Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- September 30, 2014

Is Obama Passing The Buck On Underestimating Islamic State? -- Peter Grier, CSM

Some don't like how President Obama handled a question about the Islamic State during a '60 Minutes' interview. Some think he threw his Director of National Intelligence under a bus.

Washington — Is President Obama blaming everyone but himself for missing the danger posed by the Islamic State (IS), allowing it to grab a big slice of territory in Syria and Iraq?

That’s what critics are claiming Monday in the wake of Mr. Obama’s appearance on CBS's “60 Minutes” Sunday night.

Here’s the underpinning of their argument: At one point, interviewer Steve Kroft asked the president how it was that IS ended up in control of so much land, and whether that had been a surprise to him.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- September 30, 2014

Obama’s Own JV Team: After the bin Laden raid, the deluge. -- Max Boot, Weekly Standard

Special Report: Islamic State uses grain to tighten grip in Iraq -- Maggie Fick, Reuters

The Caliphate Next Door: Turkey Faces Up to its Islamic State Problem -- Katrin Elger, Hasnain Kazim, Christoph Reuter and Holger Stark, Spiegel Online

Turkey shifts tone on Islamic State. Will it join US-led coalition? -- Dominique Soguel, CSM

Syria Raids Show Saudi, UAE Ambition to Extend Regional Authority -- Voice of America/Reuters

Why is Hong Kong protesting? -- BBC

Hong Kong’s protests could have far-reaching consequences for China -- Rowan Callick, The Australian

Hong Kong's protests: A tough test for China's leaders -- The Economist

65 Years of Communism and One Red Hot Hong Kong -- Bloomberg News

Ukrainians just pulled down a massive Lenin statue. What does that signal for Russia? -- Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post

Threatened, Raided, And Exiled: Opposing Putin In Crimea -- Leonid Ragozin & Max Seddon, BuzzFeed

Life After Putin: Russia Needs to Be Rebuilt From Scratch -- The Moscow Times

How American Fracking Could Cause a Russian Recession -- American Interest

“This will get worse before it gets better”: How America's top public health expert sees the Ebola crisis -- Ezra Klein, VOX

Is the World at the Cusp of a New Dark Age? -- Joseph Camilleri, The Conversation