RESET: How the Syrian Conflict Could Lead to a Clash Between Russia and NATO.

The humanitarian crisis in Syria has gone on so long and is so devastating in its social impact — with a huge migration, some direct and some coming from people in the existing camps in the countries surrounding Syria — that we can lose sight of the military dangers that are now threatening the Middle East.

It has long been feared in NATO that the Syrian crisis would spill over into a wider war, but that moment is closer now than it has ever been before. Any serious analysis of the start of the First and Second World Wars reveals that a lack of clarity of intention is extremely dangerous.

Our last attempt at “clarity” in Syria resulted in an disastrously indistinct red line.

ADVENTURES IN SENTENCING REFORM: Egyptian military admits mistake in sentencing 4-year-old to life in prison.

RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: “CIA leaker: Clinton ‘given a pass’ for emails”

A former CIA officer serving jail time for leaking documents to the New York Times accused federal officials of setting a double standard by apparently refusing to aggressively prosecute Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was “a high ranking official who should know better, but completely given a pass, and almost an apologetic pass,” Jeffrey Sterling, who was found guilty of leaking classified information to Times reporter James Risen last year, said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Monday.

“So how should us regular citizens feel, especially with heightened concerns about national security?”

Regular people should want to keep her as far away as possible from any other positions of power and trust.

HOPE: “#FreeStacy: The Old Regime and the Twitter Revolution”

The whole thing reminds me of the book Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after Democracy in America. In The Old Regime and the French Revolution, he examined the failed promise of France’s rebellion against monarchy. What concerned him was not just the Terror and the beheadings, but the fact that the French toppled all of their institutions and tried to remake their politics, only to see all the old institutions re-assert themselves. They ended up with the same system, just under new rulers. The main similarity between the new system and the Ancien Régime was its administrative centralization, the way everything was controlled out of Paris, sapping all power and initiative from local institutions.

This strikes me as a good analogy for what’s been happening with the old regime and the Internet revolution. The impact of the Internet has been a radical decentralization, the breaking down of gateways and barriers to entry for the transmission of information. But the old imperatives for centralization and control are still there, and they’re trying to reassert themselves.

Read the whole thing.

Centralizers gotta centralize, and they have all-new digital tools for doing just that. But those same digital tools can be used against the control-freaks posing as technological liberators.

Say, didn’t someone write a book about that?

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: “Saudi Foreign Minister: ‘I Don’t Think World War III Is Going To Happen in Syria’“

FRACK, BABY, FRACK: “US production at record high by 2021”

Over the course of 2015 to 2021, U.S. output is expected to reach a record high of 14.2 million barrels per day (bpd), after dipping initially this year and next, the IEA said in its report.

Production of U.S. shale oil, known as light, tight oil (LTO), is expected to drop by 600,000 bpd this year, and a further 200,000 bpd next year before gradually recovering.

“Anybody who believes that we have seen the last of rising LTO production in the United States should think again; by the end of our forecast in 2021, total U.S. liquids production will have increased by a net 1.3 million bpd compared to 2015,” the IEA said.

American ingenuity has put a low ceiling on the price of crude oil — one that Russia and Iran can barely afford.

VIDEO: Who said it, Trump or Kanye?

HOPE: Joe Biden “could live with” Clinton or Sanders.

“I could live with either one of them,” Biden said. “I could support either one of them. I just have a different political sense of how we should be talking about the issues that face us, to enhance the possibility that we [the Democrats] keep the White House.”

Politico noted Biden extended his support “without much enthusiasm.”

Run, Joe, run!

SNAP BACK: Obama Admin Could Halt New Iran-Russia Weapons Deals.

Could, but won’t:

The United States has the authority to block new multi-billion dollar arms deals between Iran and Russia though the administration is not expected to exercise this authority, which was granted under United Nations Security Council resolutions pertaining to the recently implemented nuclear agreement.

Senior Iranian and Russian officials held discussions this week about inking a new arms pact expected to be worth about $8 billion. Iran has reportedly sent Moscow a “shopping list” of various arms and military hardware it is seeking to purchase.

Blocking these sales would be an easy card for the White House to play to wring a concession or two out of Moscow and Tehran, but clearly the Administration has no interest in doing so.

PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: International meeting for Syria cease-fire cancelled, Russia says.

“Russia says.”

KRAUTHAMMER: Let’s win this one for Nino.

It’s hard to swallow demands for deference from a party that for seven years has cheered Obama’s serial constitutional depredations: his rewriting the immigration laws by executive order (stayed by the courts); his reordering the energy economy by regulation (stayed by the courts); his enacting the nuclear deal with Iran, the most important treaty of this generation, without the required two-thirds of the Senate (by declaring it an executive agreement).

Minority Leader Harry Reid complains about the Senate violating precedent if it refuses a lame-duck nominee. This is rich. It is Reid who just two years ago overthrew all precedent by abolishing the filibuster for most judicial and high executive appointments. In the name of what grand constitutional principle did Reid resort to a parliamentary maneuver so precedent-shattering that it was called the nuclear option? None. He did it in order to pack the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia with liberals who would reliably deflect challenges to Obamacare.

On Tuesday, Obama loftily called upon Congress to rise above ideology and partisanship in approving his nominee. When asked how he could square that with his 2006 support of a filibuster to stop the appointment of Samuel Alito, Obama replied with a four-minute word salad signifying nothing. There is no answer. It was situational constitutional principle, i.e., transparent hypocrisy.

As I said, this is all about raw power. When the Democrats had it, they used it.

Those last two sentences ought to stiffen the spine of every wavering Republican Senator — but we’ll see.

ZUG-ZUG UPDATE: Humans, Neanderthals interbred thousands of years earlier than first thought, research shows

As a species we’ve been getting around for a very, very long time.

OBAMACARE’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: Subsidies for Illegal Immigrants

Pretty sure that’s a feature and not a bug.

STOP IN NEVADA: Will Hillary’s campaign ever get off the ground? The Hill‘s Amie Parnes has the latest numbers, and dishes with a former Clinton aide:

A new CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday found Clinton with a 1-point lead in Nevada, which hosts its caucuses on Saturday. That’s a huge change from the 23-point lead Clinton enjoyed in a late December poll by Gravis.

In South Carolina, which hosts its primary election on Feb. 27, Clinton has a more comfortable 18-point lead according to a CNN/ORC poll. But even that edge has narrowed since Sanders crushed her in New Hampshire’s primary last week.

As recently as mid-January, a poll from NBC, The Wall Street Journal and Marist found Clinton with a 33-point lead in South Carolina.

“I don’t get it. I don’t think anyone expected this race to look like this,” said one former Clinton aide who maintains ties with the campaign. “A big loss in New Hampshire, basically a tie going into Nevada. You have to ask yourself, ‘What’s next?’ ”

Team Clinton maintains confidence that its lead in South Carolina will hold, but the potential loss in Nevada has put people on edge about a “domino effect” in which states could fall one by one to Sanders as he gains momentum.

“It’s hard to feel confident about South Carolina if you lose Nevada,” the former aide said.

Clinton’s lead in Nevada is statistically gone, her advantage in South Carolina has been cut nearly in half, and Sanders has the hip, young voters building a digital grassroots effort to counter Clinton’s edge in money and muscle.

Among the other signs of worry on ClintonWorld might be the campaign’s new one-minute spot called “Brave,” which CNN says shows “a 10-year-old girl who starts crying while telling Clinton at a campaign event that she’s afraid of her parents being deported.”

While the spot might appear ham-fisted to some, it ought to at least generate lots of feelz among Hillary supporters — if, at this writing, it had received something substantially more than 218 YouTube views. And that’s hours after having gotten a nice write-up and link from CNN.com.

“Flailing” might not be too strong a word to describe the Clinton campaign’s efforts so far this week.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE from Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times:

A U.S.-backed agreement on a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria is supposed to take effect at the end of this week, but there’s been no sign of hostilities slowing — let alone ceasing.

Instead, Russia’s air force, Bashar Assad’s ground forces and even neighboring Turkey have all escalated attacks on the rebels whose five-year-long uprising against Assad is faltering. In northern Syria, missiles and bombs have hit two hospitals in the past week. With Russia’s help, Assad’s forces have nearly surrounded Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and the rebels’ most important base. Meanwhile, Turkey has been shelling Kurdish rebel forces that are allied with the United States.

And even after the non-truce formally goes into effect, both Russia and Syria have served notice that they will continue to attack rebels they consider “terrorists,” a label they have applied to almost anyone opposed to the regime.

As an attempt to stop the war, it’s fair to say that the cease-fire — reached after energetic negotiation by Secretary of State John F. Kerry — has already failed.

The last major deal Kerry brokered wasn’t signed by one side or ratified by the other, yet still achieved its unstated goal of welcoming Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime into the community of nations. Perhaps similarly Kerry was hoping to get a ceasefire to stick amongst parties with no interest in sticking to a ceasefire.

REMEMBER THE HEALTHCARE.GOV LAUNCH? Apparently so did some hackers:

“To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized,” President Obama said. “This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.”

While the shift Obama and many others pushed may have improved care, electronic medical records led to quite the unique hostage situation in Los Angeles this week. There, a hospital fell prey to a cyberattack — and the hospital has escaped its plight by paying hackers a $17,000 ransom.

Government mandates and electronic security don’t seem to be a very good mix.

AT LEAST FIVE KILLED IN ANKARA BLAST:

The explosion occurred during rush hour in an area close to where military headquarters and parliament are located. Governor Mehmet Kiliclar said the bomb appeared to have targeted a convoy of buses carrying military personnel.

“According to preliminary assessments, five people died and 10 people were injured,” Kiliclar told the state-run Anadolu Agency. “It is believed that a bomb-laden car caused the explosion.”

News reports said some cars caught fire and dozens of ambulances were sent to the scene. Dark smoke could be seen billowing from a distance.

Police told The Associated Press they are investigating the cause of the explosion.

It was not clear who was behind the bombing Wednesday. Kurdish rebels, the Islamic State group and a leftist extremist group have carried out attacks in the country recently.

CHANGE: “False attacks and failed strategies as Hillary repeats 2008”

How Clinton lost is as telling as the historic margin she lost by. Just as in 2008, she presented as a hawk to a party bone-weary of war. Now as then, her high-dollar, tone-deaf, leak-prone campaign telegraphed every punch. Her backers harp on her experience — but experience only counts if you learn from it. Eight years later, Clinton makes the exact same mistakes. Still, party elites have bet the farm she’ll have it all sorted out by October. Dangerous wager.

She isn’t learning from this race, either. Her response to New Hampshire has been to double-down on her strategy. How such a bright person could be such a slow learner is a mystery. Her worst moments prior to New Hampshire were her ham-handed attempts to take down Sanders. Chelsea distorted his healthcare plans, Bill ripped his character. Hillary accused him of an “artful smear” for suggesting, obviously, that banks give to super PACs to influence policy. She voiced “concern” over reports he’d mingled with real live lobbyists at Democratic fundraisers.

Bill Clinton’s political magic was his ability to roll with almost any punch, and come up smiling. That’s a rare gift, and one Hillary doesn’t share.

ASIA PIVOT: “China Deploys Missiles to Contested Island in South China Sea“

CHANGE: “In Competition for Black Votes, Sanders and Clinton Offer Raw Rhetoric on Race”

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have begun speaking about racial disparities in America in very blunt terms, talking about themes of entrenched racism in ways arguably more aggressive than any Democratic presidential candidate since Jesse Jackson in 1988. Their raw rhetoric on race is revealed as the competition for black voters in the Democratic presidential primary has quickly become the focal point of the contest as it heads into states with a large percentage of African American voters.

Clinton met with a host of leaders in the African American community Tuesday and delivered a speech on race in Harlem, where she discussed “racial injustice” and “systemic racism.”

Pithy (and true) remarks about “all the racial healing” aside, there was a time when Clinton felt confident enough about her support from the black community that she didn’t have to pander so blatantly.

That time was about a week ago.

“I WON”

President Obama says he could have reached out more to Republicans https://t.co/qFMxAgcXNh pic.twitter.com/pEFlD0eJOZ

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) February 16, 2016

CHANGE: China flagrantly violating last year’s bilateral agreement against cyber attacks.

“China continues to have success in cyber espionage against the U.S. government, our allies, and U.S. companies,” [Director of National Intelligence Admiral James R.] Clapper emphasized. “Beijing also selectively uses cyberattacks against targets it believes threaten Chinese domestic stability or regime legitimacy.”

Clapper goes on to say that U.S. intelligence agencies will monitor China’s compliance with the September 2015 bilateral agreement to refrain from conducting or knowingly supporting cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property with the intent of providing competitive advantage to companies or commercial sectors.

It wouldn’t take much seed money to entice American hackers into providing China with a different set of incentives regarding cyber attacks — but that doesn’t provide our leadership with enough opportunities for headline-making “agreements.”

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Sanctions lifted, Iran shopping spree to include Russian Su-30 fighters and S-300 antiaircraft missiles.

FEEL THE BERN: “New Poll shows Clinton, Sanders neck and neck in Nevada”

You’d be barking mad, too, if you’d given up most of a 23-point lead.

RED LINE: “23 dead as missiles hit three hospitals, school in Syrian towns”

The report is more gruesome than the headline makes it sound:

Fourteen people were killed in the town of Azaz near the Turkish border when missiles slammed into a school sheltering families fleeing the offensive and the children’s hospital, two residents and a medic said.

Bombs also hit another refugee shelter south of the town and a convoy of trucks, another resident said.

“We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital,” said medic Juma Rahal. At least two children were killed and scores of people injured, he said.

Activists posted video online purporting to show the damaged hospital. Three crying babies lay in incubators in a ward littered with broken medical equipment. Reuters could not independently verify the video.

In a separate incident, missiles hit another hospital in the town of Marat Numan in Idlib province, in north western Syria, said the French president of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) charity, which was supporting the hospital.

“There were at least seven deaths among the personnel and the patients, and at least eight MSF personnel have disappeared, and we don’t know if they are alive,” Mego Terzian told Reuters.

“The author of the strike is clearly … either the government or Russia,” he said, adding that it was not the first time MSF facilities in Syria had been attacked.

Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev claims that the West is rekindling the Cold War — a propaganda push left unanswered by our White House or State Department.