Free Republic

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve given Kirkuk to the Iranians. Kirkuk. The Heart of Kurdistan. It’s the Jerusalem of the Kurds, our only trusted and loyal allies in Iraq. It’s also the last piece of terrain needed by Tehran to complete its overland, unimpeded access to the shores of the Mediterranean and to its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. And it’s precisely where President Trump’s new hard line on Iran, barely 72 hours old, was put to the test and failed. Actually, it didn’t fail. Our State Department failed it. Rather than act to dissuade or disrupt this past weekend’s bold...

Israel Prepared to Take on Iran Israel this week reiterated its stance on dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak stating, "We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it." Barak's comments came as U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor James Jones, traveled to Israel to discuss Iran. The Obama administration, for its part, continued to hold out for diplomacy, with Gates commenting, "The timetable the president laid out [for negotiating] still seems to be viable and does not significantly...