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Leading Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai has reported that the U.S. administration will demand that any agreement made with Syria should commit President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, and commit the remaining parties to working towards a cease-fire agreement. Reportedly, the new U.S. demand has been met with fury in Syria, where regime officials claim such a move would ride roughshod over the "democratic rights" of the Syrian people to elect their own leader. Sources close to the Syrian President were quoted as saying: "Not Iran, Russia and not the United State can decide who the Syrian President will be, " adding,...

In the geo-political game of “Survivor” the former KGB agent pretending to be president has out-witted, out-lasted, and out-played the former community organizer pretending to be president. As a result, the end-game of President Obama’s latest foreign policy folly is to allow the world’s most sophisticated gangster, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, to go legit and perhaps bring his nation mired in a thugocracy since the fall of the Soviet Union back to global relevancy. The Left has complained for more than a decade that it wasn’t fair for the United States to be the world’s lone superpower. Apparently they decided...

...Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota joined fellow tea partying Reps. Louie Gohmert, sadly of Texas, and Steve King of Iowa on a trip to Egypt, where they praised the restoration of military dictatorship and the overthrow of a democratically elected government... Bachmann didn’t just stop with that misportrayal of American values. She somehow managed to confuse Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks (Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda for those who don’t remember), and congratulated Egypt’s military leader for holding them at bay. “We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against...

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has published an article applauding a Russian-backed proposal to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. … Castro also lauds Russia as a “brave country” that “stayed firm before the unusual pretension of the government of the United States, threatening to launch an overwhelming attack against the Syrian defenses.” …

President Vladimir Putin loves to set traps for U.S. President Barack Obama. The only thing Putin loves even more is when Obama falls smack into one. Trap No. 1. Putin set his latest trap Monday with a seemingly attractive proposal to have international monitors identify and destroy Syrian President Bashar Assad's vast stockpile of chemical weapons. If Obama falls for this one, he and international monitors will be jumping through hoops for years The only question is why was Obama also smiling when he met Putin in St. Petersburg. Regardless of which trap Obama falls into, the last smile and...

A jihadist group affiliated with Al Qaeda has threatened to carry out terrorist attacks in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain that is home to the largest concentration of radical Islamists in Europe. The threats were issued by a group called "Africamuslima" in response to efforts by Catalonian lawmakers to increase surveillance of radical Salafists seeking to impose Islamic Sharia law in Spain and other parts of Europe. Catalonia -- a region of 7.5 million people centered on the Mediterranean city of Barcelona -- is home to the largest Muslim population in Spain. Most of the estimated 450,000 Muslims...

That phrase passed my lips last night on “AC360 Later”, in a heated and, I thought, really interesting discussion. I was pounced on as prejudiced or misinformed or even channeling neoconservatism. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain what I mean by that.

Canada’s foreign minister John Baird is calling Syria’s offer to begin providing information on its chemical arsenal 30 days after it signs an international convention banning such weapons “ridiculous and absurd.” Baird said Syrian President Bashar Assad could not be given extra time. Baird said: “This is a man who up until a week ago denied that they had any such weapons.” …

Syrian warplanes struck rebel-held suburbs of the capital on Saturday and government forces clashed with insurgents on the frontlines, residents and opposition activists said. "The warplanes are very busy this morning," said a journalist working in central Damascus who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. Activists said the strikes were focused on Berze, a northeastern part of central Damascus, where rebels have been on the offensive to push further into the city.

British Have Premier Industrial Position on F-35 The premier position of the UK aerospace industry on the Lockheed Martin F-35 program was highlighted by a briefing and presentation at the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEI) show in London this week. Some 500 British companies are involved in producing “15 percent of each of the 3,100 F-35s that will be built,” according to Steve O’Bryan, vice president for F-35 program integration at Lockheed Martin. The company has calculated that the program will secure 24,000 high-technology jobs in the UK through 2039. BAE Systems lead for F-35 production Chris Robson said...

Contenders Vie For British AEW Helicopter System British plans for a new AEW helicopter system were in focus at the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEI) show in London this week. Lockheed Martin UK (LMUK) and Thales will compete for the requirement named Crows Nest, to provide a replacement for Royal Navy’s current Sea King Mk7 airborne surveillance and control (ASaC) helicopters, and be deployable on the UK’s two forthcoming aircraft carriers. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has specified that the Crows Nest system of radar and consoles be capable of rapid mounting on, and removal from, the Navy’s...

As the 2013 season of devastating wildfires continues to rage across the American West, the question of arson as a form of major terrorism is again being raised. Already this year, 35,440 reported fires have burned a total of 3.9 million acres, with a quarter-million acres scorched the iconic Yosemite National Park. Large blazes continue to burn in several states, with six alive in Idaho, five each in California and Montana, and one each in Alaska, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, says at this time last year, 45,278 fires had burned 7.9...

September 12, 2013 Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile Assad Regime Has Moved Weapons to as Many as 50 Sites By ADAM ENTOUS, JULIAN E. BARNES and NOUR MALAS A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials. The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials...

A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials. The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. [....] The unit is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. It is composed...

President Obama's pitch for a military strike in Syria looked so politically clueless that he left supporters and foes alike scratching their heads: What was he thinking? For some, the answer was obvious. Because every conspiracy theory ever concocted about the President — from him being a secret Muslim agent sent from Kenya to take over the government to gay-sex-and-cocaine binges in the backseats of limousines — all make perfect sense if you simply accept the foundational supposition that Obama hates America. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday, Norman Podhoretz argued that Syria showed the swift collapse of...

"He is known to be a merciless butcher," said Mohammed al-Tayeb, an opposition activist speaking by Skype from the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma, among the areas pounded by the 4th Division's assaults. Within President Bashar Assad's circle of trust, Maher Assad has advocated an uncompromising response throughout the uprising. "From the beginning, Maher was convinced that the uprising must be put down before any talks take place," said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. "The life of the regime depends on Maher's ability to prevent the rebels from infiltrating Damascus...

One of Britain's biggest colleges on Friday dropped a ban on Muslim face veils after thousands of people signed a petition against the rule. Birmingham Metropolitan College said on Facebook it would change its policy to allow "individuals to wear specific items of personal clothing to reflect their cultural values". The college had earlier said it would require "the removal of hoodies, hats, caps and veils so that faces are visible", a policy that won support from Prime Minister David Cameron. It would in effect have banned the niqab, a face veil worn by some Muslim women which covers everything...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insisted that the U.S. give up its "policy of threats" and halt arms shipments to rebels before his government turns over its chemical weapons, as U.S. and Russian delegations began talks in Geneva aimed at forging a road map for the shutdown of the weapons program. Mr. Assad's comments, in his first public statement on the Russian proposal that Syria hand over its chemical weapons to an international monitors, underlined the distance between Syria and its backers in Moscow on one side and the U.S. and its allies on the other. Before starting their discussions, Secretary...

One of the most precise and dramatic details cited by the Obama administration as proof that Syrian forces used chemical weapons in an August 21 attack was the death toll, which an official U.S. government assessment put at 1,429 people, including 426 children. The number, first released by the White House on August 30, was underscored by Secretary of State John Kerry in a fiery indictment of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, describing videos of what he said were victims of the attack, which Syria denies. "Instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children...

I was fortunate to have been mostly off the grid today and thereby missed the rage and fury about Vladimir Putin’s Op-Ed in The NY Times pissing all over the concept of American Exceptionalism: It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal. I understand the...