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Syrians have a new nickname for President Donald Trump following his punishing strike against the Assad regime. People across the Arab world are referring to Trump as “Abu Ivanka al-Amriki,” or “Father of Ivanka, the American,” on social media, reports The Telegraph. The nickname is a term of admiration and respect for the president, following his decisive action in response to the chemical weapons U.S. officials believe President Bashar al-Assad ordered. “One Syrian tells me the new nom de guerre for President Trump on the ground in Northern Syria is Abu Ivanka al-Amriki,” a CNN international correspondent tweeted....

A Russian Navy surface action group is headed to the Eastern Mediterranean departing shortly after a U.S. Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, a U.S. defense official told USNI News on Monday. Two Steregushchiy-class corvettes, an ocean tug and a fleet oiler departed from the naval base in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on Saturday bound for the Eastern Mediterranean and likely Syria, the official told USNI News. The ships from the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet are set to arrive in the next several days off the coast of Syria. The Russian SAG will join the guided missile frigate...

In which the “wag the dog” crankery on the left escalates from MSNBC hosts to Democratic congressmen in less than a week. I wonder how far Moulton’s prepared to stick with this possibility, though. If Assad gasses more civilians next week and Trump hits six more airfields, will that be sufficient proof that he’s really trying to damage the regime or just further “wag the dog” shenanigans? Maybe nothing short of a limited nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia will do.Here’s a perfect example of an innocent statement that’ll be twisted into a nefarious admission by progressive conspiracy...

I used to have a best friend, recently in his eighties. I’m not allowed to talk to him any longer because I voted for Trump. That’s the law from his wife. Anyway, just before I was cut off, I asked this great man if he could summarize all the wisdom of his life in one sentence. He looked at me with a smile and said, “Peace is good.” With that, a few words about Mr. Trump’s getting us into the war in Syria in a big way: First of all, the happiest people on the planet right now must be...

THE biggest loser from last week's cruise-missile strikes on a Syrian air base wasn't President Bashar al-Assad. It was Vladimir Putin. The Syrian leader was punished, but Russia's new tsar was humiliated. Even with an hour's warning of the attacks, Putin's military in Syria did nothing to defend its ally. For all of the Russian bluster in recent years, Putin couldn't stop the strikes. His military lacked the means to do so. And any attempt to interfere with the operation would only have revealed the inferior quality of Russian armaments - including their much-ballyhooed air defence systems. This is vitally...

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday accused the Russian government of engaging in a cover-up of the chemical weapons attack last week by Syrian forces that prompted American airstrikes, saying that United States intelligence and numerous contemporaneous reports confirmed that the Syrians used sarin gas on their own people. In a declassified four-page report that details United States intelligence on the chemical weapons attack, the White House asserted that the Syrian and Russian governments have sought to confuse the world community about the assault through disinformation and “false narratives.” Senior White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a stern warning to Russia on Tuesday: Either stand with the US and other “like-minded” nations against Syria or side with President Bashar al-Assad and his allies Iran and the militant group Hezbollah. SEE ALSO Russia knew Syria’s chemical-weapon attack was coming: US Russia knew Syria’s chemical-weapon attack was coming: US ​​”We want to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Russia can be a part of that future and play an important role,” Tillerson ​told top diplomats during a meeting in Italy. “Or Russia can maintain its alliance with this group, which we...

Appalling images of Syrian babies gasping for breath and others foaming at the mouth after the Damascus regime hit a rebel-held town with chemical weapons has stunned the world. But people were almost as stunned last week that Syria still had chemical weapons because the Kremlin in June 2014 had vouched publicly for their complete eradication. One man who certainly wasn’t stunned that Syria had such weapons and would use them was Syrian Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, once the Bashar regime’s chemical weapons chief in charge of such operations. In an interview this week with Fox News, Sakat remained steadfast...

Vladimir Putin has sensationally claimed that the US is preparing airstrikes on the Syrian capital - and will pin the blame on Bashar-al Assad's forces. The Russian leader made the astonishing claim - that the US is planning to FAKE chemicals weapons attacks - during a joint press conference with the Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Putin insisted Russia would tolerate Western criticism of its role in Syria but hoped that attitudes would eventually soften. But his claims that Russia has information strikes are being planned by the US on the southern Damascus region - the aim of which is to...

Donald Trump's decision to bomb Syria was influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, being "heartbroken and outraged" at the country's alleged chemical weapons attack, one of the president's sons told a British newspaper. The president launched 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian government air base he alleged was involved in a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians last week. Trump's 33-year-old son, Eric, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday that the strike was influenced in part by Ivanka, who he said was "heartbroken and outraged" by the chemical attack.

U.S. officials say they are reaching the consensus view that Assad was simply acting out of desperation. The embattled Syrian leader is facing a major rebel offensive in Idlib province, led by radical Islamic groups, that his depleted and exhausted army is ill-equipped to counter by conventional means. Chemical weapons were a response of cold-blooded convenience, they believe. That Trump and his team couldn't initially decide what may have motivated the strike complicated the decision-making on how to move forward, one administration official said, but "not to the point of stopping us from doing anything.” ...Aides and friends say the...

By way of disclaimer, I have known Steve Bannon for years and we regularly communicate in rather short bursts. So my info on the "inside Team Trump" is pretty one-sided. I don't know Jared Kushner, know OF McMaster and recommended him to Team Trump (as did Victor Davis Hanson). So I know what I know, but it's a pretty limited range of insight. 1. The Syria strikes. I knew going in this would be a firestorm for Trump among his voters, especially the Ron Paul/non-interventionist backers (many of whom you see on Twitter). I agree with many of you that...

On Aug. 21, 2013, I woke up in the dark around 4:45 a.m., struggling to breathe. My eyes were burning, my head was throbbing, and my throat was blocked. I was suffocating. I tried to inhale but all I heard was a horrible rasping sound as my throat closed up. An unbearable pain drummed in my head. The world began to blur. I pounded my chest but couldn’t breathe. My heart seemed about to explode. Suddenly, my windpipe opened. A gust of air pierced my lungs. Needles seemed to stab my eyes. A searing pain clawed at my stomach. I...

As I blogged yesterday, the claim that Assad ordered a chemical attack on his own people in the past week doesn’t pass my sniff test. For Assad to order a gas attack now – while his side is finally winning – he would have to be willing to risk his life and his regime for no real military advantage. I’m not buying that. But let’s say the world believes Assad or a rogue general under his command gassed his own people. What’s an American President to do? If Trump does nothing, he appears weak, and it invites mischief from other...

Focusing on who used chemical weapons is a moot point in the larger issue of the Syrian conflict. It doesn’t matter whether ISIS “rebels” deployed them or whether Bashir Assad used them against the “rebels” when contemplating President Trump’s response to stop using them. The victims are Syrians. The regional alliance members don’t care who used them. The message is to stop. By actions and deeds the international community, and the regional community, have essentially told Assad he must step down from power as soon as he eliminates ISIS. Do you see any grand motivation for Assad to remove ISIS...

The chemical weapon attack by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad on the rebel-held town Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province on April 4 once again underscores what a foreign policy failure President Obama was and what a serial liar Susan Rice is. On January 16, 2017, Rice, who served as U.N. Ambassador during Obama’s first term and was rewarded for her Benghazi lies with the post of National Security Advisor, where she could be compelled to testify before Congress, Gave what amounted to an exit interview with NPR. During the interview she crowed about the Obama administration’s success in eliminating...

What a difference 24 hours and 59 Tomahawk missiles can make. Yesterday if you mentioned the words "Russia and Trump," you were probably having a conversation about the enduring allegations that the Russians somehow colluded with the Trump campaign and that they somehow tipped the 2016 election. But now those words are likely a part of a conversation about how President Donald Trump broke with Russia in his decision to respond to the alleged Syrian nerve gas assault on its own people with Thursday night's missile strike. That's a dramatic flipping of the script in Washington, Moscow, and beyond. It's...

DONALD Trump’s dramatic U-turn on taking military action in Syria was sparked by the heartbreak of his daughter Ivanka, it has been claimed. The US President, who had previously been opposed to the US launching airstrikes on Syria, announced that the gas attack could not be tolerated and ordered the 59-missile bombing of an airbase involved in the fatal chemical assault.

In a statement on Friday morning, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the US missile strike violated not only international, and added that the attack “was on the brink of military clashes with Russia.” “Instead of their much-publicized thesis about a joint fight with a common enemy, Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL], the Trump administration has proven that it will fiercely fight against the legal government of Syria,” Medvedev wrote on his Facebook page. Ealier in the day, the Kremlin released a statement according to which "President Putin views the U.S. strikes on Syria as aggression against a sovereign...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in an interview that she sees regime change in Syria as one of the Trump administration's priorities in the country wracked by civil war. Defeating Islamic State, pushing Iranian influence out of Syria, and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are priorities for Washington, Haley said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” which will air in full on Sunday. "It just -- if you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it's going to be hard to see a government that's peaceful and stable...