Obama’s Syria Catastrophe

By Joseph Klein

How a cascading series of blunders by the Obama administration helped lead to the present humanitarian crisis.

The humanitarian situation in Syria worsens day by day. The Assad regime and Russia are carrying out intense lethal bombings over the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, where about 250,000 people are effectively trapped under siege by Syrian military forces. They claim they are targeting terrorists, not civilians. The United States and its allies retort that the savage aerial bombing campaign against civilian targets such as hospitals and shelters has nothing to do with counter-terrorism. The United Nations Security Council has met numerous times to address the tragedy, to no avail. This past weekend’s emergency session of the Security Council was no exception. [more...]

Only Islam Can Save Us from Islam

By Daniel Greenfield

At Rutgers, Obama claimed that restricting Muslim immigration “would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism.” If we alienate Muslims, who is going to help us fight Muslim terrorism? You can see why Obama doesn’t mention Islamic terrorism in any way, shape or form. Once you drop the “I” word, then the argument is that you need Islam to fight Islam... and Muslims to fight Muslims. [more...]

UN Passes Toughly Worded Piece of Paper Against North Korea

By Joseph Klein

The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on March 2nd that imposes tough new sanctions and tightens some of its existing measures against North Korea (the DPRK). Resolution 2270 (2016) is the Security Council’s strongest response to date to the rogue North Korean regime’s ongoing nuclear and ballistic missile-related test activities in violation of a series of prior Security Council resolutions. The triggering events leading up to this latest resolution were North Korea’s January 2016 nuclear test and February rocket launch. These provocations were too much even for China, North Korea’s closest trading partner, which cooperated constructively with the United States to reach consensus on the resolution’s text after several weeks of negotiations. [more...]

Iranian Elections - The “Reformers” Didn’t Win

By Joseph Klein

Iran held an election last week to fill seats in its clerical body known as the Assembly of Experts, which would select Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor as Supreme Leader, as well as seats in Iran’s parliament.  Focusing on victories over hardliners in the capital city of Tehran, the results are being hailed in the Iranian “reformist” circles as "Tehran's Spring."  So-called “reformists and moderates” who support President Hassan Rouhani and strategized together to defeat the hardliners, are crowing. And as the BBC reported, President Rouhani has sought to portray the results as a mandate to continue his policies of trying to reduce Iran’s international isolation. "It's time to open a new chapter in Iran's economic development based on domestic abilities and international opportunities," he said last Saturday. [more...]