The US has failed to fulfil its commitments in accordance with the Russia-US agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Syria. On September 19, Syrian government forces said they were pulling out of the agreement in view of multiple violations by the rebels the United States was responsible for. On September 17, the US-led coalition delivered air strikes against Syrian government forces near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor in gross violation of the deal.

The failure to keep its side of the bargain has put into question the credibility of the United States and raised the issue of America's future role in the post-conflict peacebuilding. With Turkey, a US NATO ally, padding its own canoe and US-supported rebels hurling insults at American special operators, the clout of the United States in Syria seems to be far from being overwhelming.

With its credibility greatly damaged, America can hardly be viewed as a reliable partner anymore.

The US is certainly not the only major player in the field. With the government of Bashar Assad firmly in power, the post-war settlement is no longer seen as a pipe dream but Washington will hardly be the one to call all the shots.

On September 9^th the Washington Post featured a front page article describing how the Defense Department had used warplanes to attack targets and kill suspected militants in six countries over the Labor Day weekend. The article was celebratory, citing Pentagon officials who boasted of the ability to engage "multiple targets" anywhere in the world in what has become a "permanent war." The article did not mention that the United States is not currently at war with any of the six target countries and made no attempt to make a case that the men and women who were killed actually threatened the U.S. or American citizens.

Actual American interests in fighting a war without limits and without an end were not described. They never are. Indeed, in the U.S. and elsewhere many citizens often wonder how certain government policies like the Washington's war on terror can persist in spite of widespread popular opposition or clear perceptions that they are either ineffective or even harmful. This persistence of policies regarding which there is no debate is sometimes attributed to a "deep state."

Forget about those endless meetings between Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry; forget about Russia's drive to prevent chaos from reigning in Syria; forget about the possibility of a real ceasefire being implemented and respected by US jihad proxies.

Forget about the Pentagon investigating what really happened around its bombing 'mistake' in Deir Ezzor.

The definitive proof of the Empire of Chaos's real agenda in Syria may be found in a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document declassified in May last year.

As you scroll down the document, you will find page 291, section C, which reads (in caps, originally):

THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION... THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN).

The DIA report is a formerly classified SECRET/NOFORN document, which made the rounds of virtually the whole alphabet soup of US intel, from CENTCOM to CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA and the State Department.

It establishes that over four years ago US intel was already hedging its bets between established al-Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, and the emergence of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, aka the Islamic State.

It's already in the public domain that by a willful decision, leaked by current Donald Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Washington allowed the emergence of the Islamic State - remember that gleaming white Toyota convoy crossing the open desert? - as a most convenient US strategic asset, and not as the enemy in the remixed, never-ending GWOT (Global War on Terra).

It's as clear as it gets; a "Salafist principality" is to be encouraged as a means to Divide and Rule over a fragmented Syria in perpetual chaos. Whether it's established by Jabhat al-Nusra - aka "moderate rebels" in Beltway jargon - or al-Baghdadi's "Califake" is just a pesky detail.

It gets curioser and curioser as Hasaka and Deir Ezzor are named in the DIA report - and directly targeted by the 'mistaken' Pentagon bombing. No wonder Pentagon chief Ash 'Empire of Whining' Carter took no prisoners to directly sabotage what Kerry had agreed on with Lavrov.

No one will ever see these connections established by US corporate media - as in, for instance, the neocon cabal ruling the Washington Post's editorial pages. But the best of the blogosphere does not disappoint.

The world is unprepared for how vulnerable it is to attack from the skies, argues a major new paper from Chatham House

The world is dangerously unprepared for a global disaster sparked by cyber attacks on space infrastructure, experts have warned.

Authorities are not doing nearly enough to stop space assets being hacked and used maliciously, according to a warning from security experts. The consequences of such a hack could be disastrous - anything from damage to trade and financial services to terrorists taking over strategic weapons.

Much of the world's infrastructure is dependent on space machinery - almost every important business or technology on the ground is powered by space assets. And while governments have done a great deal in looking to secure those technologies on Earth, they could easily be threatened from space.

Those weaknesses could be exploited by people and groups including states, criminal syndicates, terrorists and hackers to create a potential global catastrophe on Earth, according to a new report from Chatham House.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power last weekend unleashed a tirade of vitriol at the emergency session of the UN called by Russia following US-led coalition airstrikes which killed approximately 80 Syrian soldiers in Deir ez-Zor last Saturday.

Vile bizarre, ugly, is how Jason Ditz described her performance in AntiWar.com. I think he is only scratching the surface, as the petulant, almost childish performance of Power left the visibly shaken Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, to front the media, explaining that Power said she was not interested in what he had to say as what he had to say was "a stunt." Churkin said: "I have never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness."

As well as labelling calling the emergency session a "stunt," Power said Russia was grandstanding, hypocritical and accused it of killing civilians and hitting hospitals and refugee camps. The Syrian government was not spared her acid tongue either; she accused it of routinely using chemical weapons, intentionally striking civilian targets, preventing the delivery of humanitarian supplies, and brutal torture. Power glossed over the horrendous crime of the day, the slaughter of 80 Syrian soldiers, before launching into her full frontal attack on Russia and Syria. It was a slap in the face of Syrian families who have lost their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, and of the ceasefire now hanging on tenterhooks.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani has blamed world powers for the spread of terrorism over the past 15 years and what he called a less secure world. Rohani told the UN General Assembly on September 22 that "repression and military intervention" by unnamed countries had caused terrorism to expand and led to a more insecure world. He also called on regional rival Saudi Arabia to "cease and desist" from divisive policies in the Middle East if it is serious about peace and security.

Rohani said that, if Saudi Arabia is "serious about its vision for development and regional security, it must cease and desist from divisive policies, the spread of hate ideology, and the trampling upon the rights of its neighbors."

Relations between leading Shi'ite power Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is predominantly Sunni, have worsened over Iranian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country's civil war and Saudi and Iranian support for the opposite sides in the conflict in Yemen, among other issues.

Rohani also praised the nuclear deal reached with the United States and five other world powers last year as a "win-win approach for both sides." But he was quick to criticize what he called Washington's "lack of compliance" with the nuclear deal that he said should be immediately "rectified." He also criticized a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the families of victims from bomb attacks associated with Iran to receive financial compensation from Tehran's frozen assets in a decision that could cost Iran hundreds of millions of dollars.

Recently, the United States just renewed military aid to Israel in a decade-long, $38 billion deal - the largest of its kind in American history. It represents a significant increase in aid, roughly $3.8 billion a year - expected to be supplemented by additional assistance through US Congress - up from $3 billion per year previously.

The Atlantic in an article titled, "Why Does the United States Give So Much Money to Israel?," attempted to explain the reasoning behind the otherwise unreasonable and unprecedented assistance by claiming:

Defenders of the deal would say it's necessary. Dalton described the uptick in spending as a natural extension of the long-standing relationship between the United States and Israel, "as well as close ties between those countries and their peoples." She described the "fraught neighborhood" surrounding Israel: war-torn Syria to the northeast, Hezbollah-influenced Lebanon to the north, and an Islamist insurgency in Egypt's Sinai to the south, all of which help explain the historically high promise of $5 billion in missile funding over the next 10 years.

The Afghan government has signed a draft peace accord with notorious exiled warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, paving the way for his return after years of fighting the central authorities. A government delegation and a team representing Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami militant group signed the document at a press conference in Kabul on September 22. The final agreement is expected to be signed by Hekmatyar and President Ashraf Ghani in the coming days. That is expected to be a mere formality.

"Fortunately, after two years of negotiations between Afghanistan's High Peace Council and the Hezb-e Islami, the peace negotiations have been successfully completed, and an agreement between both sides has been finalized," the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with pursuing a peace settlement with militant groups, said in a statement. Sayed Ahmad Gilani, head of the High Peace Council, said at a news conference in Kabul that "in the light of our national interests, this could benefit both sides." He added, "I hope that this is the beginning of a permanent peace in our country."

Hekmatyar's forces were accused by rights groups of gross human rights violations during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, and they have carried out deadly attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces since 2001. Hundreds of protesters rallied in Kabul on September 22, holding placards reading "Butcher of Kabul" and "We will neither forget nor forgive." A senior researcher on Afghanistan for the international group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called the deal with Hekmatyar "an affront to victims of grave abuses."

Not since the days of the Roman Empire have regional warlords commanded so much authority to craft their own military and diplomatic policies apart from the central government. The United States calls its warlords «combatant commanders» and the title is not misleading. These combatant commanders are always looking for new wars and conflicts, all of which are in the personal interests of them and their top military echelons, but certainly not in the general interest of the American people.

American combatant commanders rule over their own virtual fiefdoms, which the Pentagon calls «areas of responsibility» or «AORs». The Roman Empire's warlords were called «proconsuls» and they were military commanders appointed to govern newly-conquered territories. These Roman AORs, known as proconsular imperia, differed little from modern-day American AORs. However, the Roman proconsuls were much more answerable to the Roman emperors than American combatant commanders are presently to the President of the United States.

The U.S. military-intelligence complex has divided the world into AORs over which combatant commanders exercise authority over U.S. military, political, diplomatic, and, increasingly, economic decision-making. These commands - U.S. Central Command, Pacific Command, European Command, Southern Command, Northern Command, and Africa Command - also involve themselves in the military and political activities of nations within their AORs that are either allied with the United States or dependent on U.S. security arrangements. Conveniently, the chief of the U.S. European Command also served as the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, the military chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Effectively, NATO is an integral part of U.S. military hegemony.

In series of statements Russian diplomats reject US demand that Syrian and Russian bombing of Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch Jabhat Al-Nusra cease, and that Kerry-Lavrov agreement be rewritten to soften US's obligation to separate the fighters it supports from Jabhat Al-Nusra.

It has taken the Russians no time to reject US Secretary of State Kerry's demand that the ceasefire in Syria be extended to Jabhat Al-Nusra (i.e. to Al-Qaeda's local Syrian branch) and that the Russians and the Syrians in effect impose a no-fly zone on themselves in northern Syria.