you can't make this stuff up

From the Jeffrey Goldberg interview with Obama published earlier in the week:

OBAMA: I believe that President Abbas is sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist, to recognize Israel’s legitimate security needs, to shun violence, to resolve these issues in a diplomatic fashion that meets the concerns of the people of Israel.

Headline news this morning, from the AP:

Israeli naval forces raided a ship in the Red Sea early Wednesday and seized dozens of advanced rockets from Iran destined for Palestinian militants in Gaza that would have significantly boosted their ability to strike Israeli citizens, the military said.

More from Obama:

“We’ve now seen 15 to 20 percent of those chemical weapons on their way out of Syria with a very concrete schedule to get rid of the rest,” Obama told me. “That would not have happened had the Iranians said, ‘Obama’s bluffing, he’s not actually really willing to take a strike.’ If the Russians had said, ‘Ehh, don’t worry about it, all those submarines that are floating around your coastline, that’s all just for show.’ Of course they took it seriously! That’s why they engaged in the policy they did.”

Headline  article in the Fiscal Times - "Assad Thumbs His Nose at Deal to Remove Chemical Weapons"

"In other words, 18 months of negotiations between Assad and the opposition have yielded next to nothing....Under a deal struck with the Russians and Americans, Assad is supposed to give these weapons up. But reports Wednesday indicate that he’s gotten rid of less than 4 percent of them."

And from the Iranian FARS news agency:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces for Cultural Affairs and Defense Publicity Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri called the recent statements of US President Barack Obama on Iran as "the joke of the year"...

Too bad the American people still haven't realized it.