Free Republic

The whole world, pretty much, is mourning for Nelson Mandela today. But most are not mourning for the real Mandela. They are, in fact, mourning for the myth of Mandela. But don’t believe me. I’ve never been to South Africa – not during Apartheid and not after. Instead, listen to Sonia Hruska. She was an early supporter of Mandela and worked in his administration. “After about six years,” Hruska said, “I realized something serious is wrong; the communist elements are taking over, it’s not what we were promised.” What did she see that the rest of the world missed? “As...

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the free of speech. . . .” This right is, perhaps, the one that Americans cherish most and that distinguishes America from all other countries in the world. To which Obama’s Department of Justice says “Blow it out your ear. Free speech? We don’t need no stinkin’ free speech.” Two top U.S. Department of Justice officials in Tennessee have announced that saying mean things about Muslims on social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) may violate Muslim civil rights and open the...

The gunning down of Hajj Hassan Hollo al-Laqqis, a high-ranking Hizballah commander and close crony of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, raised the stakes of the clandestine war running between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two weeks after two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut. The Hizballah officer was killed by five shots to the head and throat in the underground parking lot of his home in the Hadath neighborhood southwest of Beirut, when he returned home from work after midnight Tuesday, Dec. 3. The Hizballah statement, which said: “Israel is automatically held responsible for the crime,” described...

Entire sanctions regime ‘will collapse within months,’ unnamed sources tell Israeli TV; US has shown it has ‘no red lines’ on Tehran Unnamed Israeli officials denounced US President Barack Obama on Friday night for presiding over failed negotiations with Iran under which they said the sanctions pressure on Tehran is collapsing and the Islamic Republic has been granted the right to enrich uranium. The entire wall of sanctions, painstakingly constructed over years, is already crumbling and “will collapse within months,” the officials were quoted as saying. In comments reported by Israel’s Channel 2 news and attributed to unnamed senior Israeli...

House Intelligence Committee member Michelle Bachmann said that Iran’s nuclear facilities “must be bombed.” In a speech at a Zionist Organization of America gala on Sunday night, Bachmann said that the Geneva deal reached between Iran and world powers at the weekend will severely limit Israel’s ability to operate freely in the interests of its self defense. Bachmann said, “It may be incumbent upon the Prime Minister to make a decision he has no desire to make, and that would be to bomb facilities, that must be bombed, in Iran.” The former presidential candidate framed the deal as a deliberate...

Riffing on Hanukkah holiday, prime minister says Israel will be a ‘light unto the nations’ in dealing with Tehran should diplomacy fail Melding the Hanukkah holiday and foreign affairs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly vowed to serve as a “light unto the nations” and act against Iran’s nuclear program should diplomacy fail Thursday night. Speaking at the Western Wall for a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, Netanyahu compared Iran’s nuclear program to a darkness that would be forced out by Israel, referencing a popular children’s song for the holiday. “We came to drive out the darkness, and the largest darkness that threatens...

JERUSALEM — Just after the signing ceremony in Geneva on Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran declared that the world had recognized his country’s “nuclear rights.” He was right. The agreement Iran reached with the so-called P5+1 — the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia, plus Germany — does not significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Iran made only cosmetic concessions to preserve its primary goal, which is to continue enriching uranium. The agreement represents a failure, not a triumph, of diplomacy. With North Korea, too, there were talks and ceremonies and agreements — but then there was the...

Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water reactor, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite a deal with world powers to shelve a project they fear could yield plutonium for atomic bombs. France, one of the six powers that negotiated Sunday's interim pact with Iran to curb its disputed nuclear program, said in response to Zarif's statement that Tehran had to keep to what was agreed in the Geneva talks. The uncompleted research reactor emerged as one of several big stumbling blocks in the marathon negotiations, in which Iran agreed to restrain its atomic...

The security cabinet held a special meeting Tuesday to consider the implications of the new nuclear accord with Iran, the Syrian war, Hizballah and other current threats to national security. The session was unusually long and is expected to be carried over to Wednesday. IDF and intelligence chiefs gave the ministers special briefings.

Certain US media suddenly this week claimed to have broken the news of a secret track used by President Barack Obama for secret negotiations with Tehran through Oman’s Sultan Qaboos. debkafile and DEBKA Weekly were in fact way ahead of the field. We uncovered the Qaboos track on Aug. 26, 2013 and were on the trail of back-channel communications between Washington and Tehran on Jan.26, more than a year earlier, when he exposed the first secret rendezvous between US and Iranian emissaries in Baghdad. For a while, they continued intermittently at venues in Ankara and Vienna (next door to the...

“For the first time in nearly a decade we have halted parts of Iran’s nuclear program” announced a jubilant Barack Obama after the news of the just-signed Geneva six-month interim agreement with Iran. But the American goal for the accord was that the Iranians not “advance their program” of building a uranium nuclear bomb (and perhaps a plutonium bomb too); the apparent deal exactly permits such advancement, plus sanctions relief to Tehran worth about $9 billion. This wretched deal offers one of those rare occasions when comparison with Neville Chamberlain in Munich in 1938 is valid. An overeager Western government,...

The first preliminary nuclear deal the six world powers (US, Russia, China, UK, France and German) signed with Iran before dawn Sunday, Nov. 24, at the end of a four-day marathon, failed to address the most questionable aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, i.e. its clandestine military dimensions. The accord confined itself to aspects of uranium enrichment and stockpiles. UN inspections were expanded – but not applied, for instance, to Iran’s concealed nuclear sites - or even the Parchin military base where Iran is suspected of having tested nuclear-related explosions. Israel, the Gulf States and others are therefore highly dubious of...

Economics minister and Jewish Home leader says Israel cannot ‘sit idly by’ while world allows Iran to be 6 weeks from the bomb Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) said Saturday that a “bad deal” with Iran on curbing its nuclear program would “increase the need for Israeli [military] action.” “If there will be a deal which would allow Iran to have the ability to ‘break out’ and build a bomb within six weeks, we cannot sit idly by in this situation and we will examine all the options,” Bennett told Channel 2 Saturday evening.

Americans should internalize they are in a whirlwind of trouble, particularly when Egypt’s leaders (not exactly a bastion of freedom and liberty seekers) are the ones taking the lead, that is, in pushing back against the leader of the free world. Its essence revolves around Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia. They have an incontrovertible case to bring before the International Criminal Court, aka the ICC. What an upside down world. Alice-in-Wonderland time…down the rabbit hole…loony tunes too. In this regard, HOT on the heels of yesterday’s commentary, REVEALED: MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD MAFIA COMPLETES ‘PHASE 3′ FROM ‘THE...

Bilateral talks were still dragging on up to midnight Saturday, Nov. 23 in Geneva, well after the deadline the US and European negotiators gave Iran for an interim accord on its nuclear program. This indicated that four of the six powers had reached the limit of their concessions. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif retorted that his government would not bow to threats, but stayed. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the same difficulties encountered two weeks ago still remained. US Secretary John Kerry arranged to be in London Sunday.

American and European negotiators have given Iran until Saturday night, Nov. 23, the fourth day of negotiations in Geneva, to reach agreement on an interim nuclear deal, debkafile’s sources report. After that deadline, those delegations plan to cut the talks short and leave. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif retorted that his government would not bow to threats. The US-EU deadline indicated that Washington, Paris, London and Berlin had reached the limit of their concessions to Iran. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said when he arrived in Geneva that the two difficulties encountered two weeks ago still remained. The Russian and...

Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Geneva Friday to join Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who arrived in Geneva Friday for an effort to end the standoff in the talks between the six major powers and Iran on an interim accord for Iran’s nuclear program. Both will try and narrow the differences between the parties and bring them closer to an agreement. While in the Swiss city, Lavrov also plans to meet the UN special envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi and US diplomats Monday to work on preparations for an international peace conference on Syria.

NNA - Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh al-Asseiri said on Thursday, in a phone call with the National News Agency, that the Embassy urged Saudi nationals to leave Lebanon, considering the alarming security situation.

The Iranian negotiators face the delegations of six world powers in Geneva Thursday, Nov. 21, with strict orders not to give ground on the two major sticking points holding up a first-step deal on their nuclear program: The heavy water reactor under construction at Arak for producing plutonium and Iran’s “right” to uranium enrichment. If Iran gains those two points, whatever concessions its negotiators may come up with are worthless, because they will leave Tehran in possession of two optional nuclear weaponizing tracks instead of one - plutonium as well as enriched uranium. Debkafile’s sources report that Tehran is fighting...

Khamenei calls Israel ‘rabid dog,’ drawing harsh response from Paris as new round of negotiations begins PARIS — The French government spokeswoman says President Francois Hollande believes comments by Iran’s supreme leader about Israel are “unacceptable” and complicate talks between world powers and the Islamic regime over its nuclear program. French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters that Hollande’s cabinet discussed the Iran nuclear dossier just hours before negotiations between Iran and six world powers were set to resume in Geneva. She said, however, that France still hopes for a deal and its position has not changed in the talks....