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At an invitation-only breakfast for establishment Republican types in Mount Pleasant, S.C. this week, Graham said that if America doesn’t take military action against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon by the end of 2014. “I believe that if we get Syria wrong, within six months – and you can quote me on this – there will be a war between Iran and Israel over their nuclear program,” Graham said, according to U.S. News and World Report. But the fear-mongering didn’t stop there. Graham says this conflict will come home to – of...

<p>Full title: Who Is Going To Buy The US Debt If This War Causes China, Russia And The Rest Of The World To Turn On Us?</p> <p>Yesterday we implied a difficult question when we illustrated the huge size of US Treasury bond holdings that China and Russia have between them - accounting for 25% of all foreign held debt - implicitly funding US standards of living (along with the Federal Reserve). The difficult question is "Can the U.S. really afford to greatly anger the rest of the world when they are the ones that are paying our bills?" What is going to happen if China, Russia and many other large nations stop buying our debt and start rapidly dumping U.S. debt that they already own? If the United States is not very careful, it is going to pay a tremendous economic price for taking military action in Syria.</p>

Retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, former CIA director under President Barack Obama, called strongly Saturday for Congress to back the White House on Syria, declaring that military action against the regime is “necessary” to deter “Iran, North Korea and other would-be aggressors.” “Failure of Congress to approve the president’s request would have serious ramifications not just in the Mideast but around the world,” Petraeus said in a four-sentence statement provided to POLITICO.

GOP Senators invited to Biden dinner Sunday: Ayotte,, Blunt, Chambliss, Coats, Collins, Corker, Graham, Fischer, McCain, Murkowski, Thune... Aide says VP Biden has invited a dozen Republican Senators to dinner Sunday to discuss Syria and authorization bill. — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) September 6, 2013

The deputy to General Salim Idriss — the Free Syrian Army commander Senator McCain would have us back — has announced that the mujahideen rebels’ supreme council will disband unless the West drops its demands to steer clear of violent jihadists and refrain from attempting to take over the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stocks. The Foreign Policy report is excerpted by Weasel Zippers, including this:

During a hearing in front of the House Foreign Relations Committee Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested the United States would eventually need to put boots on the ground in Syria in order to secure stockpiles of chemical weapons. When pressed on the issue, Kerry quickly walked back the troops on the ground option and stated he was simply "thinking out loud" when he made the statement. A resolution passed by the Senate Armed Service Committee yesterday, leaving wiggle room for troops to be eventually placed on the ground in Syria. Now, the Daily Mail is reporting the Pentagon...

A breakdown of how the Syria vote is shaping up in the senate. Against - Democrats: Chris Murphy, Tom Udall Republicans: Marco Rubio, Jim Risch, Jerry Moran, Pat Roberts, Rand Paul, David Vitter, Jim Inhofe, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, John Barrasso Leaning No - Democrats: Tom Harkin, Joe Manchin, Bernie Sanders Republicans: John Boozman, Mike Crapo, Chuck Grassley, Dean Heller, Lamar Alexander, John Cornyn, Mike Enzi For - Democrats: Barbara Boxer, Dianne Frankenfeinstein, Tom Carper, Bill Nelson, Dick Turban, Ben Cardin, Carl Levin, Al Franken, Kay Hagan, Jeanne Shaheen, Bob Menendez, Dingy Harry, Bob Casey, Tim Kaine, Angus...

Congress took the first formal step toward approving military action in Syria on Wednesday, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 10-7 vote to send its resolution to the full chamber. But whether or not the resolution winds up passing in the Senate, the real hurdle remains in the GOP-controlled House. And things on that front are looking progressively dimmer for the Obama administration.

Hat tip to E. Pluribus Unum for discerning what this planned Syrian operation actually is: "the international equivalent of a drive-by shooting"

The United States on Thursday accused Russia of holding the UN Security Council "hostage" over the Syria chemical weapons crisis. With the White House pushing Congress to approve military strikes on Syria, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said she could see no way to seek Security Council approval for action against President Bashar al-Assad because of Russia's blocking. Amid mounting tensions between Washington and Moscow, Power said Russia's protection of Assad has put the whole Security Council system of handling international crises under strain. "Even in the wake of the flagrant shattering of the international norm against...

Any serious peace plan needs to put security front and center. For more than two years, impassioned advocates have called for U.S. military intervention in Syria in order to advance a peace settlement. Now, in the wake of last week's horrific chemical weapons attack in a suburb of Damascus, military intervention finally looks imminent. But what of the prospects for peace? At the moment, views are split within and outside the Obama administration over whether the United States should strike Bashar al-Assad merely to punish him for using chemical weapons -- reasserting U.S. regional credibility in the process -- or take...

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER GOES TO WAR Ann Coulter September 4, 2013 Oh, how I long for the days when liberals wailed that "the rest of the world" hated America, rather than now, when the rest of the world laughs at us. With the vast majority of Americans opposing a strike against Syria, President Obama has requested that Congress vote on his powers as commander in chief under the Constitution. The president doesn't need congressional approval to shoot a few missiles into Syria, nor -- amazingly -- has he said he'll abide by such a vote, anyway. Why is Congress even having...

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the U.S. Congress had no right to approve the use of force against Syria without a decision from the U.N. Security Council, and that doing so would be an "act of aggression". snip In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda's role in the Syrian conflict. "They lie beautifully, of course. I saw debates in Congress. A congressman asks Mr Kerry: 'Is...

How do I put this politely? You Americans are dumb. Today, Russia and America are fighting each other over fighting the Muslim radicals. Instead, we should be uniting to crush these violent Islamists, once and for all. You Americans want to remove my ally, the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich urged Congress Tuesday to "vote no" on a military strike against Syria and instead begin debate on what he described as even bigger strategic challenges for the United States and the world. "The most powerful nation in the world does not need a three- or four-week debate about a limited, symbolic, tactical use of power," the Georgia Republican wrote Tuesday in an opinion piece for CNN, as he urged Congress to "vote no on a meaningless public relations use of military force against [Syrian President Bashar Assad]. "What we do need are three debates about...

In March 2011, President Obama committed the United States to action in Libya that involved roughly 100 cruise missile firings, 12 U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean, and 75 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft including B-2 bombers. And the Libyan case involved no use of chemical warfare by Muammar Qadhafi. Still, the president saw no reason to seek a congressional vote.

In case the White House hasn’t underscored just how high the stakes are for President Barack Obama in seeking congressional authority on military action in Syria, some of his longest-serving former aides were summoned to the West Wing Tuesday to help with the president’s strategy to win support. David Plouffe, a former White House senior adviser and Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary,Jon Favreau, Mr. Obama’s former chief speechwriter, and Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman, were seen arriving at the White House around noon. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough...

While it seems as if members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are aggressively calling for action to be taken against the Syrian government over its alleged use of chemical weapons on its own citizens, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin seems to be taking a position more in line with the founding fathers by calling for restraint. In a Facebook page Palin said regarding the country’s internal civil war that President Barack Obama should “let Allah sort it out.” “Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President needs to seek Congressional approval before taking us to war. It’s nonsense to...

In 2004 and 2008, John Kerry and Barack Obama ran for office on a platform of repairing our diplomatic relations with Europe that they claimed George W. Bush had shattered with his unilateral cowboy antics. Fast forward nine and five years respectively and the diplomatic dream team of Kerry and Obama, one of whom even speaks French, has assembled a Coalition of the Unwilling that mostly consists of France. Obama and Kerry may have gained France, whose loss under Bush occasioned much agonizing from the Democrats, but they lost the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland the Ukraine and...