Free Republic

Carter owes the people of Iran an apology. ... Carter's critics always point to his handling of the Iran hostage crisis as the most glaring flaw in his time in office. During the course of that 444-day nightmare, a student mob held 52 U.S. diplomats and civilians hostage, and no amount of negotiation—or attempted military action—could get them released. Thankfully, that sad chapter finally ended on Jan. 20, 1980, the day President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol. But Carter's true transgression—the original sin that has complicated and shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East...

As the country with the second-largest gas and fourth-largest oil reserves in the world, Iran is a crumbling ruin, the legacy of 42 years of Islamic fundamentalism. The theocratic dictatorship ruling Iran has been a disaster for its 80 million mainly young citizens, the majority of whom have known no other government. Young Iranians are predominantly secular and non-religious, but they are tech-savvy and envious of the freedoms they recognize in the West. Yet they are chained to the diktats of a fascist, clerical regime, led by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who believes he is God's representative on...

The Houthi rebels of Yemen have launched numerous attacks using drones and even missiles on Saudi Arabia in the months leading up to Saturday morning's attack on two Saudi oil installations. The attacks coming from a southerly direction where the Iranian backed rebels have been fighting a Saudi military coalition backed by the United States and United Kingdom in a brutal war widely condemned with the United Nations recently saying that all sides in the conflict and those nations behind them may be guilty of war crimes. Now the United States says that based on: "data" and "satellite images" Iran...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday tweeted a warning to US President Donald Trump. "Misconceptions endanger peace," he warned. "Sanctions aren't alternative to war; they ARE war. 'Obliteration'=genocide=war crime. 'Short war' with Iran is an illusion." Last week, Trump sent Iran an ultimatum, setting a deadline for the start of negotiations and warning that if Iran refuses to talk, the US will attack for the downing of an American surveillance drone.On Monday, Trump announced additional sanctions against Iran, which he said were retaliation for the downed drone, and on Tuesday he warned that "any attack on anything American...

A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet Tuesday that the new U.S. sanctions that target Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other officials close any channel for diplomacy between the two countries "forever."...Trump said the sanctions “will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader's office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources and support.”

For all the concessions President Obama offered Iran for his "nuclear deal" – $150 billion, for instance – Iran treated the U.S. with contempt, harassing and even taking into custody U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. The adage that weakness is provocative was proven true (via the Daily Caller): During the final years of the Obama administration, Iranian gunboats regularly harassed U.S. ships, with three dozen such interactions occurring in 2016. The worst incident occurred in January 2016, when the Iranians captured two U.S. Navy riverine patrol boats and 10 sailors.

Washington (CNN)Ten American sailors are in Iranian custody after two small U.S. naval craft apparently briefly entered Iranian territorial waters, a U.S. senior defense official said Tuesday. The official, however, expects the situation to be resolved quickly. A senior administration official said there is nothing to indicate this was anything hostile on the part of any entity in Iran, adding that the U.S. has received high-level assurances that the sailors will be released promptly. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told CNN's Jake Tapper that President Barack Obama will be in touch with members of Congress about the incident. "Certainly,...

Three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world’s most volatile regions. The diplomatic protests from the three countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — came as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran two days earlier as a pretext for diverting attention from its problems. Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the embassy on Saturday, along with the Saudi Consulate in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, after the Saudis executed...

Over the weekend, a series of dramatic events stemming from Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr plunged the Mid-East further into chaos. The torching of the Saudi embassy in Tehran prompted Riyadh to cut diplomatic ties with the Iranians and on Monday, Bahrain quickly followed while the UAE recalled its ambassador. Now, the stage is set for a full blown sectarian showdown complete with protests by oppressed Shiites in the Gulf states, anti-Sunni sentiment in Iran and Iraq, and, in a worst case scenario, a direct (as opposed to a proxy) conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians....

Saudi Arabia has announced that it is severing diplomatic ties with Iran following Saturday's attack of its embassy in Tehran during protests. Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi foreign minister, made the announcement on Sunday as the foreign ministry announced that it would ask the Iranian diplomatic mission to leave the kingdom within 48 hours. The Saudi foreign ministry has also announced that the staff of its diplomatic mission have been evacuated, and are now on their way back to Saudi.

BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave all Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, as escalating tensions over the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia marked a new low in relations between the two Middle Eastern powers. The surprise move, announced in a televised news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the Saudi execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protestors in response. Mr. Jubeir said that the kingdom would not allow...

A series of Iranian officials vowed on Friday to expand Tehran's missile capabilities, a challenge to the United States which has threatened to impose new sanctions even as the vast bulk of its measures against Iran are due to be lifted under a nuclear deal. "As long as the United States supports Israel we will expand our missile capabilities," the Revolutionary Guards' second-in-command, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. "We don't have enough space to store our missiles. All our depots and underground facilities are full," he said in Friday Prayers in Tehran....

Saudi Arabia's mass execution of 47 prisoners — including prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr — triggered unrest across the Middle East on Saturday, particularly in Iran, where protesters stormed and ransacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Photos and video footage posted on Twitter by Iranian journalist Sobhan Hassanvand showed a mob of angry demonstrators smashing windows and setting fire to the Saudi diplomatic outpost in the Iranian capital. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also condemned the executions. "I'm shocked & saddened at Sheikh Nimr's execution by Saudi authorities," he wrote on Twitter. "Peaceful opposition is a fundamental right. Repression does...

Saudi Arabia has faced global condemnation after it was revealed on 2 January, that 47 people at prisons around the country, including 56-year-old al Nimr, were executed. Most of the detainees had been captured after a series of attacks by al Qaeda between 2003 and 2006. Mr Nimr, who was a driving force behind the anti-government protests, was found guilty of a number of terrorism-related charges in 2014, including incitement of vandalism and sectarian strife, failing to obey or pledge allegiance to King Abdullah (then monarch of Saudi Arabia), calling for the collapse of the state, and insulting relatives and...

ASHINGTON, April 18 — A federal judge ruled today that despite winning a case last year against Iran, the Americans held there for 444 days beginning in 1979 cannot receive damages from Tehran because the agreement that freed them barred such lawsuits.The hostages won their case by default because Iran failed to defend itself. They were seeking damages when the State Department asked to have the case dismissed; the judge, Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court, dismissed it today. Plaintiffs' lawyers say they will appeal.In his ruling, Judge Sullivan used particularly sharp language to criticize the White House...

In May of 2009, Elena Kagan, as US solicitor general, filed papers with the US Supreme Court encouraging it not to listen to arguments in a lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian government. The suit was filed by thousands of family members and victims of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US.

AP Photo shows Iran’s new President as 1979 US hostage-taker Wednesday, 29th June 2005 Iran Focus London, Jun. 29 - Iran Focus has learnt that the photograph of Iran’s newly-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, holding the arm of a blindfolded American hostage on the premises of the United States embassy in Tehran was taken by an Associated Press photographer in November 1979. Prior to the first round of the presidential elections on June 17, Iran Focus was the first news service to reveal Ahmadinejad’s role in the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The identity of Ahmadinejad in the...

Held captive for more than a year during the Iran hostage crisis that began in 1979, Don Cooke said the experience was "95 percent boredom and 5 percent stark terror." One of the worst parts was the sense of complete isolation, he said. Still, a short time after he was freed in 1981, the then-Foreign Service officer no longer had dreams, let alone nightmares, about his captivity. A quarter-century after his release, Cooke, now 50, doesn't even flinch when talking about it. But while the memories may not be as vivid, events today in the Middle East remind the hostages...

PHILADELPHIA - Relatives of a former U.S. hostage held in Lebanon for more than five years were awarded $91 million by a U.S. judge for emotional distress in a lawsuit filed against Iran. The family of Joseph Cicippio expects to recover the award from the U.S. Treasury, as Cicippio and other former U.S. hostages have done, lawyer James J. Oliver said. The government retains the right to pursue the funds from frozen Iranian assets. "I would gladly return to the way my family was before my father was taken, instead of going through all the trauma we went through," son...