Category Archives: #StopIran

Digesting Putin today and in the Near Future

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CNN: President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet during next week’s gathering of the United Nations General Assembly, a senior administration official said. The official noted the meeting comes “at the request of President Putin.”

“Given the situations in Ukraine and Syria, despite our profound differences with Moscow, the President believes that it would be irresponsible not to test whether we can make progress through high-level engagement with the Russians,” the official said.

White House officials have repeatedly complained about Russia’s recent military buildup in Syria, a move the Kremlin insists is aimed at defeating ISIS. But Obama administration officials suspect Putin is attempting to gain a foothold in the war-torn country should it collapse under the weight of a bloody civil war.

“Russia’s decision to double down on Assad is a losing bet,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, accusing Putin of propping up Syria’s embattled leader, Bashar al-Assad.

During their bilateral discussion, Obama will press Putin to deescalate tensions in Eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian forces continue to clash with the Ukrainian military.

RussiaDirect: At the UN later this month, Vladimir Putin will likely eschew the bombastic and hypocritical statements about Russia’s role in the world that many Western analysts are expecting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazan, Russia on July 24, 2015. Photo: AP

According to numerous forecasts, the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, scheduled to start in late September this year, could be the scene of a blazing rhetorical battle.

The General Assembly will feature speeches by the heads of the world’s leading countries, with U.S. President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani potentially mounting the rostrum in sequence on Sept. 28, the very first day of the gathering.

Of course, the ceremonial nature of the 70th anniversary of the event will leave a mark on the content of the speeches, and the leaders of the great powers are unlikely to set about listing their grievances without prolix preambles and platitudes.

Rather, attentive listeners will have to read between the lines and fish out their own interpretations from the stream of evasive phrases and allusions.

However, such sessions always demand the appearance of a maverick speaker to tear up the script and add spice to the staid proceedings. In previous years, the presidents of Iran and Venezuela have played this role, but at the 70th Session of the General Assembly the odds-on favorite is Putin.

 Recommended: “Putin UN trip might lead to a second Munich in New York.” 

All eyes and ears will be tuned to the Russian president for potentially scandalous denunciations of the United States and its allies, and off-the-wall solutions to international exigencies. Journalists, of course, would love for him to sail close to the wind, thereby livening up their reports and ensuring a wider audience.

But all told, one must be prepared for the fact that such expectations might be in vain. Neither can it be ruled out that Putin will suddenly decide to subcontract his UN speech to a subordinate.

in today’s international climate, particularly in the UN, it is hard for the Russian president to take the moral high ground over his opponents

The fact is that in today’s international climate, particularly in the UN, it is hard for the Russian president to take the moral high ground over his opponents. And without the certainty of victory, Putin will not act — or will at least limit himself to a formal address.

From the Atlantic Council:

The Kremlin says Russia will take countermeasures if the U.S. places new nuclear weapons at a base in Germany.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s comments, reported Wednesday by Russian news agencies, came in response to a report by Germany’s ZDF television. The report said that preparation is underway by the U.S. to station B61-12 nuclear bombs at Buechel Air Base in Germany.

ZDF said its information was based on examination of U.S. federal budget reports. The claim couldn’t immediately be confirmed….

Peskov said “unfortunately, if this step is implemented … it may disrupt the strategic balance in Europe and therefore will clearly make Russia take corresponding countermeasures to re-establish the balance.”

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From RussiaDirect:

In the middle of September, the Russian authorities closed the American Center at the Russian State Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow. This happened after 22 years of the center’s activity in the sphere of bilateral cultural exchanges and shortly after the death of Ekaterina Genieva, a famous librarian and cultural critic as well as former president of George Soros’ Open Society Institute in Russia, who did her best as the director of the library to prevent this move.

Closing the American Center is the next step in the Russian authorities’ general campaign against “foreign agents,” primarily, American ones. Over the past two years, American centers across Russia have been shut down. Nearly one year ago, Russia cancelled the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program – the largest educational exchange program between Russia and the U.S.

Putin continues to challenge NATO and those states with an established NATO relationship or getting military support with particular emphasis on the United States. The matter of Ukraine and the Baltic States is far from being settled.

RFEU: NATO has expressed concern after a news report that Russia is building a large military base near its border with Ukraine.

Speaking to RFE/RL on September 10, a NATO spokesman said that, “Overall, NATO remains concerned about Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine’s borders and its continued attempts to destabilize Ukraine.”

Reuters reported on September 9 that Moscow had started building a major military base in Belgorod Oblast, which abuts the Luhansk region of Ukraine that has been a hotspot of conflict between Ukrainian forces and separatists that NATO says are being trained and reinforced by Russian troops.

The report said workers were erecting a perimeter fence at the alleged site, near the town of Valuiki, less than 20 kilometers from Ukrainian territory.

Citing public documents, the news agency said the Defense Ministry is building the base on a 300-hectare site.

The facility is to house ammunition depots and barracks for 3,500 soldiers, as well as a recreation center with a skating rink and a swimming pool.

The ministry says it plans to use the base to train soldiers on artillery and army air defense, as well as in driving armored vehicles. The plan includes a site for studying the tactics of the U.S. military.

 

The Hajj Horror in Saudi Arabia

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One of the 5 pillars of Islam requires those that can make to journey to do so. It is a 5 day event with rituals attached.

There is a stoning ceremony and the whole annual event cost Saudi Arabia over a billion dollars to the bridge to the pilgrims for the stoning ceremony.

Hajj stampede

FNC: Saudi Arabian authorities said Thursday that at least 717 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured in a stampede near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where an estimated 2 million people are undertaking the traditional hajj pilgrimage.

Reuters, citing Saudi state television, reported that the stampede took place in Mina, a tent city located approximately three miles east of Mecca itself. The area is on the main road from the center of Mecca to the Hill of Arafat, revered by Muslims as the place where Muhammad gave his farewell sermon to Muslims who had accompanied him to Mecca near the end of his life.

Photos released by the Saudi civil defense directorate on its official Twitter account showed rescue workers in orange and yellow vests helping the wounded onto stretchers and loading them onto ambulances near some of the white tents.

The circumstances of the stampede were not immediately clear. However, Thursday marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is traditionally the most dangerous day of the pilgrimage because so many people attempt to perform rituals in the same place simultaneously.

There has been a history of crowd tragedies during the hajj, which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in their life.

In 2006, 364 pilgrims were killed in a stampede at the entrance to a bridge leading to the site in Mina where pilgrims carry out a symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against three stone walls. In 2004, 244 people were trampled to death on the final day of the hajj ceremonies.

In the lead-up to this year’s hajj, at least 111 people are killed and scores wounded when a crane collapsed in bad weather and crashed onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.

However, none of these tragedies comes close to matching the deadliest recorded accident during a hajj. That happened in 1990, when 1,426 were trampled or suffocated in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to Mecca’s holy sites.

Secret Iran Nuclear Inspections, a Proven Fraud

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The lies began in the White House with regard to the anytime any location inspections.

John Kerry is defending the IAEA and Iran fraud on the Parchin inspection that occurred last week.

Washington (CNN) The Obama administration is acknowledging that Iranians would be involved in inspections of the sensitive Parchin military site under a draft arrangement with the U.N., but officials are stressing that they are not the only ones who would be investigating the Iranian location long believed to have hosted covert militarized nuclear activity.

A senior State Department official said that the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, would have “total oversight” of sampling and inspections of Parchin under the agreement between the agency and Iran over access to the site.

“Iran is not self-inspecting,” the official said, though this official would not deny that Iranian inspectors will “play a role.”

It seems likely that IAEA staff would either be present or watching via video camera when the Iranians take samples from the site, a practice that the international nuclear agency has used in previous inspections agreements.

A senior administration official, meanwhile, said that while Iranians may be taking the samples at Parchin, individuals from other countries will be a part of their analysis. The official noted that the arrangement satisfies the demands of the IAEA. More details here.

What the secret nuclear inspection accord between Iran and the UN says _ and what others say

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press

VIENNA (AP) — An AP report has revealed that the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed with Iran that Iranian experts and equipment will be used to inspect Iran’s Parchin military site, located not far from Tehran, where Iran is suspected of conducting covert nuclear weapons activity more than a decade ago.

Here are some questions and answers about the document, and what it means for the larger deal between Iran, the United States and five other world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions against Iran.

WHAT HAVE IRAN AND THE IAEA AGREED?

According to a draft document viewed by AP, Iran has agreed to cooperate with the U.N. in answering longstanding allegations about possible past work to develop nuclear weapons at its Parchin plant — but only with the Iranians conducting the inspections themselves. Iran would collect its own environmental samples on the site and carry out other work usually done by IAEA experts. The IAEA will be able to review the Iranians’ work after the fact. The deal on Parchin was between the IAEA and Iran. The Obama Administration was not a direct party to the agreement, but apparently was aware of it.

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WHAT DO OPPONENTS OF THE DEAL SAY?

Opponents of the broader deal are seizing an opportunity to say the entire exercise of negotiating with Iran is flawed, that it relies too much on trust of the Iranian government.

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WHAT DOES THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SAY?

The Obama administration and other supporters say the wider agreement say it is focused on the future, with ample inspections, and that the side accord between Iran and the IAEA is focused on Iran’s activities in the past and therefore is not central to the overall deal.

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HOW UNUSUAL IS THE AGREEMENT ON PARCHIN?

Any IAEA inspection of a country suspected of nuclear irregularities is usually carried out by agency experts. They may take swipes of residue on equipment, sample the air or take soil samples in attempts to look for signs of clandestine work on atomic arms or other potentially dangerous unreported activity.

The document on Parchin, however, will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny — past work on nuclear weapons. It says “Iran will provide” the agency with environmental samples. It restricts the number of samples at the suspect site to seven and to an unspecified number “outside of the Parchin complex” at a site that still needs to be decided.

The U.N. agency will take possession of the samples for testing, as usual. Iran will also provide photos and video of locations to be inspected. But the document suggests that areas of sensitive military activity remain out of bounds. The draft says the IAEA will “ensure the technical authenticity of the activities” carried out by the Iranians — but it does not say how.

In contrast, the main nuclear deal with Iran gives IAEA experts greatly expanded authority compared to what it has now to monitor Iranian nuclear activities as it works to ensure that Tehran is hewing to its commitments; reducing the scope and output of programs that Iran says it needs to generate energy but which can also be turned to making the fissile core of atomic weapons.

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WHY IS THE PARCHIN AGREEMENT IMPORTANT?

Any indication that the IAEA is diverging from established inspection rules could weaken the agency, the world’s nuclear watchdog with 164 members, and feed suspicions that it is ready to overly compromise in hopes of winding up a probe that has essentially been stalemated for more than a decade.

Politically, the arrangement has been grist for American opponents of the broader separate agreement to limit Iran’s future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Critics have complained that the wider deal is built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.

The separate agreement on past nuclear activities does not affect the broader deal signed in July. And it doesn’t appear yet that the revelation will change any votes in Congress for or against a resolution of disapproval, which President Barack Obama is expected to veto if it passes.

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HOW DID THIS AGREEMENT HAPPEN?

It could be a matter of priorities.

The Obama administration’s main focus in the broader Iran deal — signed by the U.S., Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — is crimping Iran’s present nuclear activities so they cannot be used in the future toward making a bomb. Faced with more than a decade of Iranian resistance to IAEA attempts to probe the allegations of past weapons work at Parchin, there may be a willingness to settle for an agency report that is less than definitive — and methods that deviate from usual practices.

The IAEA also appears to have recognized that Iran will continue to insist the allegations are lies, based on false U.S., Israeli and other intelligence. After a decade of stalemate it wants to close the books on the issue and allow the U.N. Security Council to do so as well.

The alternative might well have been no inspection at Parchin any kind.

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WHAT DOES THE IAEA SAY?

Director General Yukiya Amano says, “The arrangements are technically sound and consistent with our long-established practices. They do not compromise our … standards in any way.” He says agreements with Iran on clearing up the nuclear arms allegations “are confidential and I have a legal obligation not to make them public – the same obligation I have for hundreds of such arrangements made with other IAEA member states.”

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WHAT DO OTHERS SAY?

Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House: “We are confident in the agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran’s former program, issues that in some cases date back more than a decade. Just as importantly, the IAEA is comfortable with the arrangements, which are unique to the agency’s investigation of Iran’s historical activities.”

Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran investigation as IAEA deputy director general from 2005 through 2010, says he can think of no similar arrangement — a country essentially allowed to carry out much of the probe of suspicions against it.

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HOW CRUCIAL IS PARCHIN TO THE OVERALL DEAL?

U.S. intelligence officials do not consider the Parchin inspections a critical part of the broader deal, according to one official, commenting only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted. The U.S. believes most weapons work occurred there in 2003, the official says, and the site has been thoroughly cleaned up since then.

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AP Intelligence Writer Ken Dilanian contributed to this report.

Why No Search Warrant for Hillary’s Mobile Devices?

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The revelation that Hillary had her own email server was a shocker. Then the forced and scheduled production of those emails was another shocker as they were produced. The Trey Gowdy House Benghazi Committee being stonewalled by the Clinton camp and by the State Department was another shocker as compared with Hillary’s own false pledges of cooperation. Several outside organizations have been forced to file FOIA requests and then were forced to file lawsuits for production of those FOIA requests. This is coupled with the subpoenas from the Gowdy commission.

We hear about the server and the emails, but to date, it seems any request for search warrants has been nil. We cannot overlook the fact that Hillary also had and may still have 3 mobile devices, a Blackberry, and iPhone and an iPad. What about the electronic data on those devices or the meta-data trail to either back up the server data or perhaps in addition to that cache the FBI is investigating?

To date, the general conclusion is the FBI is protecting Hillary at the behest of the Justice Department, which hardly seems to be the case. The FBI has assigned their ‘A’ team to this mission and they have a multi-track objective that includes global cyber- espionage, hacking and a meticulous investigation to determine just how many laws were broken beyond the scope of the one or two prevailing violations of protecting classified material. It must be mentioned here that the FBI was also a recipient from the normal intelligence distribution list, so the FBI has their own record of transmissions that went to Hillary and other intelligence or national security personnel.

It would also be a good time as well to include the fact that the Chinese hacked the Office of Personnel management and was able to capture files of all security clearance employees which included Hillary. It is estimate that the OPM hack was determined to have occurred in June of 2014, a year or so after Hillary left her position as Secretary of State, but that OPM hack date is an estimate. Further the depths of the stolen electronic files are still being realized and those numbers are growing exponentially. Were they other known foreign hacks the FBI has open case files on, beyond the OPM intrusion?

This is an important and perhaps a top concern for the FBI, the NSA and associated cyber agencies to determine other possible foreign hacks into Hillary’s electronic files and those of her inner circle personnel. This could in fact be the single reason why the White House or the Obama National Security Council has chosen to defer answers and comments on the Hillary server-gate scandal to either the Department of Justice or the FBI. There is a high probability of a deeper and more threatening security condition of classified material. There could be the likelihood of other cyber intrusions being investigated by the FBI that have not been made public for which Hillary and her team may have been victims.

Anyway, this is hardly a matter that will be solved soon, yet it is a sure bet that almost daily more will bubble to the surface. Meanwhile, Politico has published a fairly good summary as to why Hillary and her lawyers are white knuckled and in panic mode at this moment.

One also cannot omit the entire notion that violations on behalf of Hillary, Bill, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and others at the Clinton Foundation or at the State Department could add to the building nightmares for those mentioned or for the Hillary legal team headed by David Kendall. Mixing government business with a private and global foundation where big big money moved back and forth could be the cherry on the banana split for this building scandal.

Hillary’s FBI nightmare

If the feds have Clinton’s personal emails, too, some of them are bound to come out — exactly as she feared.

The next question in the Hillary Clinton email matter is who will force the FBI to release any documents it may have retrieved from the 2016 presidential candidate’s homemade server — Congress or the courts?

The answer: A federal judge may decide to get aggressive and order the law enforcement agency to turn over any newly discovered records or at least preserve them pending further court action. But don’t expect congressional subpoenas to fly — or FBI director James Comey to get hauled to Capitol Hill anytime soon.

Key congressional committees investigating Clinton’s emails argue that the courts are better suited to force the release of federal documents. One GOP source familiar with the investigations said a congressional committee could “theoretically subpoena the FBI” to demand the contents of Clinton’s server, but judges are likely to wade into the issue first.

“I think the court is better positioned right now because of where the cases are in litigation,” the source said.

Court action, however, depends on the aggressiveness of federal judges who are now managing more than 30 Freedom of Information Act cases involving emails on accounts maintained by Clinton or her top aides.

The FBI has already rebuffed one judge’s effort to obtain messages the agency has recovered from Clinton’s server, prompting a stinging attack from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Wednesday, key members of Capitol Hill expressed reluctance to dive in after a report surfaced that the FBI has successfully retrieved messages left on Clinton’s server. The FBI declined to confirm the Bloomberg report Wednesday.

House Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy — a former federal prosecutor — made clear through a spokesman that he has no intention to cross swords with the FBI.

“Chairman Gowdy has not asked the FBI about its investigation into Secretary Clinton’s unusual and unprecedented email arrangement, nor has the Bureau offered a briefing to the committee,” Benghazi panel spokesman Jamal Ware said.

“The chairman believes the FBI is the nation’s premier law enforcement agency and he is not willing to comment on its ongoing investigation into the mishandling of classified information in connection with Secretary Clinton’s server.”

Grassley said he was concerned by anonymous leaks cited in the Bloomberg story, noting that the FBI has not responded to congressional inquiries about the investigation.

“You know it is getting a little absurd when someone at the Justice Department is apparently leaking details to the press about an investigation that the department officially refuses to admit to Congress that it is conducting,” Grassley said.

“In light of the details reported in the media, the committee will be seeking more information about the State Department’s attempts to regain possession of the email records that should have remained at the State Department in the first place. The FBI should also provide clarity on how it will handle the emails now that they have been recovered from the server.”

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he was “hopeful” that the results of the FBI inquiry will be made public. He promised to press his own inquiry but offered no specifics.

Regardless of what Congress decides to do, Hillary Clinton’s decision to have a tech firm she hired turn the server over to the FBI last month at its request greatly raises the potential that messages she has claimed to be private will eventually make it into the public domain, lawyers tracking the case said. Clinton has said that she had tens of thousands of emails deleted after determining that they contained personal information, but now the FBI appears to have at least some of those in its possession.

“This is enormously significant,” said Dan Metcalfe, a former top Justice Department official handling disclosure issues. “It’s one thing for the bureau to have taken control of the server itself, and when you add to that their technical capabilities to glean information from it, if there is information there that transcends what [Clinton] furnished to State, I think the odds are exceedingly high that that at least some if not all of that information will ultimately enter the public domain.”

While State and the National Archives have determined that about 1,500 of the 30,000 emails Clinton turned over last December are entirely personal records, that determination won’t render those messages or others entirely and indefinitely off limits under the Freedom of Information Act if they turn up in the FBI’s files after being extracted from Clinton’s server, Metcalfe said.

“Those are no longer merely personal records,” said Metcalfe, a former director of Justice’s Office of Information & Privacy who now teaches law at American University. “Anything that the bureau pulls off that server, old messages, new messages, Hillary’s allegedly personal messages, Hillary’s admittedly official records is now an agency record of the bureau’s law enforcement activities.”

Metcalfe said those records could be withheld by the FBI, but once its investigation ends, the documents would have to be processed if requested. That could lead to messages State viewed as entirely personal being published at least in part, he added.

Meanwhile, action continues in the courts. On Monday, the FBI turned down U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s invitation to explain where its investigation stands. The response led Grassley to blast the FBI for “behaving like it’s above the law.”

Sullivan has not yet signaled what other steps he will take, if any. The plaintiff in the case, the conservative group Judicial Watch, could ask the judge to issue a subpoena to the FBI for relevant records. It would be an unusual step and likely lead to legal fireworks.

“A subpoena served upon the FBI will be resisted by the U.S. attorney’s office,” predicted former federal magistrate John Facciola.

At a hearing earlier this month in another case, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton seemed uncomfortable with the idea that Clinton and her attorneys had the final call in determining that over 31,000 emails from her private account were purely personal.

“We’re not sure exactly what type of evaluation was made of that 31,000 messages,” the judge said.

Clinton’s lawyers have argued that government employees generally have the right to determine whether emails or other records are personal and delete them. The Justice Department backed Clinton — to a point — in a recent legal brief, while stopping short of saying that a former government employee such as Clinton has the right to independently make such a determination nearly two years after leaving the government.

Walton said the scenario that played out doesn’t really fit others the courts have previously addressed.

“This is sort of a unique situation,” the judge said. “The State Department never had possession of these records.”

Still, not all judges may be interested in delving into any Clinton files now in the possession of the FBI, particularly if it appears Congress is punting the issue to the courts.

“Congress has different and more powerful ways to obtain information from the State Department than a FOIA plaintiff,” Judge Rosemary Collyer wrote in an order Monday rejecting one group’s arguments that it needed prompt access to Clinton-related emails to aid Congress in getting to the bottom of the Benghazi attacks.

Another challenge for Congress is that it could be disturbing precedent by trying to bring in an outside party to verify that Clinton has turned over all her official emails or even those relevant to the Benghazi attacks. Usually, the recipient of a subpoena turns over what he or she deems responsive, not a broader set of records for someone else to review. “The way we’ve always had is a process of self-production,” Facciola said.

In cases involving search warrants for electronic records, courts have sometimes appointed magistrates to go through the records and sift out what law enforcement really needs. But the question these days is more often about how the computer that does the sorting should be programmed and who gets to decide that.

“That’s the real battle going on,” Facciola said. “Oftentimes, the technicians who create these programs don’t even agree on one methodology. … How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?”

 

 

 

 

 

Honest Summary of Obama vs. Syria and Putin

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There are gratifying moments when honest assessments are written. We often think we have a handle on conditions both on domestic policy and that of foreign policy. Personally, this blogger think she has most conditions and circumstances figured out while motivations and other objectives remain in question. I want to see the world through others eyes, from those that own bona fides and the resume where omissions on my part are checked and re-checked.

When it comes to the National Security Council running operations in the Middle East with regard to Iraq and Syria, one must challenge those decisions and seek the grander realities. Even the White House has admitted the NatSec team is too big, but is firing on all cylinders. What?

In recent weeks, Russia has taken a proactive, aggressive posture as well as a military stance in Syria, a country he knows well and the reason is, Obama retreated handing Putin an alternate set of keys to access the region on his own terms.

John Schindler writes below a summary I find is in full agreement with my own conclusion, yet the big question in the elephant in the room….what now?

Obama’s Collapsing War on the Islamic State

For the Obama administration, the news from the Middle East keeps going from bad to worse. Vladimir Putin’s power play, moving significant military forces into Syria to support his ailing client, Bashar al-Assad, caught the White House flat footed and unsure how to respond.

Although the administration gave the Kremlin de facto control over American policy in Syria some two years ago when it walked away from its own “red line,” granting Russia a veto on Western action there, President Obama and his national security staff nevertheless seem befuddled by this latest Russian move.

The forces Mr. Putin has just deployed to Syria are impressive, veteran special operators backed by a wing of fighters and ground attack jets that are expected to commence air strikes on Assad’s foes soon. They are backed by air defense units, which is puzzling since the Islamic State has no air force, indicating that the Kremlin’s true intent in Syria has little to do with the stated aim of fighting terrorism and is really about propping up Russia’s longtime client in Damascus.

The White House is left planning “deconfliction” with Moscow—which is diplomatic language for entreating Russians, who now dominate Syrian airspace, not to shoot down American drones, which provide the lion’s share of our intelligence on the Islamic State. The recent meeting on Syrian developments between Mr. Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who clearly finds dealing with the Russian strongman preferable to parleying with President Obama, indicates where power is flowing in today’s Middle East.

This is about much more than merely “cherry-picking” intelligence.

To make matters worse for the administration, new revelations regarding flawed intelligence assessments of the Islamic State, which I told you about last week, paint a troubling portrait of organized lying at the Pentagon. Some of the more than 50 analysts at Central Command in Tampa who blew the whistle on politicized intelligence reported feeling “bullied” to make their assessments of the U.S.-led war on the Islamic State appear more successful than the facts warranted. This is about much more than merely “cherry-picking” intelligence.

One named whistleblower has come forward about CENTCOM’s intelligence problems, explaining that he witnessed persistent, command-mandated low-balling of terrorist threats in Iraq since the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Rising terrorism in Iraq was “off message” for the White House, eager to pronounce jihadism there as dead as its leader.

David Shedd, who until recently was the acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which supplies CENTCOM with many of its analysts, spoke for colleagues still serving with his caution that such rampant politicization of intelligence cannot be tolerated. In language sure to cause heartburn at the White House, Mr. Shedd stated, “the problem is not a stand-alone case but systemic.” In response, Congress has taken interest in the allegations and President Obama’s problems there are only now starting to take political shape.

An even greater blow to President Obama’s diffident war against the Islamic State, known to the Pentagon as Operation Inherent Resolve, came this week with the stunning news that John Allen, the White House’s “war czar,” is stepping down this fall. In that job for almost exactly a year, Mr. Allen, a retired Marine four-star general whose last uniformed position was commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, enjoyed a bumpy tenure thanks to frequent meddling by West Wing staffers.

Mr. Allen, ostensibly charged with managing the war across agencies in tandem with allies, was unable to secure the military assets he believed were needed to defeat the Islamic State, for instance meeting strong White House resistance to his plans to put air controllers on the ground to guide airstrikes by Western forces. Although Mr. Allen has portrayed his resignation as a personal matter, due to his wife’s health problems, Pentagon insiders insist this an excuse to save face—mainly President Obama’s.

The main culprit is micromanagement by White House staffers, especially on the National Security Council, which is bloated and regularly treats senior military officers and diplomats like hired help. Obscenity-laced tirades by senior NSC staff are not uncommon. To make matters worse, significant differences between the NSC and the Pentagon on how to defeat the Islamic State went unresolved for months, leading to lethargy inside the Beltway while U.S. theater commanders were close to panicking about the enemy’s rise. Mr. Allen eventually had enough.

Now the White House needs to find a replacement who’s up to the job, which looks to be no easy task. “Good luck with that,” stated a senior Pentagon official, “I doubt they’ll find another four-star eager to be the dog who catches that car.” A senior NATO official explained that Mr. Allen’s departure “is really a serious blow. We had little confidence before in President Obama’s ability to defeat Daesh,” the Arabic term for the Islamic State. “Now we have none.”

As long as Mr. Putin calibrates his strategy to realistic expectations, he may avoid the overreach disasters that plagued the American wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Allen is leaving an administration in disarray in the Middle East. President Obama’s promise to grow a “moderate” Syrian opposition force of thousands, able to serve as an alternative to Assad and the jihadists alike, is in tatters, with only a handful of fighters remaining. The resulting gap has been filled by the Russians, who have entered the Levantine fray with gusto and purpose.

Secretary of State John Kerry presented the deployment of Russian jet fighters to Syria as “basically force protection,” but Pentagon planners are less charitable in their assessments. “The only ‘force’ the Russians are protecting themselves from with Su-30s,” referring to the four modern fighters deployed to Syria, “is the U.S. Air Force,” one military officer said to me.

Some Pentagon staffers are taking comfort in hopes that the Russians will find themselves mired in a messy stalemate in Syria, whose civil war has raged for four bloody and indecisive years already. That may be optimistic, however, as Russian spies and soldiers have served in Syria for over a half-century and many of them are well acquainted with Syrian realities. As long as Mr. Putin calibrates his strategy to realistic expectations, he may avoid the overreach disasters that plagued the American wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

What happens next in Syria is the top guessing game among security experts the world over right now. Has Mr. Putin finally gone too far? Can anything be salvaged from that awful conflict that could serve Western interests while stopping the rise of the Islamic State—and perhaps even save innocent lives? What is the aim of Operation Inherent Resolve now that General Allen is leaving the stage? All that’s certain at this point is that President Obama’s flailing war against the Islamic State is looking for a strategy as well as a new czar.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a navy officer and a war college professor.