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<p>WASHINGTON — The White House declined Monday to detail President Trump's future strategy toward North Korea, even as its government threatened more missile tests in the near future.</p> <p>"I think that the action that he took in Syria shows that when appropriate this president will take decisive action," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, referring to the missile strike that followed Syrian use of chemical weapons against anti-government rebels.</p>

Marie Harf, a Fox News contributor and former spokeswoman for Secretary of State John Kerry, scrambled on Wednesday to defend the Obama-era Syria deal from 2013, admitting it was not "perfect." Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked Harf whether she agreed with President Trump's decision to order a military strike against Syria last week. "I did. I thought it was a good response to President Assad's use of chemical weapons," Harf said. "What I'm more focused on now quite frankly is the strategy going forward and what happens next in Syria." Harf said that Congress did not give the Obama...

Surprising consensus on today's Morning Joe that Barack Obama blew it bigly in Syria by punting on his redline. Even Obama fan Mike Barnicle admitted, "Syria was a serious mistake that the Obama administration made." Foreign policy honcho Richard Haass said "history's going to be rough on this. This is going to be the defining moment for the Obama presidency." It wasn't just the panel that trashed Obama's mishandling of Syria. Joe Scarborough noted that not only did leading Dems like John Kerry and Hillary quickly come out in support of Trump's strikes, but that Dems were saying things that...

Complete Headline: Thank you, Mr Trump! First images of damage at Assad’s burnt-out airbase emerge as tearful Syrians cheer US missile raid US missiles appear to have shattered hangars, destroyed at least nine Syrian jets, weapons and a fuel store Images from al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs also shows a cratered runway and part of a Tomahawk Many Syrians react with joy at Donald Trump's decision to attack Assad target after chemical weapons row Russians warned ahead of the strike using a special military-to-military hotline and convoy seen leaving These are the first images of the carnage caused by Donald...

Full Title: How Trump unleashed awesome Mediterranean arsenal on Assad: Tomahawk missiles launched from US destroyers 150 miles away with pinpoint accuracy without endangering American pilots or enraging neighbouring allies ....If President Donald Trump decides to launch more strikes against Syrian regime targets, the Pentagon has many ways with which to do so.  Any strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is likely to be conducted remotely to avoid putting US pilots in harm's way. In September 2014, US ships launched 47 Tomahawk missiles during the first night of strikes against ISIS in Syria. These missiles can also...

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You say “Susan Rice,” any sentient being says “lied about a video being the cause of Benghazi.” So who was the mastermind in Dem Central who decided that Rice was the right person to make the case that, when it comes to foreign affairs, the credibility of an administration’s statements is of paramount importance? Yet there is Susan Rice’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post, entitled “When the White House twists the truth, we are all less safe.” Excerpts:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas wants President-elect Trump to abandon his “aggressive” plan to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday referred to US President-elect Donald Trump’s stated intention to move the US embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as an “aggressive statement.” “We call on you not to implement your statement because we consider it as an aggressive statement, when you say that you want to move the embassy to Jerusalem,” Abbas sad. Abbas also said, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, that such a move was a “red...

Disastrous role that the Obama administration has played in the region, particularly in Syria President Obama’s assertion that the Islamic State was a “JV” team demonstrates how he arrogantly ignored the possibility that this jihadist terror group could eventually threaten the United States. But what the press will not report is that President Obama is at least partially responsible for the arming of ISIS. A recent article by Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily sheds further light on how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama worked to actively arm Syrian rebels, ultimately supporting groups that would coalesce into...

Barack Obama’s plan for military intervention in Syria was abruptly derailed by David Cameron and British members of parliament, US secretary of state John Kerry claimed on Thursday. The American president said he would bomb the Syrian regime if it used chemical weapons but he did not follow through on his promise. The failure to enforce his stated “red line” after President Bashar al-Assad used sarin gas in a Damascus suburb in August 2013 is seen by some as the worst stain on Obama’s legacy. The British parliament’s vote against air strikes has long been cited by Obama and others...

A rare meeting took place on Sunday between a member of the Saudi royal family and Israeli officials, reports NRG/Maariv. The meeting took place at the World Policy Conference in Monaco, where Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former head of the Saudi secret services and formerly his country’s ambassador to the United States, met MK Meir Sheetrit (Hatnua) and Itamar Rabinovich, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. According to NRG/Maariv, the Saudi prince publicly shook hands with Rabinovich and held a discussion with MK Sheetrit. The report said that Sheetrit invited the Saudi prince to address the Knesset, to which the prince...

“Don’t make this about race.” I’ve heard this sentence a lot recently, read it a lot online. Saw its use launch a Facebook flame war while I waited for my plane to board at the end of spring break. It’s the easiest way for white people to invalidate experiences of oppression and avoid fraught debates about justice in America. But of course it’s about race—everything is. Our country was built on oppression, and race is everywhere, at every moment on my standard trip back to Harvard. The view from my airplane window is about race. Colonizers killed Indigenous people for...

Iran warned the US on Monday that any attempt to encroach on the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile program would constitute the crossing of a "red line." "The US calculations about the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation are fully incorrect," Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig-Gen Maassoud Jazzayeri was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying. "The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation's red lines and a backup for the country's national security and we don’t allow anyone to...

NBC is calling it for Clinton.

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

Russia says ISIS are using chemical weapons in Syria after UN confirm discovery of deadly gases 15:02, 5 Jan 2016 Updated 16:00, 5 Jan 2016\ By Jessica Haworth The claims come over two years after Assad agreed to hand over Syria's entire arsenal of chemical weapons ussia has accused terror group ISIS of using chemical weapons in Syria . Russia's Foreign Ministry claims there is a "high probability" that the deadly weapons are being used by Islamic State terrorists. RIA news agency reported that Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of the Russian foreign ministry department for non-proliferation and arms control, made...

Many questioned Barack Obama’s judgment when he backed away from his own “red line” in Syria, but Chuck Hagel tells Foreign Policy in an exclusive interview that it was actually worse than that. Obama lost his nerve, Hagel alleges, calling off promised strikes on Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Hagel also says that Obama’s team then stabbed him in the back as he was heading for the exits, and tried to “destroy me”: Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an...

President ‘Mumbo-Jumbo’ Obama’s preferred method for dealing with disagreement is denigration. Bret Stephens David Petraeus testified last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Regarding Syria, the former general and CIA director urged a credible threat to destroy Bashar Assad’s air force if it continues to bomb its own people. He also recommended “the establishment of enclaves in Syria protected by coalition air power, where a moderate Sunni force could be supported and where additional forces could be trained, internally displaced persons could find refuge, and the Syrian opposition could organize.” But Barack...

President Calls Hacks on Businesses 'Act of Aggression'President Obama characterizes the hacking of American businesses by Chinese hackers as an "act of aggression" against the United States and promises his administration will take action against the Chinese if they don't stop. "We are preparing a number of measures that will indicate to the Chinese that this is not just a matter of us being mildly upset, but is something that will put significant strains on the bilateral relationship if not resolved, and that we are prepared to take some countervailing actions in order to get their attention. My hope is...

Over the weekend, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt argued that Syria may be “the most surprising of President Obama’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that he presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, but that he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy.” Hiatt contends that Obama managed to convince the American public that doing nothing was “the smart and moral policy.” The way Obama sees it, the United States causes more problems than it solves, and besides there wasn’t much we could do anyway by backing a bunch of rag-tag...