Why Putin Is Winning in Syria
From Rob Dannenberg, The Cipher Brief: “Recent press headlines about Syrian peace talks and a possible ceasefire reflect naivete and false hopes that come from thinking the world is the way we wish it to be and not the way it really is.  Russian President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical gambit in Syria is poorly understood and generally underestimated in the West.” ​

Mideast Self-Reliance Isn’t a Problem—It’s Our Ticket Home
From Bonnie Kristian, RealClearDefense: “The desperate situation in Aleppo, Syria, has long been the subject of international negotiations, but in recent weeks the United States has been increasingly absent. Representatives of Iran, Russia, and Turkey met in Moscow Tuesday to discuss a political solution to Syria’s five-year civil war, and no American diplomat was present. Likewise, Syrian rebel and government forces have directly negotiated civilian evacuations from Aleppo, and earlier this month the rebels spoke independently with Moscow in a quiet series of meetings in Turkey—again, no input from Washington required.”   ​

The United Nations Resolution on Israel
From Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations: “Since the adoption last week the Security Council resolution on Israel, I’ve had my say in The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post condemning the Obama administration’s decision to allow the resolution to pass. The resolution rewards the PLO for refusing to negotiate and adopts its tactic of replacing serious, face-to-face negotiations with useless dramas in New York. It is a danger to Israel. And by refusing to veto, the Obama administration abandoned the usual American practice of defending Israel from what Jeane Kirkpatrick called “the jackals” at the United Nations.” ​

MITVIM Newsletter

U.S., AFGHANISTAN: The Faltering War in Afghanistan
From Saagar Enjeti, The Daily Caller: “The U.S. resolute support command estimates the Taliban control 10 percent of the Afghan population, and contest the U.S. backed Afghan government for another 20 percent. The report notes that the government has been adept at keeping control of major cities in Afghanistan, while continuing to face a “resilient insurgency” in rural areas.”

A car bombing in central Turkey killed 13 soldiers and wounded more than 50 other members of the military on Saturday, the latest in a series of attacks in the country. –New York Times 

Turkish courts last week charged U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson with “membership in an armed terrorist organization,” transferring him to a high-security prison after two months in solitary confinement in a detention center. –Foundation for Defense of Democracies 

Michael Rubin writes: If Erdogan seeks to mobilize—perhaps utilizing not only the emergency powers he claimed in the wake of the coup but also war powers derived from Turkey’s involvement in Syria and Iraq—he can arrest anyone and seize anything he desires. –AEI Ideas

Editorial: Since assuming the nominally ceremonial position of president in 2014, Turkish ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan has aspired to endow it with far-reaching powers, replacing the country’s parliamentary system with something more like what Vladi­mir Putin has established in Russia. –Washington Post ​

A suicide bomber disguised as a policeman detonated himself Sunday outside a military base in the southern port city of Aden, killing at least 52 soldiers and policemen waiting to collect their salaries, officials said. –Washington Post 

Editorial: Over the past 21 months, thousands of civilians have died in the fighting in Yemen, and a humanitarian crisis is escalating. But Yemenis — aware of their country’s status as one of the world’s oldest repositories of civilization, dating back centuries before Christ — voice equal outrage about cultural losses. –Washington Post ​

What Trump Will Get From His Generals
From Paul D. Shinkman, U.S. News & World Report: “Fighting modern foes and stabilizing unstable regions is complex, time-consuming and expensive. The military's official counterinsurgency manual – which Mattis compiled with Petraeus – begins on Page 1 with clear instructions: Fighting an insurgency "involves the application of national power in the political, military, economic, social, information and infrastructure fields and disciplines," it states. "Political and military leaders and planners should never underestimate its scale and complexity; moreover, they should recognize that the Armed Forces cannot succeed in [counter-insurgency] alone."”

Indiana Hoenlein & the Zionist Abraham Lincoln. @conf_of_pres.

"...When Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 there were fewer than 3,000 Jews in the United States. By the time he died there were 150,000. Many of Lincoln’s contemporaries were alarmed by this development. Anti-Semitism, like the plague, had spread from Christian Europe to the New World, but Lincoln, a staunch Christian Republican, stood up for the Jews, much in the same way he would for African-Americans.

Lincoln was a devote student of the Bible and often quoted from the Old Testament in his public speeches. Lincoln rejected the notion held by many Christians of the time that the Jews were responsible for killing the Son of God. He made it a point to treat the Jews with respect right from the beginning of his career. Lincoln boasted many Jewish friends, often represented them in his law practice, and even appointed Jews to offices in his administration. Many Jews served as President Lincoln’s personal advisors."

A number of Lincoln’s generals regarded the Jews as hostile intruders to the North American continent and tried to have them expelled. General Ulysses Grant tried to force them out by issuing an edict barring Jews from selling goods to Union soldiers. Lincoln would have none of it, and confronting his commanding general immediately rescinded the shameful order.

When the Union Army wanted to “appoint Christian Chaplains to care for the spiritual needs of our brave soldiers,” Lincoln insisted on also appointing Jews to serve as chaplains to the army, something that had never been done before. Lincoln then signed the act into law and Jewish chaplains have been serving in the US Armed Forces ever since.

It was Lincoln who was the first to acknowledge the need to recognize Judaism as an official religion of the United States. At the time it was common to call the United States a “Christian Nation.” In order to make sure that the growing Jewish population also be included, Lincoln insisted that America be called “a nation under God.”
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In 1863 Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation declaring that “all slaves under the Confederacy were from then on forever free.” Shortly afterwards, Lincoln met with a Canadian Christian Zionist named Henry Wentworth Monk who explained to him that Jews who were being oppressed in Russia and Turkey also need to be emancipated "by restoring them to their national home in Palestine."..."
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