The deal that ended Afghanistan's electoral deadlock was brokered by the country's leading war criminals—and the US hopes to follow up with a "status of forces" agreement.
China's participation in the Paris summit on building an international effort against ISIS comes as Uighur militants were detained on suspicion of recruiting for the "Islamic State."
If Washington is perceived as leading an alliance that includes Iran and Hezbollah, this will augment the propaganda assistance loaned to ISIS with every US missile that falls.
Despite Tehran's denials, reports mount from northern Iraq that Revolutionary Guards have been sent into battle against ISIS, and an Iranian drone crashed in a Kurdish village.
At the NATO summit called in response to the Ukraine escalation, a particularly hard line is being taken by Canada—now in a race with Russia to claim Arctic oil resources.
In authorizing US air-strikes in northern Iraq, President Obama invoked the responsibility to protect the Yazidis from ISIS and avert a potential "genocide."
The US and Iran alike are sending drones to Iraq to help the government beat back ISIS, while Russia has followed Washington in sending warplanes and military advisors.
As the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is commemorated in a bitterly divided Sarajevo, the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria show grim potential for a new world war.
"Anti-war" voices in the West have called for International Criminal Court action in Syria as a substitute for military intervention. Will they protest now that Moscow has blocked it?
The deadly assault on a marketplace in Urumqi makes brief headlines, while the ongoing repression and humiliation of the Uighurs that fuels such attacks is little noted.
With the open encouragement of Putin, separatists in eastern Ukraine are reviving the concept of "Novorossiya" (New Russia)—a dangerous precedent for revanchist claims.
As Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk warns of "World War III," Moscow and Kiev mass troops on their shared border, and the US sends more forces to the Baltics.
