Free Republic

American elections are always closely watched by foreign nations. But there may no more interested observers of tonight’s midterm results than the leaders of Iran. The ability of the Obama administration to pursue détente with Iran and to cut a new weak deal that will enable the Islamist regime to become a nuclear threshold state may rest on the ability of President Obama’s party to hold onto control of the Senate. The administration’s zeal for a deal with the Iranians appears undiminished by Tehran’s decision to continue to impede the efforts of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to...

The Obama Administration will face a serious political battle over a potential nuclear deal with Iran should Republicans win control of the Senate in tomorrow’s midterm elections, a leading pro-Israel advocate in Washington, DC told The Algemeiner. Noah Pollak, Executive Director of the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI,) an advocacy group focused on strengthening the bond between American elected officials and Israel, said that in the event of a deal with Iran by the November 24 deadline, “the sanctions regime against Iran will be falling apart as the administration bypasses Congress to grant loopholes and waivers.” Although Congress would not...

Thousands of Iranians chanted “Down with America” at a major anti-U.S. rally on Tuesday marking the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, just days ahead of a key meeting between the two nations’ top diplomats over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. The gathering outside the former embassy compound in Tehran, which has become the annual venue for rallies commemorating the embassy attack and other American-bashing protests, was smaller compared to last year’s event, which drew tens of thousands – a sign of improved Iran-U.S. relations since moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office last year. But...

Tom Cotton, the Republican candidate for Senate from Arkansas, is calling on President Obama to renounce the "vulgar" attack on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu which was expressed by an anonymous administration official in a recent Atlantic article. "I’m appalled at recent media reports suggesting the Obama administration is seeking ‘détente’ with Iran, while unnamed administration officials disparage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with vulgar ad hominem attacks. I call upon President Obama to renounce these reports and disclose the names of these officials and fire them. Iran remains our worst enemy and Israel our closest ally. The Obama administration’s...

The Obama administration is facing long odds for the president's party to ‎retain control of the U.S. Senate in the elections this Nov. 4. If the Republicans win control of the Senate to ‎add to their House majority, foreign policy issues may become far more ‎contentious in the next two years.‎ Two of the issues on which the two sides may bang heads concern Israel. The ‎more pressing item concerns the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. ‎The current talks between the P5+1 and Iran have already been extended once, ‎and if no deal is reached by Nov. 24,...

One man was injured today when a Drano bomb blew up after he picked it up. Six bombs were planted in Wentzville, Missouri including one at the Wentzville police station.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported: The Wentzville Police Department has put out an alert warning residents about liquid bombs being placed around the community.Wentzville Police Maj. Paul West said at least six of the makeshift soda bottle bombs with Drano and tin foil inside exploded between 10 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday in various spots, including the Bear creek subdivision and in front of the police department.He said one resident...

Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said the country needs 20 new nuclear power plants like the Bushehr plant. "Bushehr power plant currently produces 7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year," Salehi said, ISNA News Agency reported."Some countries have declared their readiness to construct new nuclear power plants in Iran." Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said they have been informed that Iran plans to construct 20 new nuclear power plants. Iran announced in June that it has reached an agreement with Russia to construct two more nuclear power plants. The two sides are negotiating...

A leading United States senator has warned that the Obama Administration is heading for confrontation with Congress over its refusal, as reported by the New York Times, to allow congressional approval of a final nuclear deal with Iran. In a statement to The Algemeiner, Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) declared: “By threatening to cut out Congress from the Iran nuclear deal, the Administration is actually uniting Congress. We will not support an Obama-Khamenei deal that condemns our children to a future where the Middle East is full of nuclear weapons.” After the signing of the Geneva Accord with Iran in November 2013,...

The latest round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program took place this week, pitting the United States and its European partners against the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. It seems safe to say that if Iran and the United States can’t come to a workable compromise this week, and it certainly appears that way based on what has already transpired, there will be no basis for a final deal on Nov. 24. But there are serious outstanding questions about what a viable compromise would look like. This was made clear last week, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s...

Iranian Foreign Minister chuckles at 'irony' as fuel-tank problems forced top diplomat to fly home on commercial airliner. Fuel-tank problems on his US Air Force plane forced Secretary of State John Kerry to fly home from Vienna on a commercial airliner. The grounding left Iranian negotiators in Vienna chuckling at what they said was the irony of the situation, reports Washington Wire. “So it is not just our planes,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told a reporter from the Al Monitor news site.

A final deal on Iran’s nuclear program is still possible despite the difficulty of the negotiations, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday. "I don't believe it's out of reach, but we have some tough issues to resolve," Kerry told reporters during a press conference in Paris. Representatives from the United States, Iran and five other world powers have set a deadline of Nov. 24 for reaching a deal. The countries extended the talks after missing a self-imposed July 20 deadline. "We need to continue to have some serious discussions, which we will, and we'll see where we are,” Kerry...

Some six weeks before the conclusion of crucial nuclear talks between P5+1 world powers and Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a Twitter feed he is believed to operate, posted a graphic laying out 11 non-negotiable “red lines,” beyond which his country’s negotiators would, presumably, not budge. “During the past year, Ayatollah Khamenei, in line with his support for the Iranian negotiators, has also stressed on the Iranian nation’s rights and has called it necessary to observe the red lines in the course of the nuclear talks,” the infographic, which was posted on Sunday, said. The talks with the P5+1 include...

With Washington pressure rising, secretary of state heads to Vienna next week as target date for agreement on curbing Tehran atomic program nears America’s top diplomat is plunging back into Iranian nuclear talks, keeping one eye on the longtime US adversary and the other on political developments at home, as pressure rises in Washington for a deal ensuring the Islamic Republic cannot become a nuclear state. The prospect of a Republican takeover of the Senate means Secretary of State John Kerry will be on a tight leash with a late-November deadline approaching for an agreement. Kerry, European Union negotiator Catherine...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday used his annual message to Hajj pilgrims heading to Mecca to insult Israel and call for its "annihilation." The speech comes ahead of Eid al-Adha on Friday, the Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's "sacrifice of Ishmael" in an appropriation of the original Torah story, and like his speech for Eid al-Fitr in July was replete with unfounded barbs hurled against the Jewish state. "The conspiring enemy is aiming to stoke the fire of a civil strife among Muslims, to misdirect the motivation for resistance and jihad and to secure the Zionist regime and...

It was an altercation that likely would have been buried in the reams of other ugly domestic disputes in New York. Except the accused was Ailina Tsarnaeva, the 24-year-old sister of alleged Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And, according to police, she allegedly threatened the other woman by telling her, “I have people. I know people that can put a bomb where you live.”

The US State Department said Monday in a press conference that it disagrees with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's assertion during his UN speech on Monday that "ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree." "Obviously, we’ve designated both as terrorist organizations, but ISIL poses a different threat to Western interests and to the United States," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "And that’s just a fact." Later on in the speech, Netanyahu said that Iran is still a great threat to Israel's existence. He also warned that Iran is not actually willing to give up nuclear weapons but...

The Obama administration looks set to go weak in the knees in life-or-death negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. From the start, the United States and its allies have pressed the mullahs to disable all but about 1,500 of their centrifuges. The logic: With that many machines in operation, should Tehran flip the switch to begin enriching weapons-grade nuclear material, the process of amassing enough uranium for an atom bomb would take a year. Cold comfort, but better than nothing. All the while, Iran has insisted that it needs all 9,400 of its spinning centrifuges, which, of course, ha ha, it...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the UN general assembly on Monday in New York and warned the crowd of the threat of radical militant Islam. He said that the Arab world, for the first time, was beginning to recognize the benefit in aligning themselves with Israel and seeing they have a common enemy. He also said that he is willing to make a "historic compromise" with the Palestinians. The prime minister spoke in his speech of the correlation between Hamas and ISIS, saying the two are "branches from the same poisonous tree." He warned that the escalation of the radical...

<p>The mullahs and their so-called moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, are playing a devilish game by trying to win a pass on their nukes in exchange for helping combat ­Islamic State.</p> <p>Rouhani said at the UN that a ­nuclear deal would result in a “greater focus on some very important ­regional issues — such as combating violence and extremism in the region.”</p>

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday that six-power talks with Iran being held at the United Nations had failed to yield progress on curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. “At this time as I speak, there is no significant progress,” Fabius told journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “We were due to have a meeting this morning of the P5+1 on one side and the Iranians on the other but because of a lack of progress, this meeting (had) to be called off,” Reuters quoted him saying. Israel, meanwhile, voiced vociferous objections to a reported American proposal to...