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RUSH; Big news from the Middle East about the Iran deal. It turns out that we were negotiating with the Iranians before Kerry was secretary of state. We were negotiating with the Iranians before the election of the "moderate" Rouhani. We were negotiating an Iranian nuke deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when nobody knew what was happening. The Regime was telling us that they couldn't do anything 'cause Ahmadinejad was such a radical extremist goofball. We had to wait for a "moderate" to win, which was Rouhani, and after he did, that's when we got serious. It turns out none of...

The U.S. military under former President Barack Obama quietly hid “potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes” from the American public that likely killed hundreds of civilians in war-ravaged Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, the Military Times has found. An investigation by the news outlet reveals: The enormous data gap raises serious doubts about transparency in reported progress against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban, and calls into question the accuracy of other Defense Department disclosures documenting everything from costs to casualty counts. The data in question is maintained by the U.S. Air Force. American allies, military analysts, researchers, the media, and...

The U.S. military failed to disclose thousands of airstrikes over the last several years in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Military Times. An investigation revealed Sunday that the U.S. conducted at least 456 airstrikes in Afghanistan last year that were not recorded in the open-source database kept by the U.S. Air Force. The airstrikes were conducted my several U.S. aircraft – including helicopters and drones.

Obama is the first president to serve eight years and preside over American wars during every single day of his tenure.

Austria has said it is planning to construct a fence at the main border crossing used by migrants entering the country from Slovenia. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said the move would not shut the border, but would allow better control of arrivals. It came as Germany said it expected the number of deportations of failed asylum seekers to rise. Meanwhile, at least three migrants drowned and 242 were saved when a boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos. "We do not have a picture of how many people may be missing yet," a Greek coastguard spokeswoman said. Earlier, three...

Obama took office vowing to end America’s wars. Now we’re in at least five, and U.S. officials are unsure what to do about it. President Barack Obama’s expression of remorse on Thursday for the death of two hostages in a U.S. drone strike underscored one of the great frustrations of his presidency: His dream of extricating the U.S. from messy foreign conflicts remains just that. Obama pledged in his 2013 inaugural address that “a decade of war is now ending,” but the numbers suggest otherwise. The U.S. takes regular lethal action in at least five countries. U.S. troops are deployed...

During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama's foreign policy, senior White House officials went so far as to suggest that the logic that led the president to intervene in order to protect the citizens of Benghazi from slaughter might be expanded into a broader principle: the Obama doctrine, they called it. The Obama doctrine had two basic components — imminence and collaboration. America ought to intervene militarily when it could prevent the imminent slaughter of civilians, the doctrine said, but it would not do so unless it could secure the collaboration of a...

Somehow we doubt that Putin just folded... Sky Sources: Russia to call for urgent meeting of five permanent members of UN Security Council — Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) August 29, 2013 Some more from BBG: RUSSIA CALLED FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING, DIPLOMAT 5 PERMANENT COUNCIL MEMBERS U.K., U.S., FRANCE, CHINA, RUSSIA FIVE PERM. SEC. COUNCIL MEMBERS TO MEET AT 2:30P Hopefully Putin doesn't whip out incontrovertible proof the chemical gas attack was linked to Al Qaeda, Qatar... and the US of course.

President Barack Obama said U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan will adopt a “support role” starting in the spring of 2013, to allow Afghan police and soldiers to take full responsibility of the country’s security, a nation where 2,053 American soldiers have died since the war started on Oct. 7, 2001. Seventy-two percent of those casualties occurred during Obama's first term. “And today we agreed, as Afghan forces take the lead and as President Karzai announces the final phase of the transition, coalition forces will move to a support role this spring,” Obama said Friday at the White House, alongside...

The consulate where the American ambassador to Libya was killed on Tuesday is an “interim facility” not protected by the contingent of Marines that safeguards embassies, POLITICO has learned. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed with three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the city of Benghazi, where Libyan rebels ousted strongman Moammar Qadhafi last year. Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Kendra Motz said that Marines were not posted to the consulate, unlike the embassy in the capital, Tripoli.

Karilyn Bales, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of killing Afghan civilians, released this statement on Monday: What happened on the night of March 11 in Kandahar Province was a terrible and heartbreaking tragedy. My family including my and Bob’s extended families are all profoundly sad. We extend our condolences to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out to all of them, especially to the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished. I know that all good people around the world, regardless of nationality, religion or political values, join me in...

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report: Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter...

NAPLES — As NATO bombs began to rain on Libya in March, President Obama and other Western leaders assured their war-weary publics that the campaign to protect civilians from Moammar Gaddafi’s crackdown would be over within weeks. Now the coalition’s springtime incursion has stretched to summer and Gaddafi’s resilience has startled the leaders who committed to the operation. Calls are growing to end it even as NATO pleads for more time. As the campaign enters its fourth month, NATO officials insist that it is succeeding and that Gaddafi will become the Arab Spring’s third casualty. But that will happen, they...

During the Bush administra­tion, when the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel got into the habit of rationalizing whatever the president wanted to do, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen dreamed of an OLC that was willing to “say no to the president.” It turns out we have such an OLC now. Unfortunately, as Barack Obama’s defense of his unauthorized war in Libya shows, we do not have a president who is willing to take no for an answer. While running for president, Obama criticized George W. Bush’s lawless unilateralism in areas such as torture, warrantless surveillance and detention of...

In its statement, NATO said that "a column of military vehicles, including tanks," were spotted Thursday around al-Brega where Gadhafi forces "had recently been operating." During what it called "a particularly complex and fluid battle scenario," leaders in the military alliance ordered a strike after determining these vehicles posed "a threat to civilians."

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials. The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few...

The Hamas movement called US President Barack Obama's Mideast policy speech a "complete failure," saying it was like "throwing sand in the eyes of the public." Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed the speech lacked content, adding that his organization "is opposed to intervention in our internal affairs." Abu Zuhri urged the Palestinian Authority to dismiss the speech, and emphasized the need to "coordinate the stances of Palestinian forces against the American arrogance." (Elior Levy)

The U.S. is not at war with Libya and has not taken sides, but President Obama nevertheless has signed off on the use of armed predator drones in the North African nation that has been torn by a weeks-old bloody conflict, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. "What the president has said that where we have some unique capabilities, he is going to use those, and in fact he has approved the use of armed predators, and I think today may have been in fact their first mission," he said. The president approved the use of two unmanned aircraft around...

Leadership: As we put CIA boots on the ground to find out who the rebels are and withdraw air support as they retreat, our defense secretary describes how we're making up our policy as we go along. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were on Capitol Hill Thursday in a marathon of congressional testimony trying to explain our ad hoc "kinetic" military actions in Libya and a policy that seems to change and get redefined minute by minute. Among the issues discussed was the decision to remove American close air...

Islamic militant group pledges support to anti-Gadafy rebels Tue, Mar 29, 2011 Leaders deny links to al-Qaeda and promise to rebuild Libya so as to avoid Somalia’s fate, writes MARY FITZGERALD in Ajdabiya, eastern Libya IN A drab villa down a rutted road in Ajdabiya, the key eastern town recaptured last weekend by rebels, sit two leading members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). In the past, the two men, both grizzled veterans of the 1980s jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, would have baulked at the prospect of an interview, let alone given their names or agreed to...