Free Republic

Last week, 10 Senate Democrats who had persistently expressed concern over President Barack Obama’s concessionary policy to Iran over its nuclear weapons program, announced via a letter to the President that they would desist from seeking to pass new legislation to reimpose sanctions in the event of a failure in nuclear talks. Under reportedly enormous pressure from the White House, the senators said that they would await the March 24 deadline for a negotiated framework for an agreement with Tehran, despite their doubts that any such agreement would be forthcoming. This delay is a serious mistake, because one of the...

Although they have repeatedly vowed to destroy us and our allies, President Barack Obama seems intent on reaching out a friendly hand to the tyrannical theocratic regime in Iran. Obama is making concessions to them — virtually guaranteeing that they will one day obtain a nuclear weapon — in a misguided effort to work together with the Islamic nation, when in reality Iran is working against us at every turn. He added, “Iran is not your ally. Iran is not your friend. Iran is your enemy. It’s not your partner. Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel.” “It’s not...

Tensions between Russia and the UK have heightened after it was revealed that the Russian bomber intercepted by RAF fighter jets was carrying a nuclear missile designed to destroy Trident submarines. The TU-95 aircraft were spotted on long range radar flying down from Scotland towards the English Channel, where they were close to entering British airspace, the Sunday Express report. >Ministry of Defence sources revealed the ‘seek and find’ nuclear warhead missile which can destroy the British Vanguard submarines which form the country’s nuclear deterrent.

North Korea may be attempting to restart its main nuclear bomb fuel reactor after a five-month shutdown, a U.S. research institute said Thursday. If true, the finding, which is based on recent commercial satellite imagery, will be an added worry for the United States and the North's neighbors at a time of increasing animosity over recent U.S. sanctions against the North and Pyongyang's fury about a U.N. push to punish its alleged human rights abuses.

Everyone involved seems to be trying to put the best face on it, but Barack Obama went so far as to suggest senior Democrats like Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who take a hard line on Iran, are doing so purely to appease their donors. Obama said that as a former senator himself, he understood how outside forces — like special interests and donors — can influence senators to act, one of the senators recounted.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says Earth is now closer to human-caused doomsday than it has been in more than 30 years because of global warming and nuclear weaponry. But other experts say that’s way too gloomy. The advocacy group founded by the creators of the atomic bomb moved their famed “Doomsday Clock” ahead two minutes on Thursday. It said the world is now three minutes from a catastrophic midnight, instead of five minutes. “This is about doomsday; this is about the end of civilization as we know it,” bulletin executive director Kennette Benedict said at a news conference...

For years, it was thought that Israel had destroyed Syria’s nuclear weapons capability with its 2007 raid on the Kibar complex. Not so. New intelligence suggests that Bashar al-Assad is still trying to built the bomb. And he may be getting help from North Korea and Iran. […] Analysts say that the Syrian atomic weapon program has continued in a secret, underground location. According to information they have obtained, approximately 8,000 fuel rods are stored there. Furthermore, a new reactor or an enrichment facility has very likely been built at the site—a development of incalculable geopolitical consequences. Some of the...

We suspected Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) would have a positive effect on the Senate. The veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan did not disappoint in a speech today at the Heritage Foundation. He began with a simple reminder why we must oppose Iranian nuclear and territorial ambitions: Iran is a radical, Islamist tyrannical regime. Upon coming to power, among its first actions was to invade sovereign American territory — our embassy in Tehran — and hold Americans hostage for over a year, an act of war for which it has never fully answered. The Iranian constitution states that Iran’s Army and...

Prognosticators from the London Times to Democratic pundit James Carville are predicting that President Obama this year will finish a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. With a record of foreign policy failure, Obama is eager for a seeming success, even if the agreement leaves the mullahs with the capacity to quickly build some nuclear bombs at a time of their choosing. Such an outcome would obviously be a strategic disaster, leaving this country and its regional allies vulnerable to an inveterate enemy driven by an apocalyptic ideology. Obama and his foreign policy team will bear the brunt of...

'We Still Have More Work To Do'' The State Department's Rose Gottemoeller, under secretary for arms control and international security, spoke at the Brookings Institution Thursday where she reaffirmed the United States' "unassailable" commitment to putting the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle. Gottemoeller told the attendees at the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative-sponsored event that "the U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable." She went on to note that the nation's stockpile of active weapons is down 85 percent from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013...

Quiet allegations of Iranian cheating on its interim nuclear agreement are fueling speculation in the Israeli press that Israel may be preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, reports the Algemeiner. The official position from Washington has been reflected in Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertions that Iran has so far adhered to the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action nuclear agreement, which bound Iran to suspend certain work at its Arak heavy-water reactor designed to produce plutonium. “Iran has held up its end of the bargain,” Kerry said last month in Vienna while announcing a seven-month...

WASHINGTON -- Historic negotiations with Iran will reach an inflection point on Monday, as world powers seek to clinch a comprehensive deal that will, to their satisfaction, end concerns over the nature of its vast, decade-old nuclear program. But sharing details of the deal under discussion with The Jerusalem Post on the eve of the deadline, Israel has issued a stark, public warning to its allies with a clear argument: Current proposals guarantee the perpetuation of a crisis, backing Israel into a corner from which military force against Iran provides the only logical exit.

VIENNA - A deadline for resolving a 12-year-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program may be extended from Monday until March because of sharp disagreements between Tehran and Western powers, officials close to the talks said on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive in Vienna later for what Washington and its allies had hoped would be the culmination of months of difficult diplomacy between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The aim is to remove sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its atomic program, but the talks have long been deadlocked:...

full title....Obama says he WOULD order U.S. troops into ISIS territory - if they get a nuclear weapon: President conjures nightmare scenario that justifies 'boots on the ground'But, speaking at a news conference in Australia today, the President insisted he would personally order the operation should the U.S. uncovering the terrifying intelligence. He said: 'There are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. 'If we discover that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then yes, you can...

A bad nuke deal with Iran seems likely to be approved by the P5+1 negotiators under Obama's guidance. It will be disastrous. However, if it is signed and Obama tries to implement it, there will be little if anything the Congress can do about it, even if it wants to, until January of 2017 -- which will likely be too late. Even if it is not too late in 2017 it may or may not happen, depending on who is our President and who controls Congress.I have written extensively about the Iran Scam and Obama's untruths and obfuscations concerning it. I did so most recently in...

I am on record predicting that a nuclear deal with Iran will founder on the opposition of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Iranian diplomats, I wrote in May, “will allow this round of negotiations to fail and bargain instead for an extension of the current interim agreement. It will get the extension and then play for time again. There will never be a final deal.” I was vindicated on the first point in July, when John Kerry purchased a five-month extension for the talks with $2.8 billion in direct sanctions relief for Tehran. I’d be willing to make...

-excerpt- On September 15, roughly one month before Obama’s October letter, Khamenei openly dismissed the U.S.-led coalition’s efforts to fight the Islamic State as “empty” and “biased.” Khamenei explained, “I said we do not work with the Americans as they have evil intentions and stained hands. How is it possible to cooperate with Americans under such circumstances?" Iran’s supreme leader said America’s claims about fighting the Islamic State “are lies” and any successes against the group are owed due to the efforts of “the Iraqi people and Army,” not the U.S. or its foreign partners. -excerpt- Obama and his surrogates...

No, not with His domestic enemies in the next Congress. He desperately wants a deal, any deal, with Iran.Obama intends to grant Royal amnesty for millions of illegals currently present in our nation, regardless of the adverse economic and social impacts and Republican warnings. I opined here on what He will likely do and on the unfortunately poor prospects for any Republican efforts to thwart it. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-unITq3gQE] Video linkRemember "Leg Tingles?" The tingle has gone, at least temporarily [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-0tOBijja0] Video linkSo much for deal making with the opposition. However, Obama is anxious to have a deal -- any deal -- with Iran very soon....

What We Can Learn From Britain About Iran By VALI NASR and RAY TAKEYH April 5, 2007 THROUGH the capture of and subsequent announcement that it would release 15 British sailors and marines, the Islamic Republic of Iran sent its adversaries a pointed message: just as Iran will meet confrontation with confrontation, it will respond to what it perceives as flexibility with pragmatism. This message is worth heeding as the United States and Iran seem to be moving inexorably toward conflict. The timing of the Britons’ capture was no accident. The incident followed the passage of a United Nations resolution...

The Obama administration is so desperate to reach a nuclear deal with Iran by the current deadline of November 24th if at all possible that it is willing to trust Russia to play a key implementation role. In the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s duplicity with regard to Ukraine and Putin’s increasingly aggressive stance towards the West that harkens back to the Cold War, the Obama administration is deluding itself into thinking that it can trust Putin to keep his word on ensuring that much of Iran’s uranium stockpile is converted into a relatively harmless end product. According to...