Free Republic

It was Iran, not the US, that breached international law by carrying out the US Embassy takeover in Tehran.... It was also Iran, not the US, that immediately began using its proxies, such as Hezbollah, to commit terrorism and incite antagonism towards America. Should the mullahs be appeased for killing thousands of Americans? For continually taking Americans as hostages? For being the leading executioner of children in the world? For ranking the first in the world per capita when it comes to executing people? For being the world's top state sponsor of terrorism? For making every possible effort to damage...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairmen of three congressional committees on national security on Thursday pressed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to explain whether a Trump administration arms control report was politicized and slanted assessments about Iran. The chairmen of Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence committees in the U.S. House of Representatives - all Democrats - asked Pompeo in a letter to provide a State Department briefing and documents no later than May 23. The letter cited a Reuters story from April 17 that reported how the administration’s annual report to Congress assessing compliance with arms control agreements provoked...

The Pentagon is working with its Defense Intelligence Agency to declassify and release images including two traditional sailing vessels carrying land-attack missiles to back up the Trump administration's claims of a growing threat from Iran, according to four defense officials. The evidence may be released within a day, according to one of the officials, because the White House recognizes it needs to disclose more documentation to skeptical allies, U.S. lawmakers and the public. These include images of the two dhows, slow-moving vessels that U.S. analysts believe were carrying cruise missiles … As always, though, there's concern about revealing U.S. intelligence-gathering...

The U.S. Air Force has deployed at least 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Iran with high-power microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless without causing any fatalities, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing's Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and tested successfully in 2012. They have not been operational until now. The microwave weapons are fitted into an air-launched cruise missile and delivered from B-52 bombers. With a range of 700 miles, they can fly...

Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to dismiss the idea. "There won't be any war. ... We don't seek a war, and (the Americans) don't either. They know it's not in their interests." The ayatollah's analysis -- a war is in neither nation's interest -- is correct. Consider the consequences of a war with the United States for his own country. Iran's hundreds of swift boats and handful of submarines would be sunk. Its ports would be mined or blockaded. Oil exports and oil revenue would halt....

President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict. Mr. Trump’s statement, during a Wednesday morning meeting in the Situation Room, came during a briefing on the rising tensions with Iran. American intelligence has indicated that Iran has placed missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf, prompting fears that Tehran may strike at United States troops and...

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he’s “concerned” about a military escalation with Iran. Speaking with reporters during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential frontrunner took aim at President Trump’s tough talk against Tehran, saying “now we’re going to decide we’re going to threaten a war with Iran. I mean, the man has no foreign policy.”

As his limo carried him to work at the White House Monday, Larry Kudlow could not have been pleased with the headline in The Washington Post: "Kudlow Contradicts Trump on Tariffs." The story began: "National Economic Council Director Lawrence Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that American consumers end up paying for the administration's tariffs on Chinese imports, contradicting President Trump's repeated inaccurate claim that the Chinese foot the bill." A free trade evangelical, Kudlow had conceded on Fox News that consumers pay the tariffs on products made abroad that they purchase here in the U.S. Yet that is by no means the...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a sudden, unscheduled trip to Baghdad on Tuesday, as an aircraft carrier and Air Force bombers headed to the Middle East amid warnings that Iran was contemplating an attack on U.S. troops in the region. The surprise visit came after Pompeo abruptly canceled a trip to Germany, where he was scheduled to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The State Department initially said only that the change was made because “pressing issues” had arisen. Pompeo’s visit to Baghdad, which followed an Arctic Council meeting in Finland, took on an air...

Last week, it was Venezuela in America's gun sights. "While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible," thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "If that's what is required, that's what the United States will do." John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine: "This is our hemisphere. It's not where the Russians ought to be interfering." After Venezuela's army decided not to rise up and overthrow Nicholas Maduro, by Sunday night, it was Iran that was in our gun sights. Bolton ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln, its carrier battle group and a bomber force...

The transformation of the GOP into the party of Patrick J. Buchanan and Donald J. Trump—defined by cultural resentments, crude populism, and ethnic nationalism—is among the most important political stories of this century. But the GOP is hardly the only party that is undergoing some alarming tectonic shifts. Liberals wondering why conservatives who worry about Trump don’t join the Democrats should consider what is happening on their own side of the aisle. If you want to understand just how radicalized the Democratic Party has become in recent years, look at the ascent of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A self-proclaimed...

During the dying days of the Roman Republic, with effete senators stabbing each other in the back when they were not busy in orgies, Julius Caesar followed the exact trajectory of a Leviathan—what Thomas Hobbes described beautifully hundreds of years later. Caesar, by this time opposed to the Senate, which obstructed his imperial aims, decided to cross the river Rubicon, thereby declaring war on the last vestiges of the craven republic. After crossing the river, Caesar famously said Alea Eacta Est, or the die is cast. Thus crossing the Rubicon is now considered a revolutionary act that aims to destroy...

3,000 Yazidi sex slaves missing and feared dead 3000 Yazidi sex slaves are lost and feared dead. This story should be in headlines everywhere. Is it? Are the lives of Yazidi girls and women so valueless in the eyes of the Western media? Add to that the fact that thousands of other Yazidi sex slaves who were tortured and murdered. Where also are the human rights activists? Why do they ignore these victims of jihad terror and abuse? “LOST FOREVER ISIS’ 3,000 Yazidi sex slaves feared dead as hopes of finding any of them alive fade with collapse of evil...

Hanoi Vietnam’s government claims that a Chinese vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in disputed waters in the South China Sea. The fishing boat was around 370 kilometres off Da Nang near Discovery Reef in the Paracel island chain on Wednesday when it was rammed by a Chinese vessel, the National Committee for Incident, Natural Disaster Response and Search and Rescue said in a statement. The five Vietnamese men on board the fishing boat clung on to the sinking bow until they were rescued, the statement said. Vietnam’s government and state media have previously accused Chinese vessels of...

"Record Numbers Crossing to U.S., Deluging Agents" was the page-one headline. The Times quoted Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection: "The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point. ... This is ... a border security and a humanitarian crisis." Reporter Caitlin Dickerson explained what is behind CPB's alarm: "The number of migrant families crossing the Southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago." She continued, "More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high ... newcomers continue to...

To manifest his opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan, Gen. James Mattis went public and resigned as secretary of defense. Now Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in public testimony to Congress, has contradicted Trump about the threats that face the nation. Contrary to what the president believes, Coats says, North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. ISIS remains a serious threat, even if the caliphate has been rolled up. And there is no evidence that Iran, though hostile and aggressive,...

"Stop the ENDLESS WARS!" implored President Donald Trump in a Sunday night tweet. Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton. Last September, when Shiite militants launched three mortar shells into the Green Zone in Baghdad, which exploded harmlessly in a vacant lot, Bolton called a series of emergency meetings and directed the Pentagon to prepare a menu of targets, inside Iran, for U.S. air and missile strikes in retaliation. The Wall Street Journal quoted one U.S....

Populist conservative author and columnist Pat Buchanan says the “trend worldwide” is toward President Trump’s worldview of national sovereignty and away from the Bush dynasty’s desired “New World Order.”

Why has the media and much of the political establishment made the presumed murder of an Islamist Saudi dissident on Turkish soil a defining issue in American foreign policy? Jamal Khashoggi is not a U.S. citizen, despite his past residence in Virginia, nor is he a lover of liberty, despite his criticism of Saudi Arabia’s despotic regime. He previously served that regime as a mouthpiece for, and adviser to, the alleged al-Qaeda-tied Saudi intelligence leader Turki bin Faisal. Khashoggi mourned the death of Osama bin Laden, whom Khashoggi had been granted unusual levels of access for numerous interviews. Khashoggi was...

Control of the House will give them 'the power of no — the ability to block programs, cut funding, withhold agreement.' Democrats preparing to take over the House are aiming to roll back what they see as President Donald Trump's overly aggressive nuclear strategy. Their goals include eliminating money for Trump’s planned expansion of the U.S. atomic arsenal, including a new long-range ballistic missile and development of a smaller, battlefield nuclear bomb that critics say is more likely than a traditional nuke to be used in combat. They also want to stymie the administration's efforts to unravel arms control pacts...