Free Republic

Republican Kentucky senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that ISIS “exists and grew stronger” because of hawks in the Republican Party. (VIDEO: Megyn Kelly And Rand Paul Get In Heated Debate Over Patriot Act) HOST JOE SCARBOROUGH: Lindsey Graham would say, ISIS exists because of people like Rand Paul who said, ‘Let’s not go into Syria.” What do you say to Lindsey? PAUL: I would say it’s exactly the opposite. ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave articles indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by...

NEWARK — Mayor Ras Baraka has penned a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other Cabinet members, asking them to immediately stop the expansion of Middle East-based airlines into domestic markets which he says could threaten the city's airport and economy. The missive, also addressed to Transportation Secretary Anthony R. Foxx and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, said carriers are subsidized by their governments and could cut into markets carved out by domestic outfits such as United Airlines, which provides thousands of jobs to Newark-area residents.

Moscow and Tehran have concluded negotiations on the delivery of the Russia's long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, which should take place "within a short period," said Iranian Deputy Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, on a visit in Moscow on Monday. "The negotiations were completed successfully. I believe that the delivery of the S-300 will take place in a relatively short time", the Iranian deputy minister was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

TEHRAN, Iran — The chief of an elite unit in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has accused the U.S. of having “no will” to stop the Islamic State group after the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, an Iranian newspaper reported Monday. The comments by Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Guard’s elite Quds unit, come just after U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter accused Iraqi forces of lacking the “will to fight” in an interview aired the day before. It wasn’t clear whether Soleimani’s remarks came as a direct response to Carter’s, though tensions remain high between the two countries...

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SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - A $100 billion city-from-scratch in Saudi Arabia is to be completed by 2035 and will serve as the main logistics and manufacturing hub for countries on the Red Sea, the world's "largest new emerging market," said the CEO of the company in charge of the mega-project. The business model of an entire city being built by the private sector was so unusual that it required adjustments in the beginning, said Fahd al-Rasheed, the Group CEO of Emaar Economic City (EEC), which is building the King Abdullah Economic City. "Putting that first phase together is the most...

President Obama sought to reassure American Jews that he fully supports the state of Israel while reiterating the need for a two-state solution at a Northwest Washington synagogue on Friday. Obama spoke at the Adas Israel Synagogue on the inaugural “solidarity sabbath,” a holiday meant to consolidate support for Jews amid rising anti-Semitism that falls toward the end of Jewish Heritage Month. On Friday, lawmakers were slated to appear in congregations across the country to mark the day. ......................... “When we allow anti-Semitism to take root, our souls are destroyed,” Obama said. “It will spread.” The statements follow a wide-ranging...

From Left to Right: Mati Weiderpass, Ted Cruz, Kalman Sporn and Heidi Cruz at a literal fireside chat in Mr. Weiderpass’ apartment.The organizer of the controversial 'Ted Cruz fireside chat' on strange alliances and misguided boycotts.A nuclear-armed Tehran presents an urgent threat to freedom. Opposing the Iran deal are two unlikely allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. And it’s just the latest sign of a thaw in a relationship that proves the wisdom of the old Sanskrit proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Saudi Arabia officially dropped the Arab boycott against Israel in 2005 as a condition of...

<p>Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. When ISIS began its attack on Ramadi last week, the Iraqi government threw in its elite units, hoping to stem the tide of the radical Sunni advance and the overall targeting of Baghdad proper. Instead of pushing ISIS back, what transpired was a repeat of the flight from Mosul and other former Iraqi strongholds — a disorganized rout.</p>

President Obama’s Camp David summit with the Gulf Arab states on Thursday will seek to boost arms sales to the Gulf neighbors but the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been taken off their wish list. White House officials on Monday sought to tamp down speculation that King Salman of Saudi Arabia canceled his attendance at Camp David when the U.S. made clear that his country would not be permitted to buy F-35s. “We do not and never anticipated this to be a summit that only focused on one capability, like the F-35, for instance,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy National...

So apparently Scott Walker took a quiet trip to Israel this week and we are only finding out about it via his Twitter account: Great 1st day in Israel yesterday @ Western Wall, Mount of Olives, Church of the Holy Sepulchure & Via Dolorosa .....[SNIP]..... Thanks @netanyahu for the meeting. Our democracies share common values & work to confront shared threats -skw .....[SNIP].... Enjoy your trip Governor. Tell Netanyahu to forgive us for Obama and that he has our support.

You cannot make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”? I had to laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough, so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems in...

<p>Washington (CNN)Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will have a fresh chance to prove his foreign policy chops with a trip to Israel this week.</p> <p>The likely Republican presidential contender said Saturday in South Carolina that he and his wife were (t)raveling to the country later that day and would meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the trip.</p>

Obama and a Nuclear Iran in the Middle East Iran and suspension of disbelief The term “suspension of disbelief” - coined in 1817 by the philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge—refers to a willingness to suspend one’s critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrificing reality, common sense, doubt and complexity on the altar of a pretend reality, convenience and oversimplification; infusing a semblance of truth into an untrue narrative. Suspension of disbelief characterized the 1977-79 President Carter policy toward Iran, energizing Ayatollah Khomeini, ignoring or underestimating his track record and his radical, supremacist and violent worldview. The betrayal of the Shah transformed...

1]A few years ago it was the Muslim Brotherhood. These days it’s Iran. Next week it may be ISIS or Al Qaeda. Obama stands with the worst elements in the Middle East. That’s always been his philosophy. If the left had a foreign policy, it would be, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” But the wheel is a sword and it’s lubricated with blood. The squeakiest wheels and the bloodiest swords get the most grease from the State Department because they hate us the most. And hating us the most means that somewhere along the way we must have hurt...

This week Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized control of a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship during its transit of the Strait of Hormuz. The MV Maersk Tigris initially ignored Iranian orders to head into its waters until the Revolutionary Guard patrol boats fired warning shots across its bow. The Iranians boarded and confiscated the ship after an Iranian court had ordered the ship to be impounded. The MV Maersk Tigris left the Red Sea port of Jeddah bound for the United Arab Emirates before it was detoured by the Iranians. Iran claimed the ship will be impounded at the Gulf port of...

Evan Sayet recently gave his view that income inequality is irrelevant because other people’s success doesn’t come at the expense of our own. In a humorous and memorable way, Sayet dissects why he wants everyone to be as successful as possible:

In a closed-door meeting with Jewish Donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naïve about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Islamic State. One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush's remarks. The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was...

Make no mistake: the war everyone fears is already here War must be averted. This is the appealing narrative, the glue that has held the theater of the Iran nuclear negotiations together for more than a decade as Western and UN powers try to talk it out with the Islamic Republic in Geneva. It makes sense, in its own right, as nobody should want a war—as in a confrontation where bombs are falling, cities are destroyed and a lot of people end up dead. The Obama Administration has been steadfast in presenting war as the only alternative to the marathon...

Israel has a right to use its military to defend itself against regional threats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday as he continued his diplomatic battle to stop Russian-made arms from flowing into the hands of Israel’s enemies. “The meaning of independence, in my view, is, first of all, the ability to defend yourself,” Netanyahu before he met with the IDF General Staff. “To the growing threats around us we have a response, which is found in this room. I rely on you, chief-of-staff, and I rely on the IDF. The people of Israel rely on you.” Publicly, Netanyahu...