 22 Israelis dead and hundreds wounded, nor did any other countries - even serial human rights violators such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and others - receive any of the General Assembly's attention. More disturbingly still, five of the the UNGA resolutions were sponsored by the...

A nifty catch by Josh Rogin from today's presser. If you want to see what "Smart Power" resolve looks like in practice, here’s where we are right now with a guy whom the supposed leader of the free world has been insisting for years must step down as president of Syria. (snip) As our rotten luck would have it, Assad is interested in running again for the presidency, according to Russian diplomats who recently spoke to him. Either Obama's kidding himself about Assad "choosing not to run" or he's hinting here that there may be ways to force Assad out,...

<p>As the United States has turned its attention to defeating the Islamic State group, it has softened its stance on the Syrian leader. More than four years ago, Obama demanded that Assad leave power. Administration officials later said Assad did not have to step down on "Day One" of a political transition. Now, they are going further.</p>

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders about the crisis in Syria. On his first trip to Iran in eight years, Putin met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday, as Russia nears a third month of military engagement in the conflict. The discussions come on a sidelines of a one-day trip to Iran for a summit of gas-exporting countries. Tehran and Moscow have supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war that has crippled the country since 2011 and killed over 250,000 people. The violence has displaced millions more. On...

In an unusual alliance, a House Democrat and Republican have teamed up to urge the Obama administration to stop trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad and focus all its efforts on destroying Islamic State militants. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, and Austin Scott, a Republican, introduced legislation on Friday to end what they called an "illegal war" to overthrow Assad, the leader of Syria accused of killing tens of thousands of Syrian citizens in a more than four-year-old civil war entangled in a battle against IS extremists, also known as ISIS. "The U.S. is waging two wars in Syria,"...

In a CNN interview this week, presidential candidate Jeb Bush said that only Middle East Christians should be granted refugee status in the U.S. (I argued in favor of this for two months prior to the Paris terrorist attacks which prompted Bush’s statement). In the midst of an otherwise good interview, however, Bush made a bizarre statement: There are a lot of Christians in Syria that have no place now. They’ll be either executed or imprisoned, either by Assad or by ISIS. “Executed or imprisoned” by Assad? This is an absurd and patently false assertion.

Earlier today in the Philippines, Barack Obama responded to Russian and French proposals for an anti-ISIS coalition by suggesting that he’d join up — as soon as the Russians dispensed with Bashar al-Assad. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has a different deal in mind: Russia steps up to pull Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire and the US quits making demands about Assad. Consider it Moscow’s idea of a reset: Russia said Wednesday that following the carnage in Paris it was now clear that global powers should unite without any preconditions on the fate of Syria’s embattled leader Bashar...

Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria to counter the Islamic State and take on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would be a mistake, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday."I don't believe the answer is sending boots on the ground to Syria," the Republican candidate for president told reporters in Washington. "President Obama - and I think far too many Republicans - are eager to get us in the middle of an internecine civil war in Syria. We don't have a dog in that fight."Assad is a "monster" who has murdered women and children and gassed his own citizens,...

Assad: Putin the ‘only defender of Christian civilization’ By Kellan Howell - The Washington Times - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 Syrian President Bashar Assad said he considers his long-time ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin as the “only defender of Christian civilization” one can trust, a comment made in an interview with a French magazine following the Paris attacks. “When I look at the present state of things in the world, I realize that Vladimir Putin is the sole defender of Christian civilization one can rely on,” Mr. Assad told French magazine Valeurs Actuelles,

Syrian President Bashar Assad considers Russia's Vladimir Putin as the "only defender of Christian civilization one can trust.""When I look at the present state of things in the world I realize that Vladimir Putin is the sole defender of Christian civilization one can rely on," Assad said in an interview with French magazine Valeurs Actuelles. The Syrian leader also said that he would step down only if asked to by the Syrian people and the Syrian parliament, adding that the issue of his possible resignation had not yet been raised on an international level. Syria will only share intelligence information...

EXCERPT "There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward but the strategy they we put forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work," Obama told reporters at a news conference at the close of a Group of 20 summit.

The conflict in Syria has drawn in major global powers, some supporting and some opposing President Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family has ruled Syria for more than four decades, but how did they rise to power? Hafez al-Assad was the architect of modern Syria. Following decades of coups and counter-coups in Syria, Hafez used the network he had built in the posts of Commander of the Syrian air force and Minister of Defence to seize power in 1970. To maintain his position, Hafez created a system of divide and rule and personalised his power to such an extent that it...

A recent poll carried out by France’s Le Figaro newspaper has indicated that at least 72 percent of respondents want Syrian President Bashar Assad to remain in power. The survey, published on Thursday, asked: “Should world powers demand Bashar Assad to leave?” At least 28 percent from 21,314 respondents have voted “Yes” so far, while the majority – 72 percent – have said “No”.

Bashar al-Assad denies dropping barrel bombs in Syria, but evidence overwhelmingly says otherwise. The use of barrel bombs has fueled the mass exodus of refugees from the country. Videos continue to be posted to YouTube showing helicopters in Syria dropping what appear to be the unpredictable weapon. Human rights group Amnesty International found that more than 3,000 civilian deaths between January 2014 and March 2015 occurred in Aleppo from barrel bombs. The makeshift weapon is an oil drum filled with explosives, fuel, and metal fragments. They are dropped haphazardly from helicopters with little control for targeting. The United Nations previously...

Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that no country could use military force in Syria without first securing the agreement of the Syrian government, the TASS news agency reported. TASS said Ryabkov was responding to a question about the prospect of the United States launching a ground operation in Syria. "The question of using military force in any form without the agreement of Damascus is for us unacceptable," it quoted him as saying.