Free Republic

Jihad Watch Court Docs: Iranian-American Lobbying Group NIAC Defrauded Feds, Lied to Congressmen, Paid for Congressional Testimony, and Arranged Secret US/Iran Meetings Pamela Geller has just published this revealing and important message from the Iranian-American human rights activist Arash Irandoost: Dear Friend,حرف بس است. متحد شویم. عمل کنیمIt is time to act. Court documents released as a result of a lawsuit filed by NIAC against Hassan Dai paint a very disturbing picture of Trita Parsi and the NIAC. They range from defrauding the federal government, lying to members of Congress, arranging secret meetings between the US and the criminal regime,...

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Hariri's resignation, the Saudi purge, and the Houthi missile fired at Riyadh are interconnected.Saturday night was a busy one for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom’s 32-year old heir to the throne excelled himself. He surpassed the high levels of chaos and human misery he had already achieved as the defence minister who launched the air campaign on Yemen. First up was the sudden resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri after just one year in office. Hariri made his announcement from Riyadh, which is a curious place...

President Trump has just laid out a visionary plan for achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Rather than trying to reconcile the fundamentally conflicting priorities of the two sides, he came up with a practical solution that reflects realities on the ground in the fairest way possible. Every American president since Lyndon Johnson has tried — and failed — to resolve the conflict, usually by sitting down with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to negotiate toothless agreements that have done nothing to ease tensions or prevent bloodshed. These well-intentioned efforts all made the same fatal mistake: they treated the Israeli...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that he has decided to severe all relations with Israel and the US in protest against President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace. “We have informed the Israelis and Americans of this decision through two letters,” Abbas said in a speech at an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.

Former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once said the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Within minutes of President Trump proposing his Middle East Peace Plan, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas had rejected the plan with “a thousand no’s” coupled with a string of epithets rarely seen in international diplomacy.This abject lack of vision and leadership by Palestinian President Abbas is tragic, for the children and grandchildren of Palestinians and Israelis alike.The state of Israel comprises a minuscule portion of land in the Middle East, yet it has become a global center of democracy, culture, commerce, and innovation....

The United States is working to get the Iraqi government's permission to put Patriot missile defense systems in the country to protect U.S. forces there from possible Iranian attacks, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday. “One of the things we need to do is make sure we have permission from the host government, and that’s one of the matters we have to work on and work through,” Esper told reporters at a Pentagon press conference. “We need the permission of the Iraqis.” The U.S. military did not have Patriots deployed at al-Asad airbase in Iraq, which houses American troops, during...

U.S. troops last weekend reportedly found themselves in a standoff with Russian forces trying to gain access to key oil fields in northeastern Syria. The Saturday standoff — first reported by Turkish media outlets, citing unnamed local officials in the Turkey-Syria border region — seems to have ended without any shots being fired or any real risk of violence between the two sides. American military personnel reportedly stopped a Russian convoy near the town of Rmelan, and the Russian forces then apparently turned back and returned to their home base. Still, the near-clash serves as a reminder of the high...

In April 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over Iran; months later 52 American diplomats and citizens, as well as citizens of other nations, were kidnapped and held hostage for 444 days in the US Embassy in Tehran. How far has America fallen in just 41 short years? We have fallen so far that the most popular Democratic candidate for president in 2020 is a hardcore Socialist Communist who sided with Iran and against America during the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis. That same man in 2020 displays an open hatred for Israel and is still siding with Iranagainst America. Of course,...

A year and a half into Donald Trump’s presidency, Henry Kissinger set out a theory. “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences,” he told the Financial Times. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.” A term has been coined to describe this notion: Ryan Evans of War on the Rocks calls them “Trumportunities.” It is the idea that,...

Riyad Dirar, the co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF, stressed that they are among those who are inviting but not invited to the Third Cairo Conference, because they are from the preparatory committee of it. He stressed Egypt's important role in the political solution in Syria and that it supports their position in facing "Turkish aggression" in the region. Dirar said in a statement to North-Press, that the Syrian Democratic Council is included in the preparatory committee for "Cairo 3" conference, and they are seeking to develop the road map...

A video has surfaced of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad laughing about President Trump during Putin's visit to Damascus last week. The video, originally posted by a journalist for the Komsomolskaya Pravda, comes just over a month after multiple NATO nation leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, were recorded seemingly mocking the American president at a NATO summit. In the latest clip, Assad and Putin joked that Trump should follow in the footsteps of Paul the Apostle and visit the Syrian capital of Damascus. "If Trump arrives along this road...

At least two Iranian journalists at a state-owned media outlet reportedly resigned from their jobs, with one of them apologizing to viewers for "the 13 years I told you lies." As Tehran continues to grapple with the fallout from protests stemming from a cover-up of its accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner, TV anchor Gelare Jabbari addressed her viewers on an Instagram post that appears to have been deleted. “It was very hard for me to believe that our people have been killed," the post read, according to The Guardian. "Forgive me that I got to know this late. And...

With the death of General Soleimani and Iran's subsequent "saving face" retaliation, many pundits and commentators have expressed fear of an escalation of violence between the U.S. and Iran, something that could even mount into a third world war. Considering that those pushing this narrative also happen to push the narrative that Trump is a fascist dictator, Obama's foreign policy was beyond reproach, and the current impeachment is completely legitimate, it's safe to assume that these critics are mistaken. Trump is unlikely to start a war with Iran; he has no reason to do so, nor does anyone want this...

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly suggested during a meeting with Bashar al-Assad last week that the Syrian president invite President Trump to Damascus. In a video of the conversation between Assad and Putin at the Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Damascus, Assad mentions the Apostle Paul’s conversion to Christianity after a vision at the gate of Damascus, Axios reported. “If Trump arrives along this road, everything will become normal with him too," the Syrian leader said, according to the news outlet.

Hardline conservative Chairman of Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati asserted that Kurdistan’s bid for independence from Iraq is an attempt to “disintegrate” and “create another Israel” in the region, speaking at a session of the Assembly of Experts of Leadership in Tehran, Tuesday. Jannati stressed that “today’s important issue about Kurdistan is the climate that they want to disintegrate there and create another Israel in this region.” He went on to call on the Assembly of Experts to “strongly stand up against them because this situation is the demand of the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel,” which he said...

Evidence is Mounting that Qassem Soleimani was Turned Over to the US by his Rivals in Tehran According to confidential sources inside Iran, on the night of January 6th, 56 high-ranking IRGC officers, including the late Qods Force commander General Soleimani’s right-hand man in Iraq, were arrested. A further 34 IRGC officers were detained on the 8th. All 90 of these men were said to be personally loyal to Soleimani. This news is increasing the speculation that Soleimani, who was known to act on his own initiatives, and who was being seen as a possible future dictator-in-waiting for Tehran, was...

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani arrived at the Damascus airport in a vehicle with dark-tinted glass. Four soldiers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rode with him. They parked near a staircase leading to a Cham Wings Airbus A320, destined for Baghdad. Neither Soleimani nor the soldiers were registered on the passenger manifesto, according to a Cham Wings airline employee who described the scene of their departure from the Syrian capital to Reuters. Soleimani avoided using his private plane because of rising concerns about his own security, said an Iraqi security source with knowledge of Soleimani’s security arrangements. The passenger flight would be...

The FBI, Hillary and the Alavi Foundation (Iran) Posted on March 26, 2015 | Comments Off on The FBI, Hillary and the Alavi Foundation (Iran) It was a secret: The Alavi Foundation says its purpose is “promoting the teaching of Islamic culture, Persian language, literature and civilization.” The Alavi Foundation’s site, a 36-story midtown Manhattan skyscraper originally built in the 1970s by the Pahlavi Foundation, an entity of the Shah-led government of Iran. After the Shah was overthrown in 1979, the new Iranian regime took it over and renamed it. Lev L. Dassin, the Acting United States Attorney for the...

As head of the Quds Force in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani is widely regarded as one of the world's leading terrorists. Now Barack Obama has effectively granted him an amnesty. Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, fully deserves his reputation as one of the world’s leading terrorist masterminds. For a decade a more he has been the driving force behind an array of Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups, from Hizbollah to Hamas, which have orchestrated a reign of terror throughout the Middle East. From a purely British perspective, he was responsible for training and...

While many Iranian officials have threatened genocide, Qassem Soleimani was actually tasked with it. As an architect of Bashar Assad’s genocidal war against the Syrian people, he was one of the most guilty men on earth. As the Godfather of Iran’s global terror network, he was also one of the most dangerous. His terror world tour was finally cut short last Friday by a precision airstrike, in what was arguably President Trump’s boldest and most presidential move thus far. Soleimani was identified only by his hand, itself identified by a red-stone ring he was known to wear. Soleimani was the...