Video clip of the day

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Alternate headline: Syrian peace talks, pretty much the goat rope you expected.




If this doesn’t represent the biggest waste of time in the foreign policy department, we scarcely know what does.


Of course, a very public yet hollow threat of military force against the Assad regime in Syria last fall paints one-self into a corner whereby Vladimir Putin comes riding to the rescue in the form of engineering peace talks.


Wait. What? Secretary of State John Kerry expresses all the faux outrage he can muster yesterday when he decries the efforts of Syria, Hezbollah and Russia in thwarting the progress of the peace talks.









From CBS News:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of stonewalling in peace talks and called on Russia to push its ally to negotiate with opposition leaders.

"Right now, Bashar al-Assad has not engaged in the discussions along the promised and required standard that both Russia spoke up for and the regime spoke up for," Kerry said during a press conference in Jakarta with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.

He said Assad's team "refused to open up one moment of discussion" of a transitional government to replace Assad's regime.

"It is very clear that Bashar Assad is trying to win this on the battlefield instead of coming to the negotiating table in good faith," Kerry said

Peace talks last week in Geneva ended with no progress toward breaking the impasse in the nearly 3-year-old conflict in Syria.

Kerry also had harsh words for Assad's allies in Moscow.

"Russia needs to be a part of the solution and not be contributing so many more weapons and so much more aid that they are in fact enabling Assad to double down," he said.

Our "smart power" producing results as predictable as the sun rising in the East.