J.E. Dyer

Iran, Assad, and Hezbollah tried to sneak in yet another high-value arms shipment via the Damascus Airport. Israel's destroying the shipment is a reminder of the IDF’s readiness to react immediately

In military planning terms, Soleimani was the operational center of gravity for Iran’s proxy campaign throughout the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. That operational center of gravity just received a knockout blow.

ISIS is executing, slowly but surely, a pincer move on Baghdad.

This fight must be to win.

We’ve reached a watershed here, where we either live in our own heads affirming reality, regardless of spurious inputs from demagoguery or sentiment, or we give up on reality and let demagoguery and sentiment take over at the decision table. Did the president pull off a performance last night, in terms of sounding passionate and full of conviction? To some extent, yes. Does that mean he won the debate, or even achieved a draw with Romney? No.

Local officials are offering different explanations for the blast that rocked Esfahan (also spelled Isfahan) a few hours ago. It will be some time before there is enough information to make a good assessment, but a few things can be said now.

Israel has never invoked the agreement, but Israel sources say that its importance lies in its very existence.

Hamas' purpose was to attack the unity of the de facto Middle East coalition – a coalition against radical Iran – forming through the Abraham Accords.  The premise of the attack was that framing the conflict as a response to an outrage against Al Aqsa, and forcing Israel to strike back hard, would peel away the Arab partners to the Abraham Accords.

To advance our objectives in the War on Terror there was and will be nothing to justify the extra-judicial, standoff-distance execution of a US citizen.

Nukes aren’t something you wave around like a drunk brandishing a knife.

Romney sees the Navy as a core element of our enduring strategic posture. For national defense and for the protection of trade, the United States has from the beginning sought to operate in freedom on the seas, and, where necessary, to exercise control of them. We are a maritime nation, with extremely long, shipping-friendly coastlines in the temperate zone and an unprecedented control of the world’s most traveled oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific.

Robert Mackey at New York Times’ The Lede has a Friday post entitled “Crisis in Syria Looks Very Different on Satellite Channels Owned by...

Chuck Hagel writes his own narrative, in which threats aren’t really threats and policies that actually work are just horrible.

How should an American president use the military in an intimidating, persuasive manner, to induce Iran to give up her nuclear-weapons purpose? Very little has been discussed on this topic in the forums of punditry; virtually all treatments focus on the feasibility or proper method of a military attack campaign. Is there an “intimidation option,” short of a shooting war? And if so, what would it look like?

Probably the most overlooked aspect of the “flags on the sidewalk” phenomenon in Iran is that, as the regime paints those flags everywhere, hoping Iranians will step on them, it is basically symbolizing its – the regime’s – effective “occupation” by its obsession with the Great Satan and the Little Satan.

Monday, November 11, Russia’s Slava-class missile cruiser Varyag pulled into Alexandria for the Russian navy’s first port visit in Egypt since 1992.

The White House wanted to defame Netanyahu, undermine his reputation, impugn him & his policies

In the last weeks of the talks the US excluded every other delegation from negotiations with Iran.

Missile tests popping up all over Asia should be seen in this light. Everyone’s arming up, starting with Russia

Attacks from Gaza on Israel have ramped up significantly in the last several days. An Israeli patrol was hit by what was thought to be a roadside bomb on Tuesday (three were wounded), near the border fence with Gaza. On Saturday, terrorists in Gaza fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep with four infantrymen in it, as the patrol operated in the area of the roadside bomb attack. The four soldiers were wounded, one severely. More than 80 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel since the attack on the jeep on Saturday, 10 November. At least three Israeli civilians were injured in the rocket attacks. Geography is beginning to rear its head again, as Israel has also sustained incursions into the Golan from Syria in recent days.

The source of the report claiming that Israeli F-35 strike-fighters flew into Iranian airspace during the past month was a sensationalist Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. So the claim seems most suspect.

The year 1984, by Gregorian reckoning, came and went, and Americans seemed to have dodged the Nineteen-Eighty-Four bullet. We weren’t being interned for reeducation by a Ministry of Love. Although conservative, constitutionalist, limited-government ideas came under relentless attack in the mainstream media and the academy, those who expressed the ideas remained free to do so. (They in fact became freer with the lifting under Reagan of the genuinely Orwellian-named “Fairness Doctrine.”) In 2012, the atmosphere has changed.

The long and short of the "Trump/Russia-election" line of attack is that the Obama Democrats can’t run it without implicating every unsightly thing the Obama administration did to set it up.

Was Cruz’s Stand an “Alamo” moment?

The mainstream media and the Left keep telling you everything is in chaos and everyone hates Trump.None of it's true. It’s amazing how much of the supposedly factual reporting turns out to be false.

Got your amendments right here, Mr. President

The U.S. leaving Syria won’t mean Syria descending into chaos. I can’t say I like what it does mean for Syria. But chaos is not in the offing.

We must not let our concept of the purpose and character of a tax be corrupted, precisely because taxing us is a power accorded Congress in the Constitution. The definition of “tax” is, in fact, the most important limit on what Congress can do with its power to tax. In the wake of the Obamacare ruling, defining “tax” is defending our liberty – or, from the opposite perspective, attacking it.

There is now NO possible explanation for not evacuating at least non-essential personnel from the U.S. embassy and consulates in Iraq.

Shadow battle with Iran continues