President Obama receives his worst marks yet for handling the situation in Iraq, with 52 percent disapproving and strong negative sentiment now outpacing strong approval by 2 to 1 (34 to 17 percent) in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. (..)

Nearly two-thirds of the public, however, opposes sending U.S. ground forces to combat insurgents, including at least six in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The Kurds are a critical element of the political equation in Iraq. But Mr. Barzani has had a difficult relationship with Mr. Maliki.

Kurdish officials have insisted in recent days that the pesh merga expanded their footprint to better defend the Kurds against ISIS extremists, but the oil in the Kurdish region has long been at the center of friction between Baghdad and Erbil.

The very details of the ISIS military success in the key Iraqi oil center, Mosul, are suspect. According to well-informed Iraqi journalists, ISIS overran the strategic Mosul region, site of some of the world’s most prolific oilfields, with barely a shot fired in resistance. According to one report, residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of “soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.”

President Putin has stressed that negotiations should not just focus on stopping military actions. There should be dialogue “about specific arrangements between all sides in the conflict.”

At the same time, Kiev should not be demanding disarmament in eastern Ukraine, given that “radical elements like the Right Sector and other radical [groups] are not yet disarmed, despite repeatedly talking about that and basically promising that illegal groups will lay down arms.”

„In such conditions demanding militia to lay down arms, in my opinion, makes no sense,” Putin said.

The Head of State addressed Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Turchynov with a proposal to discuss the opportunity of considering the given issue at the forthcoming session of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament with Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko.

Vladimir Putin has submitted a proposal to the Federation Council to repeal its Resolution on the use of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine.

The President has sent a letter to Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko with a request to repeal Federation Council Resolution № 48-SF of March 1, 2014, On the Use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the Territory of Ukraine to help normalise the situation and achieve reconciliation in the east of Ukraine and in connection with the tri-partite negotiations on the issue that have begun recently.

The current mainstream debate regarding the crisis in Iraq and Syria offers a near perfect example of both the death of historical memory and the collapse of critical thinking in the United States. It also signifies the emergence of a profoundly anti-democratic culture of manufactured ignorance and social indifference. Surely, historical memory is under assault when the dominant media give airtime to the incessant war mongering of politicians such as Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham and retro pundits such as Bill Kristol, Douglas Feith, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz – not one of whom has any credibility given how they have worked to legitimate the unremitting web of lies and deceit that provided cover for the disastrous US invasion of Iraq under the Bush/Cheney administration.

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The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists was passed three days after the 9/11 attacks and is every bit the sort of kneejerk legislation every lawmaker should approach warily, but seldom do. This kicked off America‘s „War on Terror,“ a slippery slope „battlefield“ that has been used to justify everything from domestic surveillance by the NSA to the purchase of cell phone tower spoofers and discarded military vehicles by local police departments.

„And now also it is in style to throw the young people away with unemployment. The rate of unemployment is very worrisome to me, which in some countries is over 50%. Someone told me that 75 million young Europeans under 25 years of age are unemployed. That is an atrocity. But we are discarding an entire generation to maintain an economic system that can’t hold up anymore, a system that to survive must make war, as the great empires have always done. But as a Third World War can’t be done, they make zonal wars.“

Very interesting interview with Pope Francis in La Vanguardia newspaper in which he says:

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PAUL: ..now we have a chaotic situation. We have a vacuum. And I think one of the reasons why ISIS has been emboldened is because we have been arming their allies. We have been allied with ISIS in Syria. They have had a safe haven because we have been arming the rebels to keep Assad away from them.

And now they go back and forth. So I think our intervention in Syria has led precisely…

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: … Iraq.

CROWLEY: You know, it may have, Senator. But when one‘s sitting in the Oval Office, you have to think, what do we do now?

So, does – would a President Paul at this moment send U.S. advisers and say, go and see what we can do to help the Iraqi army? Would a President Paul say, I might do airstrikes?

PAUL: I think the first thing you would have to do is follow the Constitution. The Constitution says that Congress decides. The president doesn‘t have the unilateral authority to begin war.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that the Sunni militants taking over Iraq have quickly gained power because the United States armed their allies in Syria.

“I think we have to understand first how we got here,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” „I think one of the reasons why ISIS has been emboldened is because we have been arming their allies. We have been allied with ISIS in Syria.“

Erinnert ein bisschen an die Mudschaheddin-Situation in den 80ies. Nur im Zeitraffer halt.

The reports were rejected by the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Iraqi special forces soldiers were in control.

However, sources said that ISIL rebels had offered 460 Iraqi troops still near the refinery safe passage to Erbil if they gave up their weapons. The ISIL would then hand the facility to local Sunni leaders, the sources said.

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“The time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future and the decision of the people is what we are going to uphold.”

Iraqi Kurdish independence has long been a goal, and the region has had autonomy from Baghdad for more than two decades, but they have never before said they would actually pursue that dream.

„And it‘s obvious that the federal or central government has lost control over everything. Everything is collapsing – the army, the troops, the police,“ Barzani said during an interview with CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour. „We did not cause the collapse of Iraq. It is others who did.“

Kerry is hoping that support from Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani will force al-Maliki to cede more power to Iraq‘s Sunni and Kurdish minorities and, in turn, soothe anger directed at Baghdad that has fueled the insurgent Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Ingo Gerhartz, the deputy spokesman of the German Defense Ministry, said: „If they would need us and if there would be a demand, we can extend the mission for another two years.“

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, told reporters he proposed the press statement after listening to a Palestinian appeal for council action. But he said one council member wanted stronger language and one didn’t want any reference to Israel, so unfortunately the council was not able to find “common ground.”

(19. Juni)

They also discussed the ongoing efforts to ensure the safe return of the Turkish nationals seized in the restive country, said Turkish Prime Minister‘s office.

A statement by the spokesperson of renegade Libyan General Haftar on Sunday claimed that Turks and Qataris, who have been accused of spying, have 48 hours to leave eastern Libya.

Turkey had closed its consulate in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya, in May and warned its citizens against traveling there due to the deteriorating security condition.

Turkey‘s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discussed latest developments in Syria and Iraq with British Prime Minister David Cameron in a telephone conversation, Anadolu Agency reported.