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US, UK and Turkey give up on Kobani

October 9, 2014

Neither the US or the UK see Kobani or its Kurds as having strategic importance. The US admits that air strikes alone cannot save Kobani. Turkey sees greater strategic value in not supporting the Kurds than in confronting ISIS.

As I thought, Turkey sees ISIS and their vision of a Caliphate as being a lesser evil than any future Kurdistan. Their reluctance to assist with ground troops to confront ISIS in Kobani has probably helped the US to stay out as well. John Kerry has confirmed what I suspected that helping the Kurds in Kobani is not a strategic objective (though one does wonder whether Obama and Kerry have any strategic objectives at all beyond public relations) for the US. The UK is content to follow where the US leads (or stays still).

ISIS must be quite encouraged by the US / UK idea of “a buffer zone for the influx of refugees crossing the border from Syria”. It suggests that the US and the UK have already given up on Kobani. They will effectively write off Kobani and put all the refugees into a miserable limbo. But it will help their ally Turkey from being invaded by more Kurds and in general a weakening Kurdish position. But they have no intention of protecting any such “buffer zone” from a rampaging ISIS. It will be nothing but a refugee camp with no exits.

Meanwhile the US-led air attacks against ISIS is giving Assad more room to attack his other opponents in Syria.

Deutsche Welle:

At a press conference on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that saving the besieged Syrian town of Kobani from the terror of the “Islamic State” (IS) was not a strategic military objective for the United States.

Joined by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to address the press, Kerry also said the idea of a buffer zone proposed by Turkey should be thoroughly studied.

“As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani … you have to step back and understand the strategic objective,” Kerry said.

“Notwithstanding the crisis in Kobani, the original targets of our efforts have been the command and control centers, the infrastructure,” he said. “We are trying to deprive the (Islamic State) of the overall ability to wage this, not just in Kobani but throughout Syria and into Iraq.”

He said the US and the UK were considering a buffer zone for the influx of refugees crossing the border from Syria – an issue Turkey should not have to deal with alone.

The advance of IS into the Kurdish town of Kobani, which can be seen from the Turkish border, has prompted 180,000 residents to flee to Turkey.

Turkey continues to watch.

BBC:

Turkey’s foreign minister says it cannot be expected to lead a ground operation against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria on its own.

Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for the creation of a no-fly zone over its border with Syria after talks in Ankara with new Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg. …… Activists say IS now controls about a third of Kobane after fierce fighting. Monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting “reliable sources”, said IS was advancing towards the centre of the town from eastern districts. Earlier, a Kurdish leader in Kobane said IS had entered two more districts overnight, bringing in heavy weapons.

Mr Cavusoglu was holding talks with Mr Stoltenberg and US envoys on possible Turkish action against IS. “It is not realistic to expect Turkey to conduct a ground operation on its own,” he told a news conference. “We are holding talks. Once there is a common decision, Turkey will not hold back from playing its part.”

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Are Hong Kong demonstrations spontaneous or foreign financed?

October 6, 2014

After the US and Europe supported and financed demonstrations in Ukraine, one wonders if some of the US interest – and funding for “promoting democracy” – is now directed at China and its extremities.

Certainly in 2012, US government or government supported institutions spent quite a lot of money for promoting “democracy” in Hong Kong. The National Endowment for Democracy reports for 2012:

China (Hong Kong)

American Center for International Labor Solidarity
$139,532
To continue to advance worker rights by building the capacity of democratic trade unions in Hong Kong. The Solidarity Center will work with its partners to advocate for collective bargaining rights, utilize local and international mechanisms to improve working conditions, and promote understanding of worker rights abuses and developments in China among the international labor movement and human rights community.

Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor
$155,000
To raise the standards of human rights protection and democratic representation in Hong Kong. The Monitor will carry out human rights monitoring, casework, campaigning, and public education drawing local and international attention to civil rights and human rights developments in Hong Kong.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
$460,000
To foster awareness regarding Hong Kong’s political institutions and constitutional reform process and to develop the capacity of citizens – particularly university students – to more effectively participate in the public debate on political reform, NDI will work with civil society organizations on parliamentary monitoring, a survey, and development of an Internet portal, allowing students and citizens to explore possible reforms leading to universal suffrage.

Grant descriptions are from the 2012 NED Annual Report.

The numbers for 2013 are not yet out but were probably over $1 Million compared to the c. $750,000 in 2012. It would have risen further in 2014.

The NED is said to be private but is funded by the US Congress.

The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs “is an organization created by the United States government by way of the National Endowment for Democracy to channel grants for furthering democracy in developing nations”- Wikipedia

The American Center for International Labor Solidarity better known as the Solidarity Center, is a non-profit organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO labor federation that serves as a conduit for US foreign aid.

The Hong Kong demonstrations may well have been spontaneous to some extent but they were also certainly not free of external support and funding and instigation. Clearly some substantial funds came through various US channels.

And I would not be at all surprised to learn that some EU and even some Japanese funds have been channeled into Hong Kong. But I am not so sure that using mob action to instigate change always leads to a promotion of democracy. A mob cannot be equated to being representative of the “will of the people”.

 

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In one generation, the minorities of the US will be the majority of the country

October 1, 2014

The quotation is from Colin Powell on Meet the Press last year making the point that the Republican Party is running the risk of alienating the “new majority” while trying to ensure the support of the fringes of the “new minority”. Of course this new found majority (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans ) is a conglomeration of different ethnic groups and the “new minority” is still – by far – the largest distinct ethnic group.

ChangeLabInfo.com

01/13/2013
Colin Powell (former Secretary of State, G.W. Bush Administration): The country is changing demographically.
And if the Republican Party doesn’t change along with that demographic, we’re going to be in trouble. And so, when we see that in one more generation, the minorities of America; African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans will be the majority of the country, you can’t go around saying that we don’t want to have a solid immigration policy.

The Asian Americans are the fastest growing group though it does seem a little odd to lump Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asians as being a single “ethnic group”.

  • Asians comprised just over 6 percent of the total U.S. population in 2011, having grown by 46 percent between 2000 and 2010. This rate of growth makes Asian Americans the fastest growing group by race in the United States. 
  • Since 2011, the United States Census Bureau reports that the Asian American population grew by approximately 2.9 percent (530,000) exceeding 18.9 million in 2012.
  • Approximately 68% of Asian Americans old enough to vote are U.S. citizens. 
  • More than 60 percent of this growth in the Asian American population was due to immigration.
  • Approximately 10 percent of undocumented immigrants (almost 1.2 million people) in the United States were born in five Asian countries: China, the Philippines, India, Korea, and Vietnam.

There is a great deal of diversity among Asian Americans:

(While) Asian Americans as an aggregate have relatively high median family incomes, it is important to note that Asian American per capita income is actually lower than that of whites. Asian America also includes 43 diverse ethnic groups speaking over 100 distinct language dialects. Among these groups, the Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese exceed the national average of adults without high school diplomas, and are not among the Asian American ethnic groups whose representation among those enrolled in American colleges and universities exceeds their share of the population

Pew has analysed the 2010 census data.

Population

HiB visas

Identity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education

Income

As Jeb Bush observed

…I mean, if you look at Asian Americans, for example, in general, they have higher income than the median of our country, more intact families, more entrepreneurship, higher levels of education. And they supported President Obama 75-24; higher margins than with Hispanics…

Though a large section of Asian Americans based on their family values and entrepreneurship would be expected to be Republicans, they are overwhelmingly Democratic supporters (75%). It seems that this is primarily based on a single issue – immigration. There is a real sense of insecurity engendered by the rhetoric of prominent Republicans on immigration. Interestingly they are also the group where individuals are least likely to describe themselves as religious and where marriage outside the ethnic group is most acceptable (50% would have no objection to marrying outside the community). Of current Asian American marriages (2008 – 2010), 29% were to non-Asians and 6% to other Asian ethnic groups. But 40% say that all or most of their friends are from their own country of origin. Among some ethnic groups (Vietnamese, Chinese, Hmong, Korean, Bangladeshi) 50- 60% don’t speak English very well whereas in other (presumably more integrated) groups (Japanese, Indian, Malaysian) this number is around 20 – 25%.

The US is, by a long way, the most multi-ethnic country in the world. But what is also apparent is that integration with the accompanying development of a new inclusive culture is the key rather than the preserving of multiple cultures of origin. This is the problem, I think, in much of Europe. Multi-culturism has been made a God, but multi-culturism is inherently a preserving of the past. Integration with the development of a new, over-riding, multi-ethnic culture is the only way forward. And integration requires language. The one single step that could contribute most to the integration of different ethnic groups in Europe, I think, would be to ensure that all immigrants (regardless of age) become proficient in the local language (and to allow the language of the country of origin to find its own level).

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Novorossiya: Putin calculates that Obama will bark and show his teeth but will not bite

August 31, 2014

Putin did not cause the descent of Ukraine into anarchy. That was the EU and the US respectively trying to expand the boundaries of Europe and NATO. The EU sold the “benefits” of joining Europe very hard and raised expectations in the country which no President could live up to. In the process they supported the opposition to the elected (but disliked) President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. That included substantial support for Ukraine’s neo-Nazi, nationalist Right Sector. The EU bureaucrats in Brussels were elated at the potential for expanding the EU. Catherine Ashton and John Kerry were so full of themselves and their “success” in spreading democracy that they miscalculated the consequences. Yanukovych was toppled in February 2014 and the EU and the US celebrated. But the Right Sector lost no time in “pushing” and pressurising the Russian speakers especially in Eastern Ukraine. The push-back started and Crimea “voted” to join Russia. Russia ratified the decision and effected the transition on the ground. The EU and the US responded with sanctions. A missile fired by Russian separatists – perhaps aimed at a Ukraine military aircraft flying in the shadow of a commercial jet – brought down Malaysian flight 17. Sanctions were extended. The EU made noises. Obama demonstrated his risk aversion when even the atrocities by ISIS did not lead to any action by the US beyond a few drone attacks.

And so Putin has probably made his calculation that while Obama is by no means toothless, he will bark and show his teeth and foam at the mouth, but he will not bite. NATO will not start a war in Europe except as the tail of a belligerent US. The EU has 28 members and 28 strategies and no real leadership.

The US and EU have now established that regime-change of a government they disapprove of is a legitimate justification for the use of force. Vladimir Putin and Russia and China have taken notice. And the regime-change started by the US and the EU in February 2014 will probably be brought to some kind of conclusion (for the time being) as Putin establishes Novorossiya.

Novorossiya - graphic Washington Post

Novorossiya – graphic Washington Post

Whatever is left of Ukraine will be land-locked and Putin will again have control of the Black Sea.

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MOM and MAVEN approach Mars

August 12, 2014

Both the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM – Mangalyaan, budget $70 million) and NASA’s MAVEN (budget $672 million) are now approaching Mars. Both are doing well according to their latest status updates.

MOM was launched on 5th November last year and MAVEN on 18th November, 2013. Whereas MAVEN on its Atlas 5 rocket could directly enter into a  Hohmann Transfer Orbit with periapsis at Earth’s orbit and apoapsis at the distance of the orbit of Mars, MOM had to take the low-cost, scenic route. Because of the relatively low payload capability of the PSLV launch rocket, MOM had to spend 26 days in ever-increasing earth orbits. MOM had to fire its Liquid Motor six times to work its way up to departing Earth orbit using a standard Hohmann Transfer Orbit on 1st December.

Alternate paths to Mars: NASA’s MAVEN compared to India’s MOM

MAVEN - MOM trajectories

MAVEN – MOM trajectories

 

When they were launched MAVEN was expected to reach Mars on 22nd September 2014 and MOM 2 days later on 24th September 2014. The time lines have shifted slightly subsequent to the mid-course corrections carried out and MOM is now expected to reach Mars orbit about a week ahead of MAVEN. I suspect that the time of Mars Orbit Insertion is still a little fluid, but both are about 1 month away. MOM is currently about 6 minutes away in radio signal distance.

Discovery News:

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is more than 80 percent of the way to Mars and performing well, according to a Facebook update posted July 21 by the Indian Space Research Organization. MOM is expected to enter orbit on Sept. 14.

The second craft, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), is also performing well. MAVEN is scheduled to embark on its final approach to the Red Planet on Sept. 21, one week after MOM’s arrival, principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said. After months of checkouts and tests, the spacecraft will now be left quiet until close to the big day.

NASA’s MAVEN has now gone into a “pre-Mars Orbit Insertion moratorium.” All systems required for a safe Mars Orbit Insertion remain powered on. But other systems like the instruments are shut down until late September because they are not needed for a successful MOI. We want the spacecraft system to be as “quiet” as possible and in the safest condition during the critical event on September 21st”.

Related: Frugal engineering for India’s Mars mission

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Can Obama do anything other than make pretty speeches?

July 20, 2014

I was listening to Barack Obama after the shooting down of MH17. It was just another pretty speech.

Barack Obama’s place in history is assured.

He will be remembered as the first black President of the US.

The history books may have little more positive to say than that. They may mention that he did win a second term. They may well wonder why? They may mention his dithering and some of his pretty speeches. They may have many more negative things to remember. Of being a US President who despite a Democratic majority in the Senate managed to accomplish very little. In both international affairs and on the domestic front some of his failures could be catastrophic enough to earn a place in the history books.

Iraq and Syria are overrun with terrorists. Violence is flaring in Ukraine and on Israel’s borders. A humanitarian crisis is developing on our own southern border, but immigration legislation, like most all legislation, is moribund. Probes of the veterans’ health-care system, the IRS and Benghazi are sucking up attention and the administration’s time.

Now fully one third of the US thinks Obama was/has been the worst US President since the Second World War! Worse than Jimmy Carter, worse than George Bush Jr., even worse than Richard Nixon., and I can remember the loathing that Tricky Dicky engendered – both in the US and internationally.

Obama’s reputation internationally is one of pretty speeches and no substance, of a President who is so risk averse that he is virtually paralysed in any situation demanding courage and of a President who has abdicated control over his security services. The NSA spying revelations, the expulsion of the CIA head in Germany and the failure of intelligence in Libya and Syria and Ukraine, despite unprecedented levels of information gathering, give the impression of a security service completely devoid of oversight or direction. Obama’s security apparatus is going rogue but he has not the wherewithal to control or direct it.

Even domestically his healthcare flagship is less than convincing. He may have bigger failures to come both internationally and domestically, but there is little expectation of any future successes. His over-analysis and dithering on virtually every issue suggests he could possibly have been of some use in a think-tank advising a President. But they are characteristics which have not served him well as President.

But Obamacare’s “free” benefit mandates, and overregulation, has only resulted in sharply increasing health insurance costs, more than doubling premiums in many cases, another President Obama failure by his own words and standards.

But the worst President Obama failure can still be yet to come.  Obama told us that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran’s terrorist government would be “unacceptable” and he would stop it by any means necessary, with all options now on the table.  But the flower child Obama/Kerry nuclear negotiations now actually seem resigned to only trying to contain what Reagan defense expert Frank Gaffney now is calling the Iranian “Obamabomb,” to echo the Obamacare failure.

His pretty speeches have fooled a lot of people and have built up hopes and expectations. But it is not just that hopes and expectations will have been dashed. He will leave the world a more turbulent and dangerous place when he leaves the presidency than when he started. Eight wasted years.

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US temperature data are not real but “adjusted”

June 29, 2014

It would now seem to be confirmed that US temperature data are being “adjusted” to meet the requirements of the adjusters.

This is more than confirmation bias. It is the fabrication of data. 

Real Science:

I have posted this graph dozens of times, and hopefully this time it will be clear to everyone. The graph shows the average final temperature for all USHCN stations minus the average raw temperature for all USHCN stations.  This is a very simple calculation which shows the average adjustment for all USHCN stations.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to NOAA or anybody else that an exponential increase in adjustments is occurring, as I have been showing the same graph (crying wolf) for many years.

USHCN adjustments - Real Science

USHCN adjustments – Real Science

While Real Science has been claiming this fabrication of data for some time it is only recently that it has started receiving serious attention. And it would seem that there are no real temperatures any more across the continental US. Where measuring stations no longer exist, temperatures are just  made up for the purpose of “continuity”.

Paul Homewood has been looking at these and he posted this about the temperature adjustments at Kansas stations

Following much recent discussion on USHCN temperature adjustments, I have had a chance to analyse what has been going across the state of Kansas.

Altogether there are 30 USHCN stations, currently listed as operational in Kansas, and I have compared the mean temperatures from the USHCN Final dataset for January 2013, with the actual station measurements as listed in the State Climatological Reports. (There is one station at Lawrence, which I have excluded as the file seems to be corrupted). …..

  • Nearly every station has had the actual temperatures adjusted upwards by about half a degree centigrade.
  • There are 8, out of the 29 stations, which have “Estimated” temperatures on USHCN. This is a ratio of 28%, which seems to tie in with Steve Goddard’s country-wide assessment.
  • Of these eight estimates, five are because of missing data, as listed at the bottom. Four of these are now shut.
  • There seems to be no obvious reason why the other three estimates have been made , at Ellsworth, Liberal and Ottawa. The adjustments at these though don’t appear to be significantly different to the non estimated ones.

 In addition to recent temperatures being adjusted upwards, we also find that historical ones have been adjusted down. So, for instance we find that the January 1934 mean temperature at Ashland has been adjusted from 3.78C to 3.10C, whilst at Columbus there is a reduction from 4.00C to 3.52C.

In total, therefore, there has been a warming trend of about 1C added since 1934. It has always been my understanding that the various adjustments made for TOBS, etc, have been made to the historic data, and that present temperatures were left unaltered. Certainly, the cooling adjustments of about half a degree in the 1930’s would seem to tally with what NOAA have been publishing.

But this leaves the question of just why there is a need to continually adjust current temperatures upwards.

WUWT is also on the case:

What is going on is that the USHCN code is that while the RAW data file has the actual measurements, for some reason the final data they publish doesn’t get the memo that good data is actually present for these stations, so it “infills” it with estimated data using data from surrounding stations. It’s a bug, a big one. And as Zeke did a cursory analysis Thursday night, he discovered it was systemic to the entire record, and up to 10% of stations have “estimated” data spanning over a century. ……… And here is the real kicker, “Zombie weather stations” exist in the USHCN final data set that are still generating data, even though they have been closed. ……

There are quite a few “zombie weather stations” in the USHCN final dataset, possibly up to 25% out of the 1218 that is the total number of stations. In my conversations with NCDC on Friday, I’m told these were kept in and “reporting” as a policy decision to provide a “continuity” of data for scientific purposes. While there “might” be some justification for that sort of thinking, few people know about it there’s no disclaimer or caveat in the USHCN FTP folder at NCDC or in the readme file that describes this, they “hint” at it saying:

“The composition of the network remains unchanged at 1218 stations”

But that really isn’t true, as some USHCN stations out of the 1218 have been closed and are no longer reporting real data, but instead are reporting estimated data.

This is the fabrication of data – institutionalised – to satisfy a pre-determined conclusion.

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Is Hilary Clinton a secret neocon?

June 17, 2014

Robert Kagan, the American historian and political analyst would normally be considered a neocon though he prefers the term “liberal interventionist”. He sees the current events in Iraq as an opportunity for the interventionists. Hilary Clinton’s expected foreign policy is something neocons are quite comfortable with. Jason Horowitz writes in the New York Times:

…… He (Kagan) called for Mr. Obama to resist a popular pull toward making the United States a nation without larger responsibilities, and to reassume the more muscular approach to the world out of vogue in Washington since the war in Iraq drained the country of its appetite for intervention. ……. Mr. Kagan, 55, prefers the term “liberal interventionist” to the neoconservative label, but believes the latter no longer has the stigma it did in the early days of the Obama presidency. ….. 

But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Hilary Clinton has not yet confirmed that she will run for President in 2015 but being seen as a secret neocon will not be helpful – especially if the current mess in Iraq (and in Syria) will still be bloody chaos at the end of 2015. She must already contend with Benghazi being part of her baggage.

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US, Iran and Syria are now “allies” against ISIS

June 17, 2014

image: global security

ISIS now controls Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq near Mosul and Saqlawiya west of Baghdad. Fighting is reported in Fallujah, Baqubah and Samarra and within 50km of Baghdad.

But strange bedfellows are emerging.

Iran was once Evil Incarnate and the US was the Great Satan. But the “enemy of my enemy” can lead to once unthinkable alliances.

The US is talking about some form of military cooperation / coordination with Iran while Syrian planes have attacked ISIS convoys within Iraq.

Fox News: The Iranian government, which the White House is now looking to as a possible partner to help counter the insurgency threatening to split Iraq, was cited just months ago by the Obama administration’s own State Department as a prime instigator in that country. Counterterrorism officials warned about Iran’s meddling in Iraq as part of its report on state sponsors of terrorism. 

….. Further complicating the situation, senior U.S. Defense officials confirmed to Fox News that Syrian war planes struck two separate convoys belonging to the insurgent Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Saturday. 

According to sources familiar with the incident, the Syrian planes struck with the help of Iranian intelligence. There is no bomb damage assessment from the attack, but it is the first time there have been reports of Syrian warplanes having crossed into Iraq since ISIS fighters swept across Iraq beginning a week ago. 

The strike raises the prospect of the United States, Iran and Syria all battling the same enemy in Iraq. ….. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., ….. likened it to the U.S. aligning with Stalin during World War II, because he “was not as bad as Hitler.” 

In Iraq the government is banning access to social media like Facebook and Twitter which have apparently been very successfully used by ISIS in their little “blitzkrieg” last week and in posting horrific videos of their massacre of captured government soldiers.

Meanwhile the US has sent 275 military personnel to Baghdad to protect US interests.

And will the US come to support Assad against the Saudi supported rebel groups in Syria?

 

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Obama is now waiting to be rescued by Iran

June 16, 2014

A week ago only Middle East experts knew much about ISIS. And in less than a week the possible break up of Iraq has becomes more than just a distant reality and is now a “work in progress”. Republicans are blaming Obama for the failure of reaching an agreement with al Maliki and the premature withdrawal of troop. Democrats blame Bush Jr. and Cheney and the neo-cons for duping the US and the world in justifying the 2003 invasion. And they are – of course – both right. The initial invasion “broke”Iraq but Obama is the one who has refused to fix it or even to provide the glue with which to fix it.

Over the weekend the mayhem continued in Iraq as the blood-letting by ISIS plunges to new depths.

Twenty three years after the First Gulf war, George Bush Sr. has returned – reincarnated as an aircraft carrier. In an unusual burst of activity President Obama sent the US navy to the Gulf as NBC reports – “The USS George H.W. Bush — accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun — was ordered to the Persian Gulf Saturday to protect American lives and interests in the region.” The ships arrived on Sunday. The size of the fleet makes one suspect the preparation of an evacuation of Baghdad (shades of Saigon!) rather than any significant military opposition to ISIS. Some staff are already being evacuated from the US Embassy.

President Obama continues to contemplate his dwindling options. Tony Blair is still living in his own deluded fantasies. Blair jets around as a Middle East Peace envoy and is now calling for more bombings and more bloodshed to try and defend his own blood-drenched legacy. But Obama may get help from an unlikely source:

Al Jazeera: Iran’s president held out the prospect of working with the U.S. in a bid to stabilize strife-torn Iraq on Saturday, but denied reports that troops had already been sent across the border to bolster its failing neighbor’s counter-insurgency efforts.

Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who is presiding over a nascent thaw in Iran’s relations with the West, said if Washington was willing to confront “terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere,” then Tehran would contemplate cooperating with its traditional foe over Iraq.

Echoing comments made by President Barack Obama on Friday, Rouhani added that Tehran was unlikely to send forces to Iraq but stood ready to provide help within the framework of international law. Baghdad has not as yet requested such assistance, he added.

The BBC reports that the US and Iran may hold talks about possible cooperation later this week. And this gives Obama the perfect excuse to continue with his “do-nothing” policy as he waits to be rescued by Iran.

BBC: Washington is considering direct talks with Iran on the security situation in Iraq, a US official has told the BBC. The move comes as US President Barack Obama weighs up options on action to take in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US condemned as “horrifying” photos posted online by Sunni militants that appear to show fighters massacring Iraqi soldiers. In the scenes, the soldiers are shown being led away and lying in trenches before and after their “execution”.

But this mending of fences between the US and Iran will not go down very well in Israel. Netanyahu will now be under pressure from his hawks to carry out pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the rapprochement goes too far.

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