War

The vultures are circling in Syria.

"The military mission to eradicate ISIS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on April 4. “The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that…

Foz do Iguaçu and Ciudad del Este,Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay

The recent clash between Iran and Israel is the latest indication that there’s some unfinished business to attend to in Syria even with the decline of the civil war and the territorial defeat of ISIS. In the skirmish over the weekend Iranian troops launched an Iranian-made attack drone against…

“You dirty son of a bitch.  .  . somebody’s got to beat you up and I hereby appoint myself.” Thus Edward Lansdale recalled addressing the CIA station chief in Saigon in the mid-1950s, when Lansdale was a CIA operative under cover of assistant air attaché at the American embassy. Whether or not his…

On this latest episode, the Substandard tackles (so to speak!) the playoff picture. JVL soars like an eagle. Vic hates getting interrupted. Sonny recounts his basement-dwelling years. Plus a discussion of post-9/11 war movies and a review of 12 Strong.

By any traditional standard, Israel won its 50-day war against Hamas in 2014. It incurred far fewer casualties than its Palestinian adversary. It rooted out much of the Gaza Strip’s terrorist infrastructure, including tunnels the militant group had burrowed to transport fighters into Israel. And it…

Will the reboot of 'The Office' be woke? And if so, will it be funny? Reason's Ed Krayewski asks "at what point will The Office become problematic?" Turns out, those thinkpieces have already been written. From February of last year, there's: Unpopular Opinion: “The Office” Is Very Problematic in…

Hans Keilson was not quite 23 years old when, in December 1932, he came home from his hospital job to news from his mother. “Someone named Loerke called,” she said. “He called to congratulate us. He’s going to recommend your novel for publication.” The call had been from the poet Oskar Loerke, on…

The Obama administration will be remembered for a number of disgraces in foreign affairs, prominent among them its terrible deal with Iran and its dithering over the war in Syria. Deserving of a place on that list is America’s acquiescence in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, to which the Trump…

Donald Trump’s feud with North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” notwithstanding, the most likely major war on the horizon is one between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that, thanks to years of experience and an increasingly lethal arsenal, has become part of the vanguard in Iran’s…

Henry Kissinger aptly characterized two centuries of Russian foreign policy in his 2001 book Does America Need a Foreign Policy? “Throughout its history, with all its ups and downs,” he wrote, “Russia has conducted a persistent, patient, and skillful diplomacy: with Prussia and Austria against the…

Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi took to Twitter on October 13 to dispute rumors that his forces were mobilizing to take over areas under the control of Iraqi Kurds, particularly the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. “The fake news being spread has a deplorable agenda behind it,” he wrote. As with most…

On September 22, ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame tweeted out a link to an Internet article written by another notorious ex-CIA agent, Philip Giraldi. The article was headlined “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars.” The article appeared on the Unz Review website, a dumping ground for anti-Semitic…

In 1996, Hamas gunmen shot to death David Boim, a 17-year-old American citizen waiting for a bus in the West Bank. At the behest of Boim’s parents, attorney Nathan Lewin filed suit against charitable organizations in the United States who solicited funds for Hamas. The unorthodox decision to seek…

President Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan shows considerable reflection among the president and his top advisers on many military questions but deep confusion on the issues of “nation-building” and democracy.

President Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan shows considerable reflection among the president and his top advisers on many military questions but deep confusion on the issues of “nation-building” and democracy.

This week on the Confab, senior writer Michael Warren talks about the terrible week in Trump. John Yoo tells us what new technologies mean for the rules of war.​

In April 2012, a Philippine surveillance vessel interdicted eight Chinese fishing ships sailing toward Scarborough Reef, an outcropping in the South China Sea claimed by both China and the Philippines (as well as Taiwan). Incensed, China dispatched its own surveillance vessels to block the…

The Battle of Jutland reverberates powerfully in the history of naval combat, and it does so with a resonance that equals or exceeds that of such history-shaping sea struggles as Salamis in 480 b.c., Lepanto in 1571, Trafalgar in 1805, and Leyte Gulf in 1944. Now, in Jutland, Nicholas Jellicoe…

The Battle of Jutland reverberates powerfully in the history of naval combat, and it does so with a resonance that equals or exceeds that of such history-shaping sea struggles as Salamis in 480 b.c., Lepanto in 1571, Trafalgar in 1805, and Leyte Gulf in 1944. Now, in Jutland, Nicholas Jellicoe…

Maybe there will come a day when we can talk about big-budget Hollywood movies that happen to be female-driven in terms of whether we liked the movies or not.

On January 26, 1945, this is what an American soldier in Belgium wrote home to his parents:

Donald Trump is fond of claiming that his predecessor mismanaged America's role in the world. "And I have to just say that the world is a mess. I inherited a mess," the president noted during a joint press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan in the Rose Garden on April 5. "Whether it's the…

Pax Romana is a magic mirror that shows us the bloody beasts we must become to raise and rule an American empire. Few seek such a course, but it is the inevitable end of many or indeed most realistic American foreign policy options, especially in the Middle East. How must we behave if we wish to…

Pax Romana is a magic mirror that shows us the bloody beasts we must become to raise and rule an American empire. Few seek such a course, but it is the inevitable end of many or indeed most realistic American foreign policy options, especially in the Middle East. How must we behave if we wish to…

The United States has been at war for nearly a decade and a half, and although American military forces achieved tactical success in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have not been able to convert military victory into political success. This failure to consolidate military gains into stable order has…

The United States has been at war for nearly a decade and a half, and although American military forces achieved tactical success in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have not been able to convert military victory into political success. This failure to consolidate military gains into stable order has…

On April 2, 1917, Woodrow Wilson became only the fourth president to ask Congress for a declaration of war. The others were James Madison, James K. Polk, and William McKinley. Those three wars cost a total of some 30,000 lives.

Vice President Joe Biden once triumphantly declared that Iraq would one day be seen as the Obama administration's "greatest achievement." This was back when the plan was to bring all American troops homes. There was some talk of leaving a residual force of 10,000 or so, but this plan was never…

In 2013, after Syria's President Bashar al-Assad had unquestionably engaged in chemical warfare against his own citizens, President Obama delivered this warning:

There was a time when the Obama administration was being urged to leave a residual force in Iraq. The presence of U.S. troops would, the argument went, have a stabilizing effect. The force, according to its proponents, would number somewhere around 10,000. This, of course, didn't happen. The…

A new ad from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argues "veterans deserve better" than her Republican rival, Donald Trump. The 30-second video features Trump's most infamous comments juxtaposed with images of military veterans—many of them with physical injuries—and their loved ones…

While announcing new humanitarian aid for Iraq, the Obama administration has acknowledged that nearly 10 percent of the Iraqi population, or 3 million people, is living in territory controlled by ISIS (or ISIL).

Beaufort, S.C.

Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, claims in Saturday night's debate that the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, knowingly and purposefully lied us into war in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton is a courageous hawk. And at Wednesday's CNN town hall the leading Democratic presidential candidate said she might in fact have to expand U.S. military involvement abroad.

The experience of being thoroughly beaten can prove to be a key turning point in life. Approached intelligently, a shattering failure can prompt rewarding questions: What could have been done differently? How could defeat have been avoided? Was the failure the result of a weakness or an opponent’s…

In tonight's Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton offered praised for the fight against ISIS:

Donald Rumsfeld once said that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." He could have said the same for Presidents—we go to war with the president we have, not the president we might want or wish to have.

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, went to the Senate floor yesterday evening to explain that the U.S. is engaged in a war with radical Islam. "We are at war," Sasse said. "Washington ignores what it cannot escape."

It's inspiring when a leader meets a moment and takes charge. President Obama didn't come close to doing that Sunday night in his Oval Office speech.

ABC reporter Brian Ross called yesterday's California massacre "hybrid workplace jihad" this morning. Watch here:

President Barack Obama is beginning to use tougher rhetoric when discussing ISIS. The leader of the free world, today at a press conference at the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, vowed to destory ISIS and to take the land they are currently occupying. 

At a press conference today at the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, President Obama warned the media not to empower terrorists. The terrorists, he said, are just "a bunch of killers with good social media."

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that al Qaeda’s “top leadership” has been “neutralize[d]” as “an effective force.” He made the claim while discussing the administration’s strategy, or lack thereof, for combating the Islamic State (ISIS), which is al Qaeda’s jihadist rival. Kerry believes…

Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that al Qaeda has been neutralized -- and that he hopes ISIS will be neutralized "much faster." Kerry made the claim to a group of reporters:

One of the most durable arguments for not responding as forcefully as possible to al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and jihadi groups in general is that they do not pose an “existential” threat to America.  Indeed, this lies at the core of the Obama administration’s strategy for the Middle East.  As the…

Yesterday, members of Congress observed a moment of silence to commemorate casualties suffered by a community aligned with Bashar al-Assad in his exterminationist war against Syria’s Sunni Arab population. Last Thursday, two suicide bombers killed 46 people in Burj a-Burajneh, a Beirut neighborhood…

After meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, President Barack Obama reiterated his vow to close Guantanamo. The president said that he could Americans safe and release the terrorists held there.

Walter Russell Mead has a terrific piece in the American Interest on "President Obama's Cynical Refugee Ploy."

Like the Bourbons, Barack Obama and his national security advisers have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.  They have not forgotten that they were first elected in 2008 to “end” Middle East wars, and the administration’s response to the attacks in Paris last week reveals that they have yet to…

During the Democratic debate Saturday night, Hillary Clinton said that ISIS "cannot be contained, it must be defeated." She also said, not once but twice, that this "cannot be an American fight" (while adding, "although American leadership is essential").

Since the terrorist attacks in Paris Friday that killed more than 120 people and injured hundreds more, world leaders from President Barack Obama to newly elected Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and from U.K. prime minister David Cameron to German chancellor Angela Merkel, have expressed…

President Obama does not believe ISIS is getting stronger. At least, that's what he said this morning in an interview that aired on ABC News:

Democratic senator Tim Kaine admitted this morning on national TV that the U.S. has no strategy in Syria:

Reuters is reporting:

The Pentagon is sending several F-15s to Turkey, as David Axe writes at the Daily Beast.  Their mission will not be to conduct strikes against targets on the ground. They are designed for “air-to-air combat” which in this case means:

The Pentagon Friday announced the death of Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, a soldier who had been serving in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. He died of wounds received during a hostage rescue mission. But in keeping with the Obama administration's insistence that the president ended combat…

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, writing in the New York Times:

Fred Kagan, writing for the New York Daily News:

You have to give Barack Obama credit for consistency.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest compared Vladimir Putin's bombing in Syria to George W. Bush's "military solution in Iraq in the last decade." Earnest made the comparison at the daily White House press briefing.

The New York Times has a truly horrifying story about how the U.S. military has turned a blind eye to child sex abuse in Afghanistan as a matter of official policy: 

The latest official report of a drone in the possession of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is tucked in an August 3rd press release from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the overseers of the air campaign in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist organization. 

Mariupol, Ukraine

Senator Tom Cotton is blasting Senate Democrats from failing to block the Iran nuclear deal.

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore will release his next movie in September in Toronto. Moore made the announcement on the Twitter live-streaming service Periscope. It'll premier at the Toronto Film Festival:

This week President Obama sealed his legacy as the most divisive president in modern times, who will leave behind both worsened race relations and a set of arguments about Iran that will surely feed anti-Semitism. 

Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson says that the Islamic State wants to be viewed as Islamic, but they aren't. 

ISIS strives to create a new Caliphate.  It is the fundamental reason for its existence.  But the vision does not stop there.  As USA Today reports:

Defenders of the nuclear deal with Iran are right to ask what the alternatives are to the offer that’s now on the table. What’s excessive is their confidence that the only alternative to this deal is war. In fact, the alternative is not hard to describe and is not terribly dramatic.

President Obama had a moment of impressive moral clarity at his Iran press conference Wednesday. It was when he was asked about Bill Cosby.

General Ray Odierno, the outgoing chief of staff of the Army, blamed President Obama's disengagement from Iraq for the country falling apart. He made the comments in an interview tonight on Fox News:

The Islamic State is teaching boys, some as young as 8 years old, how to behead "infidels." The Associated Press has a video report on the matter:

"Without a deal, the international sanctions regime will unravel with little ability to reimpose them."

Hillary Clinton made a statement today on the terror attack in Tennessee, which reportedly claimed the lives of four Marines. The Democratic presidential candidate compared today's attack to the racially-motivated murder of 9 Americans in a Charleston church last month:

That is the guidance from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in what will likely be his last message to the troops and commanders serving under him. 

The Taliban is conducting an offensive in Afghanistan that included the recent attack on the country's

Josh Rogin & Eli Lake report in Bloomberg that:

Michael R. Gordon at the New York Times writes:

On a day when the president declares that the United States does not yet have a complete strategy for defeating ISIS, it compounds the discouragement to learn that, as Barry Posen writes at DefenseOne:

At a press conference in Germany, President Obama admitted that he does not have a "complete strategy" to defeat ISIS:

For the last several days, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf has been at pains to explain why Iran is not violating the interim nuclear agreement, or Joint Plan of Action. For the last few days, the Obama administration has been pushing back against a New York Times article published Monday…

Much has been made of the pending Iraqi offensive to retake Ramadi from ISIS but it may be that Iraq’s principle city is vulnerable.

CNN is reporting:

Sinan Salaheddin of the AP reports:

The BBC reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is saying:

Oklahoma City

In remarks today on Capitol Hill, Speaker of House John Boehner called for action in Iraq:

Bill Kristol, writing in USA Today:

Susan Rice, speaking at the German embassy, on Tuesday night:

A DoD News story, published on Defense.gov, claims that the "Strategy to Defeat ISIL is Working, Military Official Says."

New York City police chief Bill Bratton is worried about ISIS. So worried, in fact, that he's going to assign 450 New York Police Department cops to fight terrororism that may come from the Islamic State.

The U.S. killed an ISIS leader, Abu Sayyaf, last night in Syria. And, U.S. forces, now have his wife, Umm Sayyaf, in custody. The news was released today by the White House's National Security Council.

Reuters reports that:

Speaking at a press conference at Camp David, President Obama said that he'd "welcome an Iran that plays a responsible role in the region." Watch here:

The New York Times reports that:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told Fox News' Megyn Kelly that knowing what he knows now, he wouldn't have supported going into Iraq. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a smart op-ed about the Garland attack by former federal prosecutor George Parry. He points out the left’s agonized reaction to Garland—We’re for free speech! But these people using free speech are horrible and hateful!

Zaid Al-Alayaa and Nabih Bulos of the Los Angeles Times reports that:

Jim Michaels of USA Today reports that:

Former President Bill Clinton called the terrorist group ISIS the "most interesting non-governmental organization today" in remarks at Georgetown University:

Last month the Kosovar Center for Security Studies (KCSS), a think-tank in the Balkan republic, published a “Report Inquiring Into the Causes and Consequences of Kosovo Citizens’ Involvement as Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq.” The survey was financed by the U.S. Embassy in Pristina, the Kosovo…

The Obama administration once pointed to Yemen as the proof that the application of what it calls “smart power” works.  Today, from John Zarocostas, writing for McClatchy, we learn that:

That was Henry Kissinger’s famous sally about the war between Iran and Iraq, back in the 80s.  Now, the big rivals in that part of the world are not actually nations, in the conventional sense.  They are, rather, movements with aspirations to more than just physical territory. They are out to…

One of the important pieces of news to come out of Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi’s visit to the White House Tuesday is that Iraq will be receiving delivery of F-16s. At Commentary, Max Boot asks if this is such a wise move, “Why Are We Giving F-16s to an Iranian-Infiltrated Government?”

The situation in Yemen grows more dangerous, with the latest escalation coming from Iran which, as the Jerusalem Post reports:

Under President Obama's deal with Iran, the nuclear breakout time for the rogue regime will shrink to zero. Obama admitted as much in an interview with National Public Radio.

In the course of trying to explain to Tom Friedman why his diplomatic outreach to Iran is no threat to America or our allies, President Obama sounded for a brief moment like the kind of warmonger he is normally heard denouncing.

Commentators have exposed how bad the Iran deal is in various ways; the point, however, is to kill it.

So says the interior minister of Iraq, Mohammed al-Ghabban. As Reuters is reporting:

The battle for Tikrit has not been going well for the Iraqi army, its Shia militia allies and their Iranian advisors. So the U.S. has begun flying air strikes in support. And, as the New York Times reports 

Seems the answer, according to Gallup, is Not so much.

As Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post is reporting, after a hasty departure from Yemen:

Matthew Rosenberg and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times report:

In his annual statement marking the Persian new year, President Obama said he believes that Iran and the U.S. “should be able” to resolve the dispute over the mullahs’ nuclear program “peacefully, with diplomacy.”

In a preview of Barack Obama's interview with Vice, the president of the United States says he's "embarassed" Republicans sent a letter to Iran:

Iraq, with significant assistance from Iran and dangerous participation by Shia militias, has been on the offensive in Tikrit all week and is close to taking the city back from ISIS. Now:

Concerned Veterans for America releases its second installment of from its "Leading from Behind" series. This one is on Iraq:

 “Inspectors knew when North Korea broke to the bomb, but that didn't stop anything. North Korea turned off the cameras, kicked out the inspectors. Within a few years, it got the bomb.”

When the revolt in Syria began in 2011, many policy analysts and former officials argued that the downfall of the Assad regime would be a major setback to Iran. I was one of them, and the claim was not complicated: Syria was Iran’s only Arab ally, provided its only ports on the Mediterranean, was a…

Robert Burns of the AP reports that:

The AP is reporting that:

ISIS continues its war on civilization by burning:

The CBC reports that:

While answering questions from service members in Kandahar, Afghanistan, newly sworn-in Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter revealed that he is "open-minded" about transgendered individuals serving in the military, adding, "I don't think anything but their suitability for service should preclude…

On its much maligned Twitter feed, Think AgainTurn Away, the State Department is denouncing higher taxes -- and even asserting they're evidence a utopian society is a pipe dream.

In remarks  at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, President Obama warned that one can't profile a terrorist, or predict who will become one. It's not determined by people or any particular faith, the president said.

In his most recent weekly column, Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti argues, “Our ISIS problem is a consequence of the American failure to respond effectively to our almost four-years-old Syrian problem.” Obama’s resolution seeking an authorization of military force and his…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow and frequent contributor Thomas Joscelyn on the fight against ISIS.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, says that "ground troops are necessary" to defeat ISIS. "But," Power insisted this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "they're not going to be American ground troops."

Missy Ryan of the Washington Post reports that:

House speaker John Boehner criticized President Obama's ISIS war authorization, saying that it does not go far enough.

Here is the full text of the proposed war authorization bill sent to Congress by President Obama: 

On February 4, we reported that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) was continuing to suggest that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was "conducting airstrikes" in Syria against the Islamic State (ISIL) despite an apparent suspension of flights by that country since late December. After a Jordanian…

In response to the Islamic State’s horrific burning of a pilot, the Jordanian government has released from prison one of the most influential al Qaeda-allied ideologues in the world. Sound strange? It is.

In 2013, NBC newsreader Brian Williams re-told the fake story of how his helicopter was shot down in Iraq. The story, which he passionately retells to David Letterman, begins about the 3 minute mark, with many details that we now know do not reflect reality:

Brian Williams admitted today that he lied about being aboard a helicopter that was shot down by an RPG in Iraq in 2003. The NBC News anchor retold the story as recently as last week:

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suspended participation in coalition airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State in December after a Jordanian pilot was shot down and captured, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The Defense Department, however, continues to include the UAE in its daily report on…

The Islamic State, a self-proclaimed “caliphate” that rules over large portions of Iraq and Syria, has released a video showing a Jordanian pilot, Mu’adh al Kasasibah, being burned alive. He is shown standing and praying in the middle of a cage as a fighter sets fire to him. The video is horrific,…

The headline on this Justin Sink piece in The Hill reads:

President Obama told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that 99.9 percent of Muslims reject radical Islam. He made the comments in response to a question about the White House avoiding using the phrase "Islamic terrorists."

Scott Walker told ABC that he would not rule out putting "boots on the ground" to fight ISIS:

Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told CNN that ground troops may be required to fight ISIS. "It could be necessary," Hagel said.

CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that the U.S. military and intelligence community thinks that one member of the so-called Taliban Five “has attempted to return to militant activity from his current location in Qatar.” Officials aren’t saying which one of the five Taliban leaders, who were held at…

A White House spokesman refused to call the Taliban a "terrorist group," though he did admit ISIS is a terrorist organization:

Two gunmen entered the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli Tuesday morning. When their shooting rampage was over, at least ten people had been killed. For jihadists in Libya, the hotel was an inviting target. Foreign diplomats, Western tourists and officials from Libya’s rival governments are known to…

American Sniper is easily the most authentic looking and sounding movie that Hollywood has made about American troops at war since Black Hawk Down.

Denis McDonough appeared to slip up in an interview with ABC when he revealed the previously unknown name on an American being held by ISIS:

"The United States is losing the war with radical Islamists," Newt Gingrich told a group of conservatives at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines. 

Japan’s government is running out of time, writes Adam Pasick at Quartz:

President Obama won't claim victory of the Islamic State. But in tonight's State of the Union he will say that he (or "American leadership") is "stopping" its "advance."

ISIS continues waging war according to its own savage rules and no nation, it seems, is immune.  As Jane Onyanga-Omara of USA Today reports:

President Obama's former defense secretary and former head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said this morning on CNN that we've entered into "a much more dangerous chapter" of the war on terror:

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

In a grim interview last month with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s online magazine Dabiq, Moath al Kasasbah—the Jordanian pilot shot down and captured during a recent bombing run over Syria—was asked if he knew what ISIS would do to him. “Yes,” he said, “they will kill me.”

The Pentagon called the hacking of the Central Command's (CENTCOM) YouTube and Twitter accounts Monday "cyber vandalism" in a letter to service members and their families to allay concerns about the incident. General Lloyd Austin said that the FBI is investigating the "alleged breach" of the two…

Under a cloudless Jerusalem sky, a crowd of thousands gathered at the cemetery at Givat Shaul on Tuesday, to bury the four Jews murdered at the Hyper Cacher in Paris. Yoav Hattab, Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, and Francois-Michel Saada were laid to rest in Har Hamenuhot, on the approach to…

Lynne O'Donnell of the AP is reporting that:

The terrorist attacks last week in Paris and the debate over the French government response brought back a simple discussion I had a few years ago regarding the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The terrorist attacks in Paris were nightmarish in many ways, but perhaps the most worrisome news to come out of the Charlie Hebdo affair is that followers of a “pure” al Qaeda affiliate – al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula – and of ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – worked together.

Malak Ghobrial of Reuters is reporting that:

House Homeland Security Committee chair Mike McCaul said on CBS that he expects to "see more and more" of the Paris style attacks take place around the world:

U.S. Army Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University, is a historian who served as an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. He is also author of Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Hoover Institution Press), a thorough account of what’s…

Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, when asked Tuesday about the number of Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) fighters killed in ongoing coalition strikes in Iraq and Syria, gave a rather colorful response: "[W]e don't have the ability to -- to count every nose that we schwack." Kirby said…

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren addressed reporters Monday about the start of the U.S. military training mission of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in Iraq. According to Nick Simeone of DoD News, the Defense Department's own media unit, Warren said that "four battalions of Iraqi security forces…

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe will "express remorse" for World War II, the Associated Press reports.

Armies have always been vulnerable to epidemic disease.  And in the Middle East, history may be repeating itself.  There have been reports:

Reuters is reporting that:

President Obama made a gaffe in an interview with NPR when he called Tehran a "country." But the gaffe isn't the news from the interview at all.

The U.S. bombed three Islamic State controlled buildings in Syria, according to video recently released by U.S. Central Command. Here's the video, titled "Airstrike against three ISIL buildings, Dec. 21, near Aleppo, Syria":

Senator Lindsey Graham said on CNN earlier today that China was likely involved in the hack attack on Sony.

President Obama released this statement, marking the end of America's "combat mission" in Afghanistan:

Speaking with troops in Hawaii on Christmas, President Obama repeated his pledge to end the "combat mission" in Afghanistan "next week."

U.S. Central Command has released this video of an airstrike that took place December 18 on ISIS in Iraq:

Zeina Karam of AP writes that:

President Obama said the hacking of Sony was an act of "cyber vandalism," and not an "act of war." He made the comments in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, according to a transcript provided by the network.

Senator Rand Paul has an op-ed in Time magazine making the case for normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba as Barack Obama has proposed. It’s a reasonable objective for U.S. policy and there’s a good case to be made that the embargo on Cuba is anachronistic.

December 17 was already an important milestone for the North Korean regime: It’s the day the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, opening the way for his son Kim Jong-un to succeed him as absolute dictator. That anniversary was marked Wednesday with commemorations to signal the end of a…

Jon Harper of Stars and Stripes reports that:

The full FBI statement on the Sony hacking:

From Reuters:

In October 1940, Americans flocked to movie theaters to see Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, mocking the most powerful tyrant on the globe. In December 2014, movie theaters and then the production company cancelled the release of The Interview because of threats of terror from a tinpot, though…

For the U.S. and NATO, Afghanistan is about withdrawing troops and ending their role in the fighting.  For the Taliban, it is a different story with Reuters reporting that:

President Obama will mark the end of America’s combat mission in Afghanistan by welcoming home service members in New Jersey on Monday. Denis Slattery of the Daily News writes that, in his remarks, the president will note that:

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott says that "The National Security Committee of Cabine has ... convened for briefings on the situation" a "reported hostage taking incident in Martin Place in Sydney."

Bret Stephens is the Wall Street Journal’s Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist. He is also author of a new book, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming World Disorder, detailing the Obama administration’s foreign policy blunders. Recently I spoke with Stephens about…

At a Washington, D.C. event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative, Senator Ted Cruz defended the use of drones but also expressed some concern. "I'm worried about what I would call video game warfare," said Cruz in response to a question about drones.

So Chuck Hagel has been fired as defense secretary. We were critical of his appointment, and opposed his confirmation by the Senate. But let's be clear: Hagel has done what he was asked and what was expected of him at the Pentagon. To the degree he has deviated from the Obama White House line, he's…

The deadline for the Joint Plan of Action ended it seems without a final agreement between the P5+1 and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. It’s not yet clear what happens next.

The White House forwards this statement from the Pentagon press secretary on sending 1,500 more troops to Iraq:

The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee published an important scoop yesterday. President Obama “secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.” The…

The American presence is ending but the war in Afghanistan continues with the Afghan government’s forces taking casualties that “cannot be sustained, according to a top officer within the international coalition.”

The scheduled date for an American pullout in Afghanistan grows closer and so do worries that it may be premature; that the troops we have trained and will be leaving behind to carry on may not be ready, quite yet, to handle the job. As Gopal Ratnam of the FP reports:

If one objective of the bombing campaign in the Mideast was to stop – or, at least, reduce – the flow of fresh recruits to ISIS, then it has failed. As Greg Miller of the Washington Post reports

In the fight against ISIS in Iraq, Anbar province is decisive and to turn things around there:

Paul McLeary of Defense News writes that the administration has a way of accounting for what went wrong in Iraq.  According to Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken (a rare "top administration official" willing to go on record):

Bloomberg is reporting that: