Globe Trot: The Syrian hard sell

President Barack Obama will address the nation on Tuesday night on Syria. Does it seem to anyone else this drawn-out debate is a convenient way not to debate what to do about upcoming budget and Obamacare deadlines?

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., said that he’s “not convinced” of the wisdom of a U.S. missile strike in Syria. He tweeted: “Tally from constituents calling my office, emailing, and writing about Syria: 1,135 opposed to U.S. action, 18 for.”

In statecraft, tension exists between upholding credibility (the “red line” comment) and going to war for the sake of credibility.

A letter from Aleppo: Inside Syria’s humanitarian disaster.

A Syrialoquy by President Obama (aka Bill Frezza): “To Bomb or Not To Bomb.”

Tokyo will host the 2020 Olympics, a major boost to an Asian powerhouse now in a 20-year economic slump and two years after a devastating tsunami.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stepped down from his post this weekend. He was the first elected leader in Pakistan to serve a full term in office and depart without being “ousted, forced into exile, arrested, or even hanged.”

The NSA may hold the key to one of the mysteries of the Cold War, the plane crash in Africa that killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961.

We are following: Attacks in Nigeria all weekend involving Boko Haram militants that have left at least 13 dead and many more injured in northern Borno state. Eyewitnesses also report that Boko Haram attacked residents in Plateau state, arriving by speedboat. In the south, Anglican Archbishop Ignatius Kattey has been kidnapped, along with his wife, who was later released.