Globe Trot: ISIS intel didn't fit Obama's 2012 'narrative'

Name: WORLD
Price range: $

SYRIA: Former defense intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said the White House ignored intelligence in 2012 defining the rise of ISIS because it didn’t fit President Barack Obama’s reelection “narrative.” Flynn also criticized the approach of lopping off terror leaders to fight Islamic terror: “We have killed more leaders … than we can say, and they continue to multiply.”

A Swedish parliamentarian is calling on world leaders to recognize the genocide Islamic State is committing against Christians in Iraq and Syria. Obama has called ISIS atrocities against Iraqi Yazidis genocide, but specifically avoided that designation for the cleansing of Christians from Iraq and Syria.

IRAN:The UN’s atomic agency in a report yesterday said Iran was working until 2003 in a “coordinated” way to ramp up nuclear know-how that included weapons applications. But the agency found no “credible indications” of nuclear weapons activity after 2009.

PUERTO RICO made a surprise payment on time on more than $72 billion in debts to the United States, avoiding default, but the U.S. territory faces another crushing payment due Jan. 1. Here’s a timeline of the debt crisis.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: With churches sheltering hundreds of Muslims attacked by Christian militias, this week’s visit by Pope Francis marked a turning point for war-torn Central African Republic. The country’s interim president asked for forgiveness for its two-year “descent into hell.”

LEBANON: In case you didn’t think things could get more quagmire-y in the Middle East, how should the West respond if the Christian friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad becomes Lebanon’s next president?

Mindy Belz

Mindy, a former senior editor for WORLD Magazine, wrote the publication’s first cover story in 1986. She has covered wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Balkans and is author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run From ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Mindy resides in Asheville, N.C.

@MindyBelz