Free Republic

It’s increasingly difficult to navigate the web of transitory enemies and allies in the region. Try figuring out the maze of enemies, allies, and neutrals in the Middle East. In 2012, the Obama administration was on the verge of bombing the forces of Syrian president Bashar Assad. For a few weeks, he was public enemy No. 1 because he had used chemical weapons on his own people and because he was responsible for many of the deaths in the Syrian civil war, with a casualty count that is now close to 200,000. After Obama’s red lines turned pink, we forgot...

Try figuring out the maze of enemies, allies and neutrals in the Middle East. In 2012, the Obama administration was on the verge of bombing the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For a few weeks he was public enemy No. 1 because he had used chemical weapons on his own people and because he was responsible for many of the deaths in the Syrian civil war, with a casualty count that is now close to 200,000. After Obama's red lines turned pink, we forgot about Syria. Then the Islamic State showed up with beheadings, crucifixions, rapes and mass murders...

Wednesday in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, former Vice President Dick Cheney said our Israeli and Arabs allies in the Middle East no longer trust the United States and "deeply believe" the "Untied States has been supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood" because of the way "the United States has conducted itself over the last few years."

Last week, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako issued an impassioned plea to the international community to speak out and take action on behalf of persecuted Arab Christians and other minorities. This latest statement came a month after 120,000 Iraqi Christians were forcibly displaced from their homes. Sako, Iraq’s senior Christian cleric, called the systematic persecution “a real genocide” and called for “decisive steps” to put pressure on decision-makers at home and abroad to ensure a free, safe life for all in Iraq.In Washington, DC, a bipartisan and ecumenical conference starts Tuesday evening, focusing on the deteriorating situation facing millions of...

MANILA, Philippines — The Indian commander of the United Nations' (UN) peacekeeping force broke his silence on the Philippine military's accusations that he misguidedly ordered besieged Filipino troops to surrender their arms to rebels in Golan Heights over the weekend. In an interview with a Noida-based newspaper, UN Disengagement Observer Force Commander Lt. Gen. Iqbal Singh Singha criticized the defiance of the 40 trapped Filipino peacekeepers as "non-professional." Singha, meanwhile, called what the Armed Forces of the Philippines dubbed the "greatest escape" of 40 troops from Position 68 nothing but an "act of cowardice." "The higher UN echelon as well...

Abdullah Ghavami Chahzanjiru and Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri were hanged in southern Iran on August 6, 2014. According to the Daily Beast, it appears that they were executed for consensual sodomy. Their deaths are part of a wave of executions in Iran, with more than 400 in the first half of 2014 alone, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights. So why is a possible wave of anti-gay violence in Iran not being investigated by the Obama administration, headlined by the national news media, and protested in mass by college professors? The answer to that question is actually very simple: The...

illustration/The Hill The politics of terrorism have returned with a vengeance for the midterm elections. National security dominated the first election cycles after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with Democrats fearful of being labeled unpatriotic if they criticized then-President George W. Bush. The Republican advantage eroded years later as public opinion soured against the Iraq War. By the time President Obama sought reelection in 2012, he was able to tout the killing of Osama bin Laden to portray Democrats as the party of strength in foreign policy. But now, with the 13th anniversary of 9/11 just days away, Obama...

Since September 11, 2001 the United States has been engaged in a struggle against radical Islam. The enemies have a variety of names from ISIS to al Qaeda, from Boko Harem to the Muslim Brotherhood, from Hamas to Hezbollah, but they are all active in the name of Islam and all have an imperial goal of creating a caliphate. Tactics may vary; yet they consistently maintain an extreme level of violence as a source of intimidation. Accepting these conditions as a given on the world stage for a decade and a half and accepting as well the fact that President...

On Tuesday night, the three major broadcast networks omitted from their coverage on the Islamic group ISIS a report that President Barack Obama has received briefings on the terrorist organization “for at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over the summer.” ABC, CBS, and NBC all led their evening newscasts with multiple segments on the gruesome murder of American journalist Stephen Sotloff at the hands of ISIS in a propaganda video released on Tuesday afternoon. Over on the Fox News Channel (FNC), Special Report with Bret Baier aired three segments on the story, including a...

A video released by Lady Gaga in which she greets her Israel fans with a “Shalom” has provoked mixed responses from Arab fans and social medial users. "Shalom, Israel," the pop superstar said in the brief greeting. "I'm so excited to perform my new tour in Tel Aviv," she added in reference to her concert scheduled for Sept. 13 THe short video message has gone viral online, with many Arab users labeling her as “disgusting” and devilish” and having “no sensitivities” amid the recent Israeli offensive on Gaza which resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 Palestinians and more...

NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel claimed military commanders are “apoplectic” over President Obama’s dithering on ISIS and admission that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to deal with them.

President Obama found himself under fire Sunday for his cautious approach to beating back the Islamic State's march through Iraq and Syria and stamping out other diplomatic fires around the globe, with a top House Republican suggesting his foreign policy was in free fall and that Western allies no longer view the U.S. as a leader in the fight against bad actors. Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the administration is sitting on its hands while radical Islamist fighters grow in influence, recruit from abroad and seize more territory in...

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by my (imaginary) friend, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of ConfusionUtopia. He expresses leftist perceptions of magical reality with refreshing clarity, for which we thank him.  Senator Librul is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of green unicorns, for which his Save the Unicorns Foundation has received substantial Federal grants. We are honored to have...

The worldwide struggle for freedom and democracy faces enormous challenges today. Despite the promise of the United States government to support that struggle wherever it can, the Obama administration is not standing tall on the world stage. The American Legacy, as a shining beacon for oppressed peoples everywhere in their time of darkness, is being abandoned.The United States has a enjoyed wonderful track record of fulfilling that commitment. Past leaders of our nation have taken seriously America’s special role in a troubled world. But the fact that the US has historically advanced freedom and democratic values makes me all the more upset when our current leaders fail to demonstrate an understanding...

I never liked it when George W. Bush used the term "evildoers" to describe al-Qaeda and other terrorists. A lot of other people objected as well, but for different reasons. I didn't like the term because it always sounded to me like he was saying "evil Dewar's," as in the blended Scotch. (This always made some of Bush's statements chuckle-worthy -- "We will not rest until we find the evil Dewar's!") I prefer single malts, but "evil" always seemed unduly harsh. The more common objection to "evildoers" was that it was, variously, simplistic, Manichean, imperialistic, cartoonish, etc. "Perhaps without even...

Last week, I built a case for how the Islamic State's monstrous brutalities include the summary killing of men, women and children, including by crucifixion. That was before the world heard of the beheading of courageous U.S. journalist James Foley, which demonstrated just how psychotic and cruel the Islamic State is. Today I will build further on the Islamic State's horrors and crimes against humanity and then conclude by explaining why President Barack Obama's laissez-faire mentality toward U.S. enemies is not only emboldening them but also drawing the U.S. closer and closer to another world war. Reuters reported last week,...

From the dawn of civilisation, the Fertile Crescent has been a cradle to strange and fascinating sects. Not any more As the fighters of the Islamic State drive from village to captured village in their looted humvees, they criss-cross what in ancient times was a veritable womb of gods. For millennia, the Fertile Crescent teemed with a bewildering variety of cults and religions. Back in the 3rd Christian century, a philosopher by the name of Bardaisan was so overwhelmed by the sheer array of beliefs to be found in Mesopotamia that he invoked it to disprove the doctrines of astrology....

On Sunday, August 24, This Week moderator George Stephanopoulos bizarrely worried that the U.S. might take too much action in combating the terrorist group ISIS.

What a difference a year makes. Around this time last year, the West was gearing up for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of carrying out chemical weapons attacks on his own people. That intervention never came to pass, not least because domestic public opinion in countries such as Britain and the United States was opposed to further entanglements in the Middle East. Now, the U.S. is contemplating extending airstrikes on Islamic State militants operating in Iraq in Syria — fighters belonging to a terrorist organization that is leading the war against Assad....

By 207 B.C., Rome and its allies on the Italian peninsula had lost approximately 100,000 soldiers to the invading armies of the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal. To make matters more desperate, the Carthaginians were in the final stages of securing massive reinforcements from Phillip V of Macedon. That year the Roman Senate sent a secret group of provocateurs to Northern Greece who started violent insurrections among PhillipÂ’s disaffected subject peoples to his south. The Macedonian armies never sailed and for next 600 years the course of western civilization would be charted by Rome.Special Forces Will Again Change the WorldAs I...