Middle East/North Africa

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Clinton should be compelled to testify under subpoena if she doesn’t return to Capitol Hill willingly. 

The State Department imposed sanctions on four companies and one person on Thursday for their work aiding Iran's development of a nuclear weapon.

The sanctioned person and companies, all of which are Iranian, provided centrifuge components, equipment and research to the government's uranium enrichment and nuclear programs.

A top U.S. military commander on Thursday warned that Syria would descend into a spiral of sectarian violence that would likely tear the country apart if President Bashar Assad were to fall from power.

"I would not be surprised to see Syria break apart entirely," said Adm. James Stavridis, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and head of U.S. European Command, about the country’s post-Assad future in an interview with The Atlantic.

The secretary of State said the U.S. has made its concerns about the sales “crystal clear.”

A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday went to the Senate floor to call on President Obama to take tougher action against Syrian President Bashar al Assad, including arming his opposition and possibly missile strikes.

In a colloquy, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) all said Obama should put military pressure on the Syrian regime by arming rebel groups fighting the Assad regime.

Graham and McCain have long been hawkish on Syria, but the pressure from Levin and Menendez points to growing support in Congress for tougher actions against Syria.

McCain even suggested that the U.S. could use precision strikes to target Syria's ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.

Gregory Hicks testified about his attempts to secure the State Department’s staff in Tripoli.

The decision by the United States and Russia to put their differences aside and jointly host a peace summit between Syrian rebels and the Assad regime earned plaudits from the United Nations' special envoy to the war-torn country.

“This is the first hopeful news concerning that unhappy country in a very long time,” Lakhdar Brahimi said in a statement Wednesday. “The statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step.”

Secretary of State John Kerry made the announcement late Tuesday after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. He said the two countries have agreed to host an international conference “as soon as is practical,” perhaps by the end of the month.

“The specific work of this next conference,” Kerry said, “will be to bring representatives of the government and the opposition together to determine how we can fully implement the means of the communique, understanding that the communique’s language specifically says that the Government of Syria and the opposition have to put together, by mutual consent, the parties that will then become the transitional government itself.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said his "biggest concern" in investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, is whether President Obama has the wrong foreign policy approach for the Middle East.

House Republicans have unearthed evidence suggesting the Obama administration could have done more to help the U.S. diplomats.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterparts agreed on Tuesday to establish a bilateral peace council, in an attempt to bring the two-year Syrian civil war to an end.