Globe Trot: Kobani faces impending disaster

SYRIA: Islamic State militants stand poised to take Kobani, a Kurdish town in Syria near the Turkish border. The militants planted their black flag on a hill outside Kobani earlier this week, and the UN special envoy for Syria warned about impending disaster for the city’s residents: “The world has seen with its own eyes the images of what happens when a city in Syria or in Iraq is overtaken by the terrorist group called ISIS … massacres, humanitarian tragedies, rapes, horrific violence. The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS.”

Kurdish fighters in Kobani are waging a fierce battle to protect the city, and the United States is reportedly frustrated that the Turkish government isn’t doing more to bolster a key town one mile from its border. U.S. airstrikes in Syria reportedly slowed the Islamic State advance on Kobani earlier today, but experts say airstrikes alone may not protect the town. The city’s fall would mark a significant moment: ISIS would establish a stronghold within sight of a NATO member.

Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, told Reuters by phone earlier this week: “We are in a small, besieged area. No reinforcements reached us and the borders are closed. My expectation is for general killing, massacres, and destruction.”

FOREIGN POLICY: Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized President Barack Obama’s leadership in the Middle East during an interview promoting his new book this week. Panetta told The Washington Post his former boss has “kind of lost his way” in navigating the international conflicts raging around the world. Panetta’s new book pointedly criticizes how President Obama handled the troop withdrawal in Iraq, the civil war in Syria, and the advance of the Islamic State. Panetta writes the president has a “frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause” and too often “relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader.”

Panetta writes that he and other advisers warned Obama that completely withdrawing troops from Iraq could create a vacuum for a terror cell like ISIS: “My fear … was that if the country split apart or slid back into the violence that we’d seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S. Iraq’s stability was not only in Iraq’s interest but also in ours.”

HAITI: Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier died of a heart attack in the Haitian capital last week, and his death brings division over his legacy. The former Haitian president—known as “Baby Doc”—was 19-years-old when he took power following his father’s death in 1971. Baby Doc’s rule over the next 15 years was marked by rampant corruption and brutal crackdowns on his opponents. When he returned to Haiti in 2011 after decades in exile, many victims called for his prosecution for human rights abuses.

But other Haitians remember the era of Baby Doc’s rule with nostalgia, recalling a time of greater stability and prosperity in the country, despite the iron fists of Duvalier and his father. Baby Doc’s supporters are calling for a state funeral, but former victims say the dictator shouldn’t be honored. Haitian novelist and poet Lyonel Trouillot wrote in the country’s main newspaper: “The Duvaliers killed the living and the dead, had no enemies but ‘those of the nation,’ referred to their victims as ‘traitors,’ and banned them from having funerals and tombs.”

MOON CAM: NASA is offering a time-lapse video of the total lunar eclipse visible across much of Asia and the Americas this week. During the eclipse, the moon appeared orange or red, giving it its eerie moniker: “Blood Moon.”