First Read: “Strikingly, it was exactly a year ago when Washington was debating about what to do in Syria — back then, it was over the Assad regime’s chemical weapons. A year later, Syria is once again in the news — this time over whether to strike ISIS in the region. Of course, the circumstances are different. Assad’s chemical weapons weren’t viewed as the same threat to the United States that ISIS is (if unchecked). And a year ago, when it wasn’t election season, members of Congress were eager to debate whether to authorize limited airstrikes in Syria.”

“Today, in the midst of campaign season, many politicians (though there are some exceptions like Sens. Tim Kaine and Bob Corker) are notably silent on the subject… Despite those differences, the larger storyline is the same between Aug. 2013 and Aug. 2014: Syria remains the Obama administration’s most difficult foreign-policy problem. (How do you curb the Shiite Assad regime? How also do you stop the Sunni ISIS militants there?) And Syria presents the danger that if you start getting involved, it becomes hard to stop. ”

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde “has been placed under formal investigation by French magistrates for negligence in a political fraud affair dating from 2008 when she was finance minister,” Reuters reports.

The New York Times says “the man who flirted with a presidential run has one last aspiration: mayor of the world.”

“Michael Bloomberg, 72, has vowed to give away his $32.8 billion fortune before he dies. In doing so, he hopes to sharply reduce high smoking rates in Turkey, Indonesia and other countries; bring down obesity levels in Mexico; reduce traffic in Rio de Janeiro (and Istanbul); improve road safety in India and Kenya; prevent deaths at childbirth to mothers in Tanzania; and organize cities worldwide to become more environmentally friendly and efficient in delivering services.”

“The Obama administration signaled Thursday that the United States has begun a new war against the so-called Islamic State, and that group’s operatives will not be safe from America’s wrath in Iraq, in Syria, or wherever they can be tracked down,” Eli Lake reports.

“The most notable rhetorical tell came from Obama himself. In the aftermath of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Obama vowed to bring the attackers to justice. This week Obama struck a different tone, saying: ‘When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.'”

“The difference between bringing suspects to justice and seeing that justice is done is roughly the same as the difference between treating terrorism as a crime and as an act of war.”

“Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terror group in Iraq,” the New York Times reports.

“In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay. “

Washington Post: U.S. launched secret raid in attempt to rescue journalist

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 63% of conservative Republicans and 61% of all Republicans support President Obama’s decision to launch the airstrikes in Iraq. By comparison, 54% of Democrats and 49% of independents also sign off on the use of force.

Americans overall support the action 54% to 39%.

First Read: “Well, that didn’t take long. Less than 48 hours after The Atlantic published Hillary Clinton’s critical comments about Obama’s foreign policy, she walked them back. Spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement that Clinton called the president to ‘make sure he knows that nothing she said was an attempt to attack him, his policies, or his leadership,’ adding that the two will ‘hug it out’ in Martha’s Vineyard tonight. As we’ve noted, Clinton’s always been more hawkish than the president, but the handling of the interview and this apology just seem like more politically head-scratching decisions as she continues her book tour. The bottom line: This is not the first time Clinton and Obama are going to have a public split as Democrats transition from one standard-bearer to another. But is every one of those moments going to be as tortured as this one?”

Morning Line notes “get ready to see a whole lot more of this dance over the next two years.”

Obama adviser David Axelrod hit back at Hillary Clinton in the wake of her comments rejecting President Obama’s self-stated foreign policy principle, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”

Just to clarify: “Don’t do stupid stuff” means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 12, 2014

Bill Etheridge, from Britain’s UK Independence Party, told youth activists that they should look to Adolf Hitler for public speaking tips because he was a “magnetic and forceful public speaker” who “achieved a great deal,” the Daily Mail reports.

Said Etheridge: “Look back to the most magnetic and forceful public speaker possibly in history. When Hitler gave speeches, and many of the famous ones were at rallies, at the start he walks, back and forth, looked at people — there was a silence, he waited minutes just looking out at people, fixing them with his gaze. They were looking back and he would do it for a while. And then they were so desperate for him to start, when he started speaking they were hanging on his every word.”

In an interview with The Atlantic, Hillary Clinton told The Atlantic that the President Obama’s lack of assistance to Syrian rebels led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq.

She also criticized the foreign-policy doctrine which he recently coined as, “Don’t do stupid shit.”

Said Clinton: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

“I predicted what was going to happen in Iraq. And I’m predicting to you now, that if we pull everybody out of Afghanistan, not based on conditions, you’ll see that same movie again in Afghanistan.”

— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview on CNN, in which he slammed President Obama’s foreign policy.

“President Obama said on Saturday that the airstrikes and humanitarian assistance drops he ordered last week in Iraq could go on for months, preparing Americans for an extended military presence in the skies there as Iraq’s leaders try to build a new government,” the New York Times reports.

Said Obama: “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks. This is going to be a long-term project.”

“The president repeated his insistence that his administration would not send ground troops back to Iraq after ending an unpopular, decade-long war and withdrawing the last troops in 2011. But two days after emphasizing the limited scope of the mission in a White House address, he pledged that the United States would stand with Iraq if it could form a unified and inclusive government to counter the Sunni militants who threaten its future.”

New York Times: “With American diplomats and business people in Erbil suddenly at risk, at the American Consulate and elsewhere, Mr. Obama began a series of intensive deliberations that resulted, only a day later, in his authorizing airstrikes on the militants, as well as humanitarian airdrops of food and water to the besieged Iraqis.”

“Looming over that discussion, and the decision to return the United States to a war Mr. Obama had built his political career disparaging, was the specter of an earlier tragedy: the September 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, and has become a potent symbol of weakness for critics of the president.”

First Read: “The man who won the presidency in 2008 because he opposed the Iraq war and then ended it now finds himself facing this dilemma: Once you’re back in, how do you get out? That very dilemma, according our reporting, was precisely why President Obama until yesterday hadn’t committed U.S. force against the militant Sunni group ISIS, even as many in the intel community and on his own national security staff were urging him to act sooner. The fear: You get in even incrementally, and it’s hard to get out. Because how do you STOP helping if the initial help doesn’t work? But Obama’s main calculus changed yesterday when he announced the authorization of force — because ISIS is on the march against the Kurds in Erbil. And if you lose the Kurds, you lose Iraq.”

The New York Times reports the United States began airstrikes in Iraq.

President Obama and his top aides “believe they are putting in place a new global security structure that will frame international relations for decades. Every day, however, brings a split-screen contrast between the White House’s confidence in its long-term strategy and the daily chaos playing out from Ukraine to the Middle East,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The disconnect is reflected in the president’s declining poll ratings. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week shows Americans’ approval of his foreign-policy record at a new low of 36%.”

“I think they’re an important ally, but I also think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), in an interview with ABC News in 2011, on aid to Israel.

“I haven’t really proposed that in the past. We’ve never had a legislative proposal to do that. You can mistake my position, but then I’ll answer the question. That has not been a position–a legislative position–we have introduced to phase out or get rid of Israel’s aid.”

— Paul, quoted by Yahoo News today.

“Following the quick collapse of the cease-fire in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the White House not to force a truce with Palestinian militants on Israel,” the AP reports.

“Sources familiar with conversations between Netanyahu and senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, say the Israeli leader advised the Obama administration ‘not to ever second guess me again’ on the matter. The officials also said Netanyahu said he should be ‘trusted’ on the issue and about the unwillingness of Hamas to enter into and follow through on cease-fire talks.”

“Anyone who has made even a passing glance at the Israeli media in the past few days will have noticed the incredible chorus of criticism being directed at John Kerry right now. The secretary of state has been lambasted by all sides for his apparent failure in attempts to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas,” the Washington Post reports.

Daily Beast: “The resumption of violence was the latest example of just how disconnected Kerry’s whirlwind diplomatic efforts have been from the combatants he’s trying to get to stop fighting. The Israeli government has been particularly vocal in its criticism of Kerry’s peacemaker attempts. But in the Palestinian camps, there has been public discontent, too.”