Globe Trot: Russia starts dropping bombs in Syria

SYRIA: Hours after a “frank” and “productive” meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the UN, Russian warplanes dropped bombs on rebel-held areas near the Syrian city of Homs, killing dozens of civilians, according to reports and video posted via Twitter (warning: the footage is graphic).

RUSSIA promises to deliver preemptive strikes against ISIS-held parts of Syria (Homs is not held by ISIS but is held by affiliated Islamic militants the West considers “rebel groups”).

For the United States, Walter Russell Mead tweets today, “Putin playing Monopoly, gets rent when West must ‘land on’ a problem he owns. Oil, Ukraine, now Syria.”

“In world affairs, as in chess, you have to play the position that’s on the board when you sit down,” writes Garry Kasparov—something Obama has refused to do ever since he decided his Middle East policy consisted of protesting a war begun in 2003. Regarding Obama’s latest disconnect, his speech to the UN this week, Kasparov adds:

“Mr. Obama has already decided to continue his policy of disengagement from the Middle East, and his platitudes about cooperation and the rule of law rang hollow in the UN’s General Assembly hall. Of the conflict in Syria, he said, ‘we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo.’ But every listener was aware that Mr. Obama had no intention of backing his words with action.”

AFGHANISTAN: U.S. Special Forces are engaged in a battle to retake Kunduz, the first city seized by the Taliban since 2001.

TANZANIA: Six churches have been torched in northwest Tanzania by unknown assailants in the past week, a rise in church arsons officials have so far declined to investigate.

GERMANY: As Volkswagen prepares for one of the largest recalls in history over its emissions cheating devices, the investigation in Germany is likely to widen. German prosecutors are looking at subsidiary Audi, along with VW affiliates like Skoda in Czech Republic.