Iran

"According to a senior officer in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) that is stationed inside the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, Chinese military personnel and aerial assets are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks (6 weeks) to the port-city of Tartous – he could not provide anymore detail."

As Bloomberg reports, "President Vladimir Putin, determined to strengthen Russia’s only military outpost in the Middle East, is preparing to launch unilateral airstrikes against Islamic State from inside Syria if the U.S. rejects his proposal to join forces, two people familiar with the matter said."

"The American people have no reason to believe that they’ve heard the full story and every reason to believe that Washington assumes they are too stupid or preoccupied to care about cyber security."

Great companies like Hewlett-Packard are now being run not by adult professionals but day-trading punters. Carly Fiorina was one of the latter. She excelled at mastering her flash cards and pitching financial bubbles from the time of the misbegotten Lucent IPO, to her campaign for the Compaq acquisition, to her final days at Hewlett-Packard. What she didn’t excel at was learning a single thing that qualifies her to be President of the United States - not the least of which is humility. Fiorina needs to shut-up, sit down and flush her flash cards. The furtherance of liberty, prosperity and peace are not what Torquemada’s do.

As tipped last month, the IAEA is allowing Iran to self-police the sample collecting process at a controversial military installation. Although inspectors and Iranian officials give conflicting accounts, what's clear is that Tehran is not at all prepared to accept a situation that causes the Rouhani government to lose credibility with the Iranian public. Expect GOP lawmakers (not to mention presidential candidates) to hold this up as yet another example of why the deal is likely to blow up (figuratively speaking we hope) in the face of the Obama administration.

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“American exceptionalism has to be driven out of our curriculums. We’re not under threat. We are the threat.”

After 35 years of falling and now zero rates, the direction is only up for the cost of money, as is the cost to service debt, along with the burden to those who are most indebted (i.e. the U.S.). What should no longer be unthinkable is that the clock is ticking on America’s status as the holder of the reserve currency. If you still doubt this proposition, consider that China is in the process of setting up a third benchmark for oil, along with Brent and West Texas Intermediate, for trading oil futures contracts. And unlike the existing contracts, these will be traded in Renminbi. Who needs the dollar?

“We assume [the Russian buildup in Syria is] being coordinated with the Iranians. What we are seeing now is that there is some sort of Iran nexus."

A series of dramatic moves at the helm of Germany's iconic carmaker leaves many wondering what's next. Here are some thoughts.

What can we expect to happen in our homeland when finally even the generally uninformed population also understands that governments they have elected for decades, and its Fed facilitator or controller, jointly have waged a century-long war on its citizens? The people of America cannot make a counter offensive similar to those of sovereign nations; however people are uniting in resistance to robber baron policies, as evidenced by the popularity of nonpoliticians currently in candidacy for the office of president. These troops will mass also, it just remains to be seen what form their eventual counter offensive will be. The established order will be challenged.

"I don’t blame America. I am America, you are America. I don’t blame you. I blame bad policy. I blame the interventionists. I blame the neoconservatives who preach this stuff, who believe in it like a religion — that they have to promote American goodness even if you have to bomb and kill people. In short, I don’t blame America; I blame neocons."

Russia has now confirmed that it is intervening in the Syrian war on the side of the Assad government; and, as Al-Arabiya's Azeem Ibrahim notes, the response of the U.S. betrays its impotent incredulity. Russia is poised to return to the Middle East, from which it was ejected with the collapse of the USSR. The United States seems to be telling Russia to go ahead, because, as Raghida Dergham explains, it is unwilling to engage – though it is not yet ready to fully retreat.

"Possible Actions: Publicize presence of transiting (or externally focused) extremist groups in Syria, not limited to mention of Hamas and PIJ. Publicize Syrian efforts against extremist groups in a way that suggests weakness, signs of instability, and uncontrolled blowback. The SARG,s argument (usually used after terror attacks in Syria) that it too is a victim of terrorism should be used against it to give greater prominence to increasing signs of instability within Syria."