Putin redraws post-WWII borders as Obama projects weakness…
because appeasement worked so well at containing Hitler…
World powers and Iran resume nuclear talks, eyeing Ukraine
The meeting is the second in a series that Western governments – the United States, France, Britain and Germany – as well as China and Russia hope will culminate in a broad settlement of the decade-old dispute that threatens to draw the Middle East into a new war.
US orders closure of Syrian Embassy in Washington
The State Department on Tuesday announced the official closing of the Syrian Embassy in Washington and said that Syrian diplomats there and in consulates elsewhere in the United States must leave by the end of this month.
Israel threatens Syria after border bombing
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the air force’s early morning strikes on Syrian military positions had targeted units involved in Tuesday’s attack on an IDF patrol.
Israel’s defense minister has accused the United States of projecting weakness internationally and said Israel could not rely on its main ally to take the lead in confronting Iran over its nuclear program.
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of attempting to “rewrite the boundaries” of post-World War II Europe.
US President Barack Obama’s threats of “costs” did not sway Vladimir Putin’s calculations on Crimea.The White House’s initial strategy of seeking to defuse the crisis, offering Russia an “off-ramp” and warning of consequences has run its unsuccessful course.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Tuesday (18 March) signed a treaty making Ukraine’s Crimea region part of Russia, shortly before the Russia-Ukraine confrontation claimed its first casualty. He justified the step in a long speech to MPs which described the Black Sea peninsula – signed over by the USSR to Ukraine in 1954 – as quintessentially Russian in cultural and historical terms.
Hezbollah and global Jihadist operatives have recently poured into the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights, presenting Israel with new challenges, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said… “Over the last few years we have succeeded in maintaining the quiet amid the civil war in Syria,” he said, adding that Israel would act aggressively to ensure Israel’s security.
The United States is using unprecedented language to condemn Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon after…criticism of US President Barack Obama, and…foreign policy team… “We were shocked by Moshe Ya’alon’s comments…”Moreover, this is part of a disturbing pattern in which the Defense Minister disparages the US Administration, and insults its most senior officials.”
It is periodically necessary for Israel to take “aggressive action” so that the quiet in the north will be maintained, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday just hours after the IAF hit targets in Syria in response to Tuesday’s attack on an IDF jeep on the Golan Heights. Netanyahu…said that the targets hit belonged to Syrian elements who not only allowed the attack to take place, but assisted in it.
