Free Republic

Wednesday during a commencement speech at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, former Secretary of State John Kerry criticized the presidency of the Donald Trump as “not normal” several times, and added, “In the end, there is nothing American about it either.” Partial transcript as follows: Distinct from the hurly burly of any presidential visit, my travel to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East these past few months has informed me that the global community is watching and unsettled about the leading nation in the free world.They see us gridlocked and politically trapped in a low-intensity internal conflict of...

Thanks Obama. Thanks Kerry. Back when the Obama administration was doing the full court press in support of its Iran nuclear “deal,” we were told that, sure, some of the money would fund terrorism, but most of it would go into Iran’s economy. We knew this, because that’s what the trustworthy folks running Iran told us. As former Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken put it… “We know. We’ve seen it. We see what they’re saying. We see how they are spending it and what they’ve told us. But also what we see is that instead of going to the...

"Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us...There was no Syrian “chemical weapons attack.” Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died. This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and – more important –what they appear to believe happened."

Life comes at you fast. ThatÂ’s all I can say right now about the Obama administrationÂ’s disastrous Syrian policy that did nothing to stop bloodshed or hold any one accountable for that matter because it probably would have led to a military decision that President Obama didnÂ’t want to make. In 2014, the administration celebrated its landmark accomplishment of removing SyriaÂ’s declared chemical weapons stockpile without military strikes. Russia helped us with these negotiations, which were a total failure since chemical weapons were used against the town of Khan Shaykhun located in the Idlib Province last week. The attack killed...

PolitiFact has pulled a 2014 fact-check on remarks about Syria by former Secretary of State John Kerry after the claim the Obama administration “got ‘100 percent’ of chemical weapons out of Syria” turned out to be false. In a post about the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria, PolitiFact admitted, “The outcry leads us to revisit a 2014 claim from former Secretary of State John Kerry.” “Kerry said in a television interview that in Syria, ‘we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out.’ Syria had agreed in 2013 to an ambitious program to destroy its chemical stockpiles under international...

**SNIP** The outcry leads us to revisit a 2014 claim from former Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry said in a television interview that in Syria, "we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out." Syria had agreed in 2013 to an ambitious program to destroy its chemical stockpiles under international supervision, as part of a deal brokered by Russia. When Kerry spoke in July 2014, the process seemed far along. Based on reports from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- which later won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts -- we rated that claim Mostly...

Syria’s regime has used sarin nerve gas for the first time since 2013, dropping bombs laden with the chemical agent on Isil fighters outside Damascus, according to a senior Israeli official. This use of sarin would show that Bashar al-Assad has retained the ability to gas his enemies despite an agreement that supposedly disarmed Syria of its chemical arsenal. That deal was reached after the regime used sarin and VX gas to kill as many as 1,400 people in rebel-held areas of Damascus on August 21, 2013. President Barack Obama had declared the use of chemical weapons to be a...

United States secretary of state John Kerry has mocked the notion that Syrian rebels were responsible for last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus. He has called on all United Nations member nations to "stand up and speak out" on Syria's chemical weapons at the upcoming General Assembly. "The world can decide whether it was used by the regime which has used chemical weapons before, or whether the opposition secretly went unnoticed into territory they don't control, to fire rockets that they don't have, containing Sarin that they don't possess, to kill their own people," he said. "I would say...

Claims that the charges against McCain are “unsourced” leave out one source that is prominently mentioned: John Weaver.So – who is he, and can he be believed? I recall that Weaver’s name was directly associated with the stories, delivered to the press in the 2004 Bush-Kerry contest, that McCain was flirting with an offer floated by Kerry to become Kerry’s running mate. In the retelling of that story by the Kerry people, the person who is square in the middle of the discussions and negotiations was -- John Weaver. When McCain’s campaign was imploding, back in the fall 07, because...

The 2013-2014 round of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations failed because the Palestinian Authority (PA) responded to each Israeli concession with new demands and the Obama administration kept taking the Palestinians’ side, according to a veteran Israeli negotiator. Brigadier-General (ret.) Michael Herzog, a member of various Israeli negotiating teams since 1993, disclosed previously unknown details about the peace talks in an essay for the American Interest on February 27. Herzog disputed claims by former State Department envoy Martin Indyk that Israeli housing construction was the main reason the talks failed. “I doubt that even a full settlement freeze would have salvaged these...

Former Secretary of State John F. Kerry has joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as its “inaugural visiting distinguished statesman, the global think tank said Wednesday. Mr. Kerry, who served as America’s top diplomat from early 2013 through the end of the Obama administration in January of this year, will focus on “conflict resolution and global environmental challenges,” the endowment said in a statement. Mr. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who served for nearly three decades in Congress as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, is expected to use to post to continue pushing his legacy as an advocate...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets. The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more...

the former secretary of state "will supervise the new school's Kerry Initiative as a distinguished fellow for global affairs," where he's set to teach a seminar next school year. Per Yale's description, Kerry will supervise, "an interdisciplinary program that will tackle pressing global challenges." . . . Now, Yale says, Kerry will work with researchers "on issues including climate change, global economic development, authoritarian populism and violent extremism."

Former Secretary of State John Kerry has not ruled out running for president again in 2020, according to a new interview. The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, who lost to George W. Bush, is suggesting he could be up for potentially running against President Trump.

A new TV ad featuring a disabled military veteran blasts President Donald Trump for seeking to repeal Obamacare and for imposing a travel ban that primarily affects Muslims. "You want to be a legitimate president, sir? Then act like one," says the veteran, who according to the ad's sponsor is a Marine who lost a leg while on patrol in Afghanistan. The ad aired for the first time Monday on MSNBC's show "Morning Joe" — which Trump is known to avidly watch — and was produced by the progressive veterans group VoteVets. It lasts just 30 seconds. But in that...

One day after Iran defied Trump with a new missile tests and threatened enemies with "roaring missiles" following Friday's Iran sanctions, confirming our Friday report, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that despite the troubling escalation in sanctions, the Iran Nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration is likely to remain in place. "A lot of that toothpaste is already out of the tube. I never supported the deal in the first place. I thought it was a huge mistake, but the multilateral sanctions are done," Ryan said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" airing Sunday. Speaker Paul...

And this is precisely why change to the Iranian regime will never come from within it. It cannot. Absolute dictatorial regimes – be they religious or otherwise – are structured for the purpose of perpetuating themselves. They are not democratic in nature, subject to the will of the people they rule or even of the people within them. Any true moderate or reformist influences will not enjoy a fair and equal opportunity to advance based on the merits of their ideas in the eyes of their peers. They will be silenced and stamped out as “heretical”. Iran desperately needs a...

When serving under the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kerry lobbied on behalf of two highly questionable Islamic organizations to get the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to remove them from its list of terrorist groups. Both of the groups — which have had great influence on President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy concerning its handling of Islam and terrorism during his time in office — are based in Washington, D.C., and have posed a major concern for national security. “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas...

A Hamas spokesperson is warning President Donald Trump that following through with his promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would "add more oil on the fire" in the region, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday. "[Trump] has to make a choice whether he wants to create peace in the region or he wants to add more oil on the fire," Osama Hamdan, the spokesman for Gaza-based Islamic militant group, told the news outlet.

Israel approved building permits on Sunday for hundreds of homes in three East Jerusalem settlements in expectation that U.S. President Donald Trump will row back on the previous administration's criticism of such projects. The housing projects, on land that the Palestinians seek as part of a future state, had been taken off the Jerusalem municipality's agenda in December at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid further censure from the administration of Barack Obama. However, Israel's right wing believes that Trump's attitude towards settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—areas Israel captured in a 1967 war—to...