Free Republic

...While Panetta pointedly never mentions Rhodes’s name, it is clear whom he is talking about. “There were staff people who put themselves in a position where they kind of assumed where the president’s head was on a particular issue, and they thought their job was not to go through this open process of having people present all these different options, but to try to force the process to where they thought the president wanted to be,” he says. “They’d say, ‘Well, this is where we want you to come out.’ And I’d say ‘[expletive], that’s not the way it works....

<p>The abrupt Obama administration pre-election pullout from Iraq in 2011, along with the administration's failed reset with Russia and the Iran deal, created a three-headed hydra in the Middle East.</p> <p>What makes the Middle East monster deadly is the interplay between the Iranian terrorist regime and its surrogates Hezbollah and the Assad regime, Russian President Vladimir Putin's deployment of bombers into Syria and Iraq after a 40-year Russian hiatus in the region and the medieval beheaders of the Islamic State.</p>

US President Donald Trump has chatted briefly with his Argentine counterpart, Mauricio Macri, on telephone discussing the region and Venezuela "in particular", a media report said. During the five-minute call on Wednesday, Trump reiterated his invitation to Macri to visit Washington and also said that he was "very happy" because new jobs were being created in the US, the Argentine President's office said in a statement. This was the second of such calls between the two leaders since Trump won the November 2016 election. Argentina said that the two leaders' talk was very cordial, but provided no further details, Efe...

Iran claims disclosure threatens deal Senior Iranian officials are warning the Trump administration about disclosing secret deals related to the nuclear deal that have long been hidden from the public by the Obama administration, according to recent comments that prompted pushback from senior sources on Capitol Hill. Iran's warning comes on the heels of a Washington Free Beacon report disclosing that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had been pushed out of office partly due to his intention to release these sensitive documents to the American public. Leading lawmakers in Congress launched multiple investigations last year into the Obama administration's...

President Donald Trump hailed the United States' "unbreakable" bond with Israel on Wednesday and promised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran would never be permitted to build a nuclear weapon. Trump's vow was designed to address Israeli concerns over the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, which Netanyahu has warned expires too soon to permanently remove the threat. "With this visit the United States, again, reaffirms our unbreakable bond with our cherished ally, Israel," Trump said. "The security challenges faced by Israel are enormous, including the threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions, which I've talked a lot about," he...

At a rally in Fort Worth, Texas today, Donald Trump unloaded on Amazon.com founder and owner of the Washington Post Jeff Bezos. "I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought the Washington Post to have political influence. And I gotta tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. We have a different... He owns Amazon. He wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That's not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They're gonna have such problems," said Trump. Trump went on to promise that, if...

“I do not fear Trump. We must thank the new American president because he showed the real face of America and because he exposed what we have been saying for decades about the political, moral and economic corruption in it.” This is the recent statement made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the newly-elected US administration. Yes, we’re passing through a new phase. There has been a major transformation following the reactive years of isolationism which show the depth of the roots that America has returned to in terms of engaging with world crises and contributing to managing...

Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward is quickly emerging as a leading contender to replace former national security adviser Mike Flynn, perhaps even the front-runner, according to some sources. In the wake of Flynn's resignation Monday night, Harward's name entered circulation, along with retired Gen. David Petraeus and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who assumed Flynn's job after he resigned.

I get the first part of this story, not so much the second. The bit about Obama alumni targeting Flynn? Highly plausible if not likely. Flynn was a harsh Obama critic ever since O fired him from his position as DIA, and Flynn more than anyone else in the administration seemed prepared to guide Trump towards detente with the same Putin regime that had tried to sink Democrats’ chances during the campaign with the DNC and Podesta hackings. Flynn is also famously an Iran hawk, something which the Obama administration was, er, not. Did Team O have the means...

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that former Obama officials waged a secret campaign against national security adviser Mike Flynn which ultimately lead to Flynn being forced to resign. The report says that Flynn was targeted because he was strongly opposed to the Iran Nuclear deal which former President Barack Obama wants protected. The Obama loyalists conducted a behind the scenes attack against Flynn by injecting damaging stories on Flynn into the national media. According to the Free Beacon the attack was lead by former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes.

The Full Text of General Flynn’s Resignation Letter February 13, 2017 In the course of my duties as the incoming National Security Advisor, I held numerous phone calls with foreign counterparts, ministers, and ambassadors. These calls were to facilitate a smooth transition and begin to build the necessary relationships between the President, his advisors and foreign leaders. Such calls are standard practice in any transition of this magnitude. Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized...

The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami and accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking. (snip) The U.S. is also sanctioning Samark Bello, a wealthy businessman connected to El Aissami who has held significant business interests in the U.S. The U.S. says Bello provided assistance or support to El Aissami’s trafficking activities.

Trump has been doing real well with his spontaneity, but now he's dealing with very extremely crazy people. The President warns Iran's Ruhani to be careful. Ruhani doesn't want careful, he wants the world to be set on fire, not as in an American song 'I don't want to set the world on fire', but, literally. Ink Spots, 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire' youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE Iran's 'Mahdi' belief, that a kind of Muslim messiah is due to return any time, makes Iran prone to seek, actually, to hasten Armageddon. (Fidel Castro was just a newbie revolutionary who...

The rent-a-crowds, which have a high proportion of military men, are not really prepared to directly challenge the United States. The marches, chants, and posters are not so much for our consumption as for that of their own citizens, most of whom are disgusted with the failed regime and yearn for a return to the Western world. The regime fears that, sooner or later, the tens of millions who detest Khamenei, Rouhani, et al., will flood the streets as they recently did on the occasion of the funeral of Hashemi Rafsanjani, chanting anti-regime and anti-Russian slogans. Today’s “festivities” are designed...

In a 10-K filed on Friday afternoon, Amazon disclosed that certain transactions and business ties with Iran may have violated U.S. sanctions, warning that it may be penalized after a regulatory review of the activities. In the "Other Contingencies" section of its 10-K, Jeff Bezos' company had determined that, between January 2012 and December 2016 it had "processed and delivered orders of consumer products for certain individuals and entities located outside Iran covered by the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act or other United States sanctions and export control laws. The consumer products included books, music, other media,...

WASHINGTON — When President Trump took a phone call from the leader of Taiwan in December and asserted that the United States might no longer be bound by the “One China” policy, his defenders hailed it as a show of strength — the latest delicate issue on which Mr. Trump was willing to challenge decades of diplomatic orthodoxy. On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump fell back into line. In a call with President Xi Jinping of China, he pledged fealty to One China, a 44-year-old policy under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its...

Donald Trump promised during the campaign to get tough on radical Islamic terror groups as well as force Iran to renegotiate terms on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. The next executive orders from the president may address both pledges — and create more controversy. According to Reuters, Trump will designate the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), expanding current sanctions applied at the moment to only its Quds Force: A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials said several U.S. government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC. The IRGC is by far Iran’s most powerful security entity, which also has control over large stakes in Iran’s economy and huge influence in its political system.

Iran's supreme leader was in a supremely sarcastic mood Tuesday as he gave a speech to a sea of military officials. His target: Trump's first foreign policy moves. “We actually thank this new president! We thank him, because he made it easier for us to reveal the real face of the United States,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a transcript posted on his official website. “… Now, with everything he is doing — handcuffing a child as young as 5 at an airport — he is showing the reality of American human rights.” While Khamenei's intended point about the...

“Just because you’re using a Mac doesn’t mean you’re safe from hackers,” Michael Kan reports for IDG News Service. “That’s what two security researchers are warning, after finding a Mac-based malware that may be an attempt by Iranian hackers to target the U.S. defense industry.” “The malware, called MacDownloader, was found on a website impersonating the U.S. aerospace firm United Technologies, according to a report from Claudio Guarnieri and Collin Anderson, who are researching Iranian cyberespionage threats,” Kan reports. “The fake site was previously used in a spear phishing email attack to spread Windows malware and is believed to be...