Free Republic

President Donald Trump appears to have a strategy: threaten irreparable damage to Iran's civilian infrastructure then hit pause and hope the other side decides to come to the table and revive negotiations. By ABC News' count, he's tried it no less than seven times. So far it hasn't worked. In what's becoming a familiar pattern, Trump wrote on his social media platform late Saturday night that at the request of Iran and other Middle Eastern countries he'd decided not to carry out his what White House officials said would be a devastating strike targeting Iran's energy infrastructure. But, he warned,...

The Los Angeles Times recently published a "News Analysis" headlined: "Trump, long a critic of 'forever wars,' may be stumbling into one with Iran." The analysis offers legitimate grounds for criticizing President Donald Trump. He has described the objectives of the war against Iran in different ways. He has made changing predictions about its duration. He has repeatedly suggested that an agreement was near, only for negotiations to collapse. He promised no more endless Middle East wars, yet the conflict has continued for months, American servicemembers have died, and the administration has not clearly defined what victory looks like. All...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower-court decision that would have struck down a 10-day waiting period for certain firearm purchases. The lower-court decision would have allowed existing gun owners and people with concealed-weapons permits to immediately take possession of a lawfully purchased firearm. [Snip] 9th Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder ... said someone who already owns a hunting rifle may want to buy a larger-capacity weapon that will do more damage when fired into a crowd. "A 10-day cooling-off period would serve to discourage such conduct and would impose no serious burden on the core...

Russia will withdraw troops that were sent to Georgia to reinforce peacekeepers within 10 days, the commander of Russian ground forces said today. "The withdrawal of the Russian troops which have reinforced the peacekeepers from the territory of Georgia is going according to plan and will be completed in 10 days," Ground Forces Commander Vladimir Boldyrev said. "These forces will be withdrawn to Russian territory," he said. There have been conflicting reports about the plans of the Russian military, with earlier accounts saying that Moscow would pull back its forces behind the buffer zone by tomorrow and had already begun...