Free Republic

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed. From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria. The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son...

Immigration to the United States has continued to accelerate despite a slumping economy, a research group said in a report released Tuesday. A record 34 million legal and illegal immigrants live in the United States, nearly one-third of them from Mexico, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank in Washington. About 4.3 million immigrants have entered the country since 2000, when the economy grew slowly. Roughly the same number arrived between 1996 and 2000, during a period of economic expansion. Illegal immigration accounted for nearly half the 4.3 million increase. About 9 million illegal immigrants live...