Free Republic

Germany’s foreign minister says his government will exert “considerable efforts” to protect the Iran nuclear deal despite Berlin’s misgivings about Iran’s ballistic missiles program and its involvement in the Syria conflict. In a visit to Jordan, Heiko Maas called for a “firewall” between the nuclear deal and Iran’s other activities. Under the deal, Iran agreed to curbs and inspections on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. …

BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Ibrahim Jaafari, who Tuesday emerged as the man most likely to be Iraq's new prime minister, is a religious Shiite who believes in modernizing Islam and boasts a popular support unmatched by any of his rivals. Jaafari, currently one of two largely ceremonial vice presidents, has been chosen as the candidate of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance list that swept to power with 48 percent of the vote in the January 30 election. His Hezb al-Dawa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Call Party) quickly re-established itself in the southern Shiite heartland after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and many expected...

A senior Iranian leader and confidant of the Islamic Republic’s president is threatening to “depose” President Donald Trump if he continues his policy of confronting Iran and its terror proxy groups in the Middle East, according to recent comments that come as Iranian military leaders threaten missile strikes on U.S. forces and bases in the region. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leading Iranian politician and ally to President Hassan Rouhani, claimed this week that the Trump administration is too “fragile” to confront Iran and that if U.S. officials do “anything unwise against Iran,” the Islamic Republic will see that Trump is “deposed,”...

Blake Williams...is an original veteran of the Pirate Ship, SS Radio Caroline, “founded in 1964 by Ronan O’Rahilly to circumvent the record companies’ control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC’s radio broadcasting monopoly...." ...Here are the ashes of what was once a great country that championed liberty and freedom. It took only 15 years to shred the Constitution, double the debt, stir the race pot to a boil, hijack one sixth of the economy with lies about affordable health care, change the way students add 2 and 2 via a bogus Common Core, create record...

After examining the dangerous goals of both groups, it is obvious that the President is on the right path. Today, on the 38th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, thousands of Iranians demonstrated in Tehran. As usual, the crowd rallied against the “Great Satan,” yelling “Death to America.” They were burning the American flag and effigies of Donald Trump and stomping on the President’s picture.

Do NOT attempt to kill us, rob us, rape us, or harm us in any way. Because this is America, land of the free and home of the brave—and it’s not your fricking Sweden…. Two demonic and lethal forces have united in their separate evil lust to destroy America, and enslave or kill you. This includes utterly destroying you, your family, your pets, your home, your livelihood, your hopes and dreams, and your way of life. You will not be permitted to live, love, or function as a human being.

In 1979, after a long campaign of political pressure applied by the Carter administration in the United States, the Shah of Iran fell to the Islamic Revolution, ending a tradition of monarchic rule that had persisted in Iran for thousands of years since the rule of Cyrus the Great. The stage was set for the rise of the Ayatollah, and the establishment of a theocracy in Iran that, today, most Iranians do not even want. But what if none of that had ever happened? While a momentous departure from actual history, it is not nearly so far-fetched as it sounds....

The 24-year-old Muslim man who carried out the July 16 terrorist attack in Chattanooga was radicalized for at least a year before he opened fire on two military sites and killed five U.S. service members, an FBI agent told the Times Free Press today. The FBI believes people who knew Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez knew he was becoming radicalized before the attack, but failed to report Abdulazeez to authorities, Special Agent Ed Reinhold said. Abdulazeez was radicalized online before he took a July 2014 trip to the Middle East to visit family and discussed committing jihad before he carried out the...

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Iran nuclear kabuki last year, told the Council on Foreign Relations June 23 that the Joint Plan of Action, JCPOA had been successfully implemented so far... Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is for the agreement, but Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been skeptical. Asked about Trump’s threats to renegotiate the agreement, Coons called that possibility “a fool’s errand.” Coons said that personal relationships between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and between Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz and Ali Salehi, Iranian Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] — have been apparently been effective....

President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month, the White House announced Tuesday. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on the Japanese cities in 1945 during World War II. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. He is scheduled to travel to Vietnam and Japan from May 21 through May 28 on his 10th trip to Asia, where he is expected to highlight America’s commitment to increase diplomatic, economic and security engagement with Asian nations and their people. The White House said Obama will participate in his final G-7 Summit...

The international climate pact passed Saturday "represents the best chance we have to save the one planet we've got," President Obama said hours after the historic agreement was signed. "No nation, not even one as powerful as ours, can solve this challenge alone," Obama said of the deal, which the United States and nearly 200 other countries agreed to in Paris Saturday after two weeks of intensive talks. "And no country, no matter how small, can sit on the sidelines. All of us had to solve it together."

LE BOURGET, France — With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change. Delegates who have been negotiating intensely in this Paris suburb for two weeks gathered for the final plenary session, where Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, declared it approved.With that, the delegates achieved what had been unreachable for two decades: a consensus...

We are at war, but life goes on in the US as if nothing is different. We are in a world war and yet the President of the United States can’t even acknowledge who and what we’re fighting. We are in a clash of civilizations and the West seeks leadership and a war strategy from the US and finds nothing. President Obama has signed off from reality like a TV station that broadcasts only static at 2 AM. We are at war and the US refuses to throw out a lifeline to the one country and leader that could help...

Among those who said they did see celebrations in New Jersey firsthand were the following (minor edits have been made for punctuation, capitalization or spelling). Many describe the celebrants as Muslims, though it is not clear in all some how the poster would know that to be true: Tom Penicaro: "I worked for PSEG in Clifton on the Paterson boarder and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the streets cheering and stomping on the flag. I am a Marine and I remember very very clearly because I was so passed I wanted to engage them with a bat...

This Thanksgiving, President Obama is calling for Americans to lend a helping hand to another group of pilgrims fleeing persecution. "Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims - men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families," Obama said in his weekly address Thursday. "What makes America America is that we offer that chance."

If President Obama thought that the recent nuclear weapons deal with Iran would lead to a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic, he might need to think again. The New York Times reports that anti-American agitation, complete with mobs chanting “Death to America!” have been ramped up. Almost as important, the Iranian government has increased the repression of its own people, in effect sticking a thumb in the collective eye of the United States.

A report released this month on “The Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran” reveals that Iranians are worse off under “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani than his more conservative predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and that, based on their current trajectory, they are expected to exceed well over 1,000 executions by year’s end. […] Iran executes more individuals per capita than any other country in the world. In his 26-page report, (Dr. Ahmed) Shaheed notes that between January 1 and September 15 of this year, Iran executed at least 694 people by hanging, which included at least 10 women...

The slogan "Death to America" is not aimed at the American people, but rather American policies, Iran's supreme leader said in comments reported on his official website Tuesday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussed the slogan while meeting with Iranian students ahead of the anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. Militant students stormed the compound and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. ...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama secretly wrote Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence. Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say. The October letter marked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since...

STEVE KROFT: I'm sure you realized the difficulty for many Americans to get past the fact that President Obama has signed an agreement with a country that says: "Death to America, death to Israel." What are they to make of it? Is this for internal Iranian political consumption? What are Americans to make of the language? PRESIDENT ROUHANI: The Iranian people are not looking for war with any country. "There has been much ferocious, negative comments about the deal in Iran as there have been in the United States," Kroft told "CBS This Morning" Friday about the long-awaited nuclear agreement....