Iraq

"Let’s be very clear: ISIS is not just a terrorist organization; it is a Sunni terrorist organization. That means it blocks and targets Shi’a. And that means it’s serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia - even as it poses a threat to them." - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark

When will America’s half-witted elite running the Pentagon and the State Department see the light and acknowledge that perhaps the US lacks the qualifications, or resources, to run, or strongly influence, geopolitics throughout Planet Earth?

"I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists."

Eighty-five years after the birth of French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and the crude complex is acting suitably surreal today. As expected, rhetoric is ratcheting up out of Vienna ahead of tomorrow’s OPEC meeting, with the crude market shaken up like a snowglobe.

According to the latest US naval map update from Startfor, the Truman is now off the Libyan coast, rapidly approaching Italy, and we expect is ahead of scheduled year-end ETA to its final destination, a few miles off the Syrian coast.

"When Russia courageously stepped into the breach we should have been applauding its willingness to confront ISIS. Instead, we continue to denigrate Russians as if they were still the Soviet Union and Putin, not Islamic terrorists, our most vicious enemy."

Fundamentalist Muslim Nation Trying to Drag NATO Into Jihad

Turkey is the next key region in this conflict, since the only alternative gas pipeline that supplies Russia, and comes from Asia (Nabucco), passes through Turkey. Future conflicts between Turkey and Russia will be part of the Russian strategy within the region. 

And just like that another country has decided it would send its fighter planes in the already congested skies above Syria, when moments ago the UK parliament decided, in a 397 to 223 vote, to begin airstrikes on Syria.

"The US Security Council is requested to form committees to put in effect the previously adopted resolutions on smuggling. According to said resolutions, all involved in these activities, be they individuals, companies or states, will be branded as criminals."

"On all levels, Moscow has always noted that the continuing expansion of NATO, of the military infrastructure of NATO to the east, can only lead to retaliatory measure from the east, from the Russian side, in terms of guaranteeing the security and maintaining a parity of interests."

Amid the biggest single-day drop in two months, WTI Crude has been hammred back below once again as a cooling realization washes across the energy complex that Saudi Arabia will make no changes at this week's OPEC meeting (delegate quoted as saying "OPEC unlikley to cut if non-OPEC is not cutting,") leaving a grossly over-supplied (and over-leveraged Shale drillers) world to flounder...

“We will listen, and then decide,” he said on Tuesday upon his arrival in Vienna, trying to tamp down speculation that the outcome is preordained. When asked if OPEC’s strategy of pursuing market share was working, al-Naimi was coy. “What strategy?” he said. “Who said we’re keeping market share?” Despite al-Naimi’s assurances that the Saudi delegation won’t dictate policy to OPEC, his voice is the only one that counts.