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National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is thwarting President Donald Trump’s foreign policy prescriptions, two former senior NSC officials told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Everything the president wants to do, McMaster opposes,” a former senior official said in a wide-ranging interview. “Trump wants to get us out of Afghanistan — McMaster wants to go in. Trump wants to get us out of Syria — McMaster wants to go in. Trump wants to deal with the China issue — McMaster doesn’t. Trump wants to deal with the Islam issue — McMaster doesn’t. You know, across the board, we want to get...

"Iran must be free. The dictatorship must be destroyed. Containment is appeasement and appeasement is surrender." Thus does our Churchill, Newt Gingrich, dismiss, in dealing with Iran, the policy of containment crafted by George Kennan and pursued by nine U.S. presidents to bloodless victory in the Cold War. Why is containment surrender? "Because freedom is threatened everywhere so long as this dictatorship stays in power," says Gingrich. But how is our freedom threatened by a regime with 3 percent of our GDP that has been around since Jimmy Carter was president? Fortunately, Gingrich has found a leader to bring down...

Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes is troubled by recent accusations and wants the GOP’s attention: Ben Rhodes ✔@brhodes I'm old enough to remember when the GOP was outraged over legalisms like the definition of is. What about the definition of treason? https://twitter.com/susan_hennessey/status/884833126354235392  … 10:46 PM - 11 Jul 2017 239 Retweets 825 likes Many don’t consider Rhodes to be the best person to point fingers when it comes to this subject: Omri Ceren @omriceren Guy who systematically lied to Congress about realigning w/enemy regime and sending it billions wants robust public debate on def of treason https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/884967163840405504 ...

New York City's former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran. "There's a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer," Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. "Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal," Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut "was aimed at getting a reaction from...

Saboteurs in the U.S. intelligence community posing as patriots have been working hard to drive President Donald Trump from the White House. Former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and former War College professor John R. Schindler bragged on Twitter last week about the spy-led plot his friends are conducting against the president. “Now we go nuclear,” he tweeted. “IC [intelligence community] war [is] going to new levels. Just got an [email from] senior IC friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail.'” “US intelligence is not the problem here,” Schindler added. “The President’s collusion with Russian intelligence is. Many details,...

Two high-level Iranian government backers, including a former Islamic Republic official and another accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf, were hosted at the Obama White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates. Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to...

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he's not quitting, nor did he threaten to quit over his role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Airline mechanics assigned to perform critical maintenance on the fleet of Air Force One planes used to fly President Donald Trump and previous presidents were caught using contaminated tools on the craft, causing more than $4 million in damage that could have caused a fire to break out on the plane, according to a federal investigation. Three mechanics working for Boeing, which has a contract to perform critical maintenance on the Air Force One fleet, "failed to observe explicit warnings" while attempting to clean the plane at a Boeing-owned plant in San Antonio, Texas. Boeing, which has caused a firestorm...

Earlier this spring, the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky was testing an advanced antivirus software on one of its computers when it stumbled on something big: As the Moscow-based company puts it, it was "one of the most skilled, mysterious and powerful" spy viruses in the world. The piece of software was so sophisticated that it left few traces. It didn't leave files on the disk drive, and to stay hidden, it burrowed inside a computer's kernel memory, which is the place where a computer's most basic software is kept.Kaspersky says it assigned a team to watch its movements, and the team...

The amount goes beyond what Iran might need to replenish its stocks. The Trump administration is facing pressure to definitively rule out a longstanding request by Iran to import 950 tons of natural uranium, according to government sources and proliferation experts who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Tehran has signaled it will petition again for the yellowcake next week at a quarterly meeting in Vienna regarding implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal. The Obama administration reportedly approved the Iranian request in its final weeks, but it was ultimately blocked by the United Kingdom. Iran has indicated of late that it...

A salute is due Adm. William Fallon, who tried to prevent a wider war with Iran. After serving one year as commander of U.S. Central Command, Fallon has resigned, saying he was quitting because his differences with official U.S. policy had become a “distraction.” But there is a widespread perception that he was pushed out by the neo-conservatives among President George W. Bush’s aides, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, because of Fallon’s reluctance to go along with the administration’s hawkish moves toward Iran. Cheney, who took five consecutive draft deferments to stay out of the Vietnam war, does not mind...

Petraeus's appointment as combatant commander of Central Command was set in motion several weeks ago, with the firing of then-combatant commander Adm. William Fallon. The administration let him go not for opposing a possible strike against Iran, as was widely speculated, but for arguing too often with Petraeus over troop levels in Iraq. Petraeus, who may be the most well-read analytical mind in the military, wanted to maintain troop levels, rather than reduce them for use in Afghanistan and for other contingencies -- to say nothing of relieving strains on the army. But Fallon and Pentagon generals wanted troop levels...

I don’t really follow North Korea (mostly, I try to stay up-to-date on a few countries that begin with the letter “I”), but it seems to me that we are looking at recent events in the wrong context. North Korea is a charter member of the Axis of Evil, and works hand in glove with the other surviving regime of that infamous trinity, Iran. I’ve been writing for years about the intimate relationship between the two, ranging from North Korean assistance in digging tunnels in Iranian mountains and in the Tehran subway system, to Iranian cooperation with North Korean missile...

They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive. That’s because the strategy would likely provoke even greater criticism than the false confession of endless dithering. The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It has been on display since before the beginning of the Obama administration. During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies....

Former President Obama warned President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News. The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office. A senior Trump administration official acknowledged Monday that Obama raised the issue of Flynn, saying the former president made clear he was "not a fan of Michael Flynn." Another official said Obama's remark seemed like it was made in jest. The revelation comes on a day...

Former President Barack Obama lied to the American people about the infamous prisoner swap that was part of the Iran deal in 2016, and released fugitives who were considered major national security threats, according to an investigative report by Politico. “Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal,” Politico’s Josh Meyer reports. The seven men released on that day as a “humanitarian” gesture were deeply tied to Iran’s nuclear arms efforts, and one was connected with...

Iran is cheating on its historical deal with the U.S. by secretly conducting research into nuclear weapons components such as bomb triggers and enriched uranium, the main Iranian opposition group said Friday. The regime is doing engineering and weaponization testing at a walled military complex south of Tehran, a location which Iran has declared off-limits to inspectors, said the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its main operational arm, the People’s Mujaheddin of Iran (MEK).

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

n indicating his disapproval for the pending nuclear agreement between the United States, Iran and four other countries, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called for a broader strategy to confront Islamic extremism in the Middle East during a speech Wednesday from the Senate floor. "I think it's a mistake. I'm going to vote 'no,'" Sessions said of the agreement, saying that if such a deal is consummated, "it will create instability even more so in the Middle East and can alarmingly lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in multiple nations in the Middle East." The nuclear agreement is all...

  NY Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) announced that he will oppose Barack Obama's capitulation to Iran. “I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power,” Schumer wrote in a lengthy statement issued Thursday night detailing his decision. “Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other...