Backed by Murdoch, Cheney, Rothschild, and others, Genie Energy has been granted drilling rights in Syria's Golan Heights region.

After concluding the flow testing phase, Afek Oil and Gas will now begin analyzing samples drawn from the Ness-2 drilling site, euphemistically dubbed "Deborah's Well," in the Israeli-occupied region of Syria known as the Golan Heights. New Jersey-based Genie Energy, Ltd., Afek's parent company, claims a dubious cadre of investors cum war profiteers, including Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, Lord Jacob Rothschild, James Woolsey — as well as a number of current and former U.S. politicians.

Prior testing at a separate Afek site did not meet expectations, so the company sought other "sweet spots" in the area. Analysis of samples from additional wells will be performed by Afek scientists in conjunction with "external international experts."

To understand U.S. involvement in the quagmire in Syria, Afek's oil exploration is of critical import.

Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights region violates international law — thus, Israeli permits granting Afek the ostensible right to perform exploratory tests of a possible "large reservoir" of natural gas and light oil is [are] also illegal. But in a world where Big Oil remains powerful enough to drive foreign policy of the U.S. empire, this direct violation of the Geneva Convention might not even be worthy of a footnote — except to the people of Syria.

There is no doubt that America is the greatest country today - and in the history of mankind. It feels really silly to even write an article about such an indisputable fact. We are the sole superpower with the biggest economy, the most desired currency, the greatest culture and of course the mightiest (not to mention coolest) military. If you're reading this, you can thank the American innovation called the Internet. Throughout the world, people listen to American music, watch American movies and pay a premium for American brands - from clothing to electronics to food - and dream of immigrating to America. That's called Soft Power, and it's really cool.

Of course, America is not yet a complete paradise where everything is perfect, and there are always those who will nitpick the small details and try to blow them out of proportion. So let's address some of those concerns.

• On July 31st, 2016 the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign. They did not inform congress until March 2017.
• At the beginning of August (1st-3rd) 2016 FBI Agent Peter Strzok traveled to London, England for interviews with UK intelligence officials.
• On August 15th, 2016 Peter Strzok sends a text message to DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page describing the "insurance policy", needed in case Hillary Clinton were to lose the election.

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in the origination OF the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation, and how the FISA court was later used to gain Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page; part of that operation.

The current line of inquiry surrounds the originating "EC" or "electronic communication" that was generated by CIA Director John Brennan and passed on to FBI Director James Comey. The EC initiated the FBI Counterintelligence Operation.

Specifically, House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes has asked about a redacted name within the "EC", which has led to the DOJ and FBI claiming to release the name would compromise the individual.

All of these inquires, and refusals, center around the origination authority for the FBI Counterintelligence operation. The origination led to the FISA warrant. Remember that.

Brushing aside the anguished pleas of our NATO allies, President Trump Tuesday contemptuously trashed the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions.

Prime Minister Theresa May of Great Britain, President Emmanuel Macron of France, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany were put on notice that their ties to Iran are to be severed or secondary sanctions will be imposed on them.

Driving the point home, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin ordered Airbus to cancel its $19 billion contract to sell 100 commercial planes to Iran.

Who is cheering Trump's trashing of the treaty? The neocons who sought his political extinction in 2016, the royals of the Gulf, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC had warned Iranians that the Americans were duplicitous.

After Trump had finished speaking, Bibi launched strikes on Iran's bases in Syria, and flew to Moscow to persuade Vladimir Putin not to give the Iranians any air defense against Israeli attacks.

Iranian forces responded with 20 missiles fired at the Golan, which ignited a massive Israeli counterstrike Thursday night, a 70-missile attack on Iranian bases in Syria.

President Trump isn't afraid to punch on foreign turf, even after getting the red carpet.

The big picture: As the White House prepares for the summit with North Korea in Singapore on June 12 ("a once unimaginable encounter," the N.Y. Times calls it), we've put together a look at [how] President Trump handles foreign leaders when the doors are closed:

• Trump wound up U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer and let him go to town in Beijing when meeting with President Xi Jinping and a whole bunch of Chinese representatives in November.
• In fact, Trump egged Lighthizer on. POTUS asked Lighthizer leading questions at the table in the bilateral meeting, which included Xi and the U.S. and Chinese delegations.
• Trump: "Bob, why don't you walk them all through what our trade deficit is and [how] all these dialogues have produced nothing? ... Take them through the history." Lighthizer was all too happy to do it.

Trump likes to walk into a meeting with a head of state and throw out the protocol, which he believes throws rivals off balance.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton has said the US could sanction European companies that continue to trade with Iran following the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal.

Bolton made the remarks during an appearance on CNN's State of the Union Sunday. Asked if Trump would hit the EU with sanctions for continuing to deal with Iran, Bolton said: "It's possible. It depends on the conduct of other governments."

"The rationale for getting out of the deal is it was contrary to American national security interests when we got into it and it hadn't gotten any better with age."

Bolton suggested that US sanctions could put pressure on the EU to pull out of the agreement as well. "I think the Europeans will see that it's in their interest ultimately to come along with us...I think that will sink in, and we'll see what happens then," he said.

Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear agreement on May 8, almost three years after the deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was agreed. The US president also confirmed the US would re-impose sanctions against Iran - decisions that broke from European allies and put the Middle East at risk of a potential crisis.

Iranian official denies Tehran behind attack: 'We're not in Syria'

'Diplomacy cannot help Iran, resistance only way to confront enemies,' Revolutionary Guard says.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani said Thursday evening that the Islamic Republic does not want "new tensions" in the Middle East, AFP reported, in his first response since the overnight flare-up between Israel and Tehran.

Earlier Thursday, an Iranian official denied that Iran was behind an overnight barrage of missiles on Israel, saying it does not have military forces in Syria, despite the fact that Israel blamed Iran's Revolutionary Guard for the attack.

"Iran does not have any connection to the missiles fired at Israel. If Iran did it we would have announced it immediately. When [ISIS] attacks Iranian targets in Syria we responded and made it known. Iran does not have any military presences in Syria and it was the Syrian army that fired missiles," the deputy head of Iran's national security council.

The elections were initially set for September but were postponed due to the fight against the Daesh terrorist group. The vote will be the first since the liberation of the country from the jihadists.

"Americans are mainly responsible for what happened to Iraq because they were the first to form a government on a base of confessional quotas... It was decided under Paul Bremer's [US Presidential envoy and head of the transitional government during US military presence in Iraq] leadership that Sunnis would get 5 ministerial offices, Shiites - 11, and Kurds - 7. This decision laid the foundation of the discord between confessional and ethnic groups and led us to the situation in modern Iraq with its sectarianism and inter-ethnic hostilities," the former Iraqi Minister of Defense Khaled Yassin al-Obaidi told Sputnik.

Obaidi is also among the leaders of the Victory Alliance, a coalition established by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Major coalitions were put forward by the leading Shiite politicians of the country - Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Vice-President Nuri al-Maliki. There are 6,686 candidates, 2,014 of them women, for 328 seats in the parliament.

So it's come to this. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...and it's the EU that's going to be the deciding factor.

The EU? Really? Sigh.

You may have heard that the US scrapped the Iranian nuclear deal this week, setting off a series of events that could very likely end up in a regional conflagration. But if that's what you heard, then you heard wrong. In actuality, Trump signed an Executive Memorandum on Tuesday that reaffirmed his October 13, 2017 decision to deny re-certification of the JCPOA and lifted sanction waivers promised under that agreement.

Confused? Don't worry, so is mostly everyone else. But here's the bottom line: the "Iran nuclear deal" was not some treaty between the US and Iran. It was a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by China, France, Russia the United Kingdom, the United States, the EU and Iran. In other words, only one player in this seven-member deal is walking away from the table.

This is not a trivial distinction. What it means is that it is still perfectly possible that the other signatories to the agreement could continue on with the agreement or hammer out some replacement for it. At the very least, Europe could stand up to Washington's sanctions regime...if they followed Mish Shedlock's advice and "Grow a Backbone on Something Important," that is. As Mish points out, billions of dollars of European business are on the line. That money will be lost if the Europeans just roll over and accept US demands to wind down all business in Iran in the next three to six months.

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters doesn't want to hear any talk about making America great, especially if it's coming from a straight white man.

Waters went off the rails at a recent House debate when Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly had the audacity to suggest the country needed to shift focus from what divides to what unites.