Free Republic

WASHINGTON - President Obama is on a two-week vacation in Martha's Vineyard, as wars rage across the Middle East and Ukraine, terrorists threaten to topple Iraq, and Republicans are on the brink of capturing the Senate. Around the country, a deepening mood of anger and anxiety permeates America's electorate, with the midterm elections a mere three months away. And in a brewing political civil war among Democrats, Hillary Clinton has unleashed a sharp attack on Obama's timid foreign policy, calling for a more muscular response to the spread of global terrorism. The president's job approval scores remain in the...

It must be exhausting for Barrack Obama. I sometimes feel worn down just reading about all the events going on in the world – I can’t even imagine how tiresome it must be, trying to avoid leadership on all those issues. Lucky for our Vacationer in Chief, he’s found a way… Apparently a healthy mix of golf and swimming is exactly what is needed to distract yourself from the chaos in the Middle East. And, to be fair, this genocidal chaos in Iraq is not completely the fault of a Nobel Laureate who plays the American President on TV. The...

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Sir Walter Scott’s warning on the complications of dishonesty seems to apply to the recent travails of Hillary Clinton, who has spent the past week or so attempting to distance herself from the disaster of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. That’s a neat trick for someone who served as Secretary of State for four of the five-plus years of the Obama administration, and the White House and its supporters have already lashed out about it, if indirectly.How is the project working? So far, conservatives aren’t buying the...

In the wake of the recent surge of violence in northern Iraq as well as the potential coup within the government, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams did his best to push the White House line that President Obama’s summer vacation was full of work.

American bluff and bombast toward Moscow has stoked Russian nationalism, convinced Putin we're weak, and fostered a dangerous realignment. PRESIDENT BARACK Obama likes to say that America and the world have progressed beyond the unpleasantness of the nineteenth century and, for that matter, much of the rest of human history. He could not be more wrong. And as a result, he is well on the way to repeating some of history’s most dangerous mistakes. Few would think to compare Obama to Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II. Nevertheless, Emperor Nicholas II, like President Obama, thought of himself as a man of...

Americans have always grown up believing we are the good guys. We fight the wars of the righteous, help the oppressed and free the world from despots and evil dictators. I am seriously wondering when all that had changed. Do I have to dig up John Wayne to do battle with evil? Isn’t anyone up to the challenge anymore? It is no longer an assumption that America is on the right side of history, because now it seems we are on the wrong one or can’t even find the sides at all. When good men ignore evil and allow it...

In a new interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, former secretary of State and probable candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2016, Hillary Clinton went further than she has to date in openly criticizing the foreign policy of the president that she served under from 2009 to 2013. Specifically, Mrs. Clinton draws a direct line from the president’s failure to act in Syria to the rise of the Islamic State and the problems it now poses for Iraq and the rest of the region, and generally criticized the president for a having a foreign policy that had no clear sense...

Ahead of a possible presidential run, Hillary Clinton appears to be distancing herself from what she called President Barack Obama's foreign policy "failure": the decision not to intervene during the early stages of the Syrian civil war. In an interview with The Atlantic published on Sunday, the former secretary of state says the "failure" of the United States to those protesting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad led to the rise of al-Qaida-inspired groups like ISIS, the militants currently creating havoc in Syria and Iraq. “The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who...

I was in a spiritually-oriented meeting a week ago, and there were about fifty people in the room.  Halfway through, a guy in the center of the room chimed in and announced that he was going to open his speaking time by sharing with us his personal, painful example of the worst kind of betrayal.  We all leaned a bit closer to listen as he described, with tongue secretly hidden in cheek, a time when he bit into what he’d thought was a chocolate chip cookie–only to realize with shock and dismay that it was actually a raisin cookie. He was making a wry...

It’s hard to wrap ones head around the idea that giving more power to a terrorist regime would somehow lead to temperance and peace, yet that’s exactly the advice being given by former president Jimmy Carter when it comes to how the world treats Hamas. He had this to say: "…the United States and EU should recognize that Hamas is not just a military but also a political force. Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise." Only by recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor — one that represents a substantial portion of the...

The proliferation of crises around the globe has, for the most part, been met with a yawn from the political class. Americans, they say, are tired of being the world’s policeman. Most media and political elite believe Americans are happy to let the world can sort out it affairs for now. They are not entirely wrong. “Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington,” an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in April found. “In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of...

The slow erosion of Barack Obama’s popularity and perceived competence continues. In today’s Associated Press/GfK poll, Obama hits his lowest approval rating ever at 40% and his highest disapproval rating ever at 59%. His one bright spot in policy over the last few years has dimmed considerably as well: Foreign policy used to be a bright spot in Americans’ dimming opinion of President Barack Obama. Not anymore. Associated Press-GfK polling found a spring and summer of discontent with the president’s handling of world events.Obama’s consistently low marks across crises such as the fighting in Ukraine and the conflict between...

Foreign policy used to be a bright spot in Americans’ dimming opinion of President Barack Obama. Not anymore. Associated Press-GfK polling found a spring and summer of discontent with the president’s handling of world events. Obama’s consistently low marks across crises such as the fighting in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas could benefit Republicans aiming to win control Congress in the fall. “The problem is saying something and not doing anything—making grandiose threats and never following any of them up,” said Dwight Miller, 71, a retiree and volunteer firefighter in Robertson County, Texas. Miller, who describes himself...

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

“We have your back,” President Obama told Israelis when he visited that embattled country recently. Way back, apparently. Mr. Obama’s administration famously claimed to “lead from behind” in overthrowing Libya’s strongman, Khaddafi. Young Sergeant Benjamin Anthony spoke to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Washington Summit this week. Sgt. Anthony described a different vision of leadership. Ahalai he gave as the Hebrew word for “after me.” Officers in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) they should lead from the front. That used to be America’s idea of leadership, too. You cannot say Secretary John Kerry isn’t alert to his opportunities. He...

Leadership: Just three days after President Obama delivered his "get tough" speech on Ukraine aimed squarely at Vladimir Putin, Russia's president has responded — not with words, but deeds. Obama has been lauded for his speech on Monday regarding Russia's role in downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 people. "Russia has extraordinary influence over these (Russian) separatists," the commander-in-chief said sternly. "No one denies that. Russia has urged them on. Russia has trained them. We know that Russia has armed them with military equipment and weapons, including anti-aircraft weapons. Key separatist leaders are Russian citizens." Sounds like he was...

In recent days the Weekly Standard and Washington Free Beacon have brought to light a now-scrubbed recommended reading list for students that had resided on Sen. Rand Paul’s website. Why the focus on a book list, and why was the book list scrubbed? The answer to the second question could lie in the answer to the first: the foreign policy recommendations in the reading list take a variety of controversial stances, suggesting that the U.S. is to blame for the rise of Islamic supremacism in the Middle East, that the “Israeli Lobby” controls U.S. foreign policy to America’s great detriment,...

The strongman of the Soviet, er, Russia is getting kind of wimpy. Caught in the act blowing up a civilian airliner, he’s pointing the finger at someone else, and condemning the world’s political calculations, all the while calculating politically. He must watch a lot of MSNBC because this is the type of thing we’ve come to expect from our own weak-willed presidents. Russia, says Putin, did not shoot down that jetliner. Listen to him very carefully. There is no inappropriate Russian relationship with that missile. It was caused by a bunch of bitter Ukrainians who cling to their guns and...

Since Thursday, many people have asked me what I would do about the Ukraine after the murderous downing of the Malaysian Airliner by Ukrainian rebels (which is another way of saying Russian forces). There is a clear path and it is clearly the time for that plan. President Obama has looked like a weakling to this point. His inaction over the Crimea was inexcusable. His later unwillingness to provide armaments to our ally, Ukraine, to defend itself further enhanced the impression of his being a wimp and whipping boy for Putin. In Obama’s defense (yes, there is some though...

ISLAMABAD: Even though US Secretary of State John Kerry succeeded in brokering a deal to resolve the deadlock over the Afghan presidential election run-off, confusion still persists about the proposal of forming a “government of national unity”. On July 12, Kerry announced the agreement in the presence of both rivals Dr Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul. “The winner of the election will serve as the president and will immediately form a government of national unity,” said Kerry. However, the top US official failed to explain the composition of the unity government. Kerry’s vague proposal has caused uproar...