Free Republic

Bibi's Truth: Forty years of Liberal Betrayal By James Lewis I don’t know what Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is going to say to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. Obama and the sleaze media will try to make this story all about Bibi and phony “violations of protocol.” Bibi will try to tell the truth. Who will you listen to? This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. This time it really matters. Life or death, war or peace, lies or the truth. This time it’s literally life or death -– not just for one person, but for entire nations and ethnic peoples....

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that Iran should commit to a verifiable freeze of at least 10 years on its nuclear activity for a landmark atomic deal to be reached, but said the odds were still against sealing a final agreement. In an interview with Reuters at the White House, Obama said that a rift over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress opposing the Iran deal on Tuesday was a distraction that would not be "permanently destructive" to U.S. Israeli ties. But he said there was a "substantial disagreement" between his administration and...

With the US-Israel train wreck unavoidable on Tuesday, the challenge now is to pick up the pieces and refocus on thwarting Tehran The prime minister has created the dismal situation whereby even his speech to AIPAC, a day prior to Tuesday’s address to Congress, becomes somewhat problematic. Not only are America’s legislators being asked to choose between their president and the Israeli prime minister, as the veteran administration official Dennis Ross observed at the weekend. But AIPAC’s 16,000-strong, overwhelmingly Jewish audience, in mightily applauding Netanyahu, will be seen by some critics as endorsing a stance against the White House —...

<p>The Obama administration and its supporters insist that, although the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program now taking shape may not be perfect, the only alternative is war with Iran. A failure of the nuclear talks, they also contend, would sacrifice important temporary agreements that now restrict Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.</p>

The United States and Israel have stopped intelligence cooperation on Iran's nuclear program, Channel 10 reported Monday. The reported halt in intelligence cooperation comes amid tensions in the relationship between Israel and the administration of US President Barack Obama over differences of opinion on an emerging diplomatic deal with Iran and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress in which he is expected to speak out against such a deal on Tuesday. The intelligence cooperation between the two countries has helped the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency collect information for reports on Iran's nuclear program in the past,...

In response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's opposition to the nuclear deal he warns threatens Israel's very existence, US President Barack Obama's administration has reportedly cut American intelligence cooperation with Israel. A report on Monday night by the Hebrew-language Channel 10, notes that the cooperation between Israeli and American intelligence agencies until now has aided the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in formulating reports on Iran's nuclear program, reports that advanced the sanctions against the Islamic regime. At the moment, while Israel is cooperating with various countries in terms of intelligence on Iran's nuclear program, the cooperation with the United...

Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama has left him no choice. It is hard to get your arms around the stubborn determination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. For most of the nine years he has served as Israel’s leader, first from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from confrontations or buckled under pressure. He signed deals with the Palestinians he knew the Palestinians would never uphold in the hopes of winning the support of hostile US administrations and a fair shake from the pathologically hateful Israeli media. In recent years he released...

Just weeks before Secretary of State John Kerry held new nuclear talks with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva, Iranians were hanging Kerry's boss in effigy at a huge Tehran-sponsored rally marking the Islamic Revolution’s 36th anniversary, an event that critics say underscores the absurdity of the ongoing diplomatic effort. The U.S. and Iran are trying to reach a final nuclear agreement by a March 31 deadline against a backdrop of ongoing anti-American hatred in the Islamic republic. Photos posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute this week show Iranians marching in front of a display depicting President Obama hanging...

PM says from the emerging nuclear agreement "it appears [world powers] have given up" on their commitment regarding Iran. As criticism both in Israel and the US of his planned speech to Congress continues to mount, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the debate over Iran in stark life-and-death terms on Wednesday. “I respect the White House and the US President,” he said of the friction his decision to address Congress has triggered, “but on a matter so fateful that it could determine whether we exist or not, my obligation is do everything to prevent such a great danger to the...

At least $1 billion in cash has been smuggled into Iran as it seeks to avoid Western sanctions, a bigger figure than previously reported, Iranian officials and Western intelligence and diplomatic sources say. Sanctions imposed by the West over Iran’s nuclear program have shut Tehran out of the global banking system, making it hard to obtain the U.S. dollars it needs for international transactions. In December, the U.S. Treasury said the Iranian government had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in bank notes using front companies. Interviews by Reuters with Iranian officials and Western diplomatic and intelligence sources show a...

In an announcement that seems certain to further inflame opinions about a proposed deal to limit Iran’s nuclear capacity, it was revealed today that Russia’s state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec has offered to sell advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Related Stories Kerry Says Iran Extension Worth It Only If Deal Almost Done Bloomberg Iran leader says no nuclear deal better than bad one AFP World powers 'united', Kerry says ahead of new Iran nuclear talks AFP 'Significant gaps' remain in Iran nuclear talks: Kerry AFP

On the surface, the two candidates are as different as can be. Netanyahu is warring with President Obama. Herzog seems to want to be President Obama: The Labor Party leader is campaigning on an Israeli version of “hope and change.” Herzog’s billboards promise Israeli parents an extra teacher in each kindergarten classroom. Netanyahu warns about “the people who want to kill us.” He is fixated on the Iranian mullahs, who he says pose an existential threat to the Jewish state and places beyond. Netanyahu is prepared to risk the ire of the White House and Democrats to make his case...

Arab governments are privately expressing their concern to Washington about the emerging terms of a potential deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program, according to Arab and U.S. officials involved in the deliberations. The direction of U.S. diplomacy with Tehran has added fuel to fears in some Arab states of a nuclear-arms race in the region, as well as reviving talk about possibly extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Middle East allies to counter any Iranian threat. The major Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have said that a final agreement could allow Shiite-dominated...

"We will extend a hand if you are unwilling to unclench your fist," President Obama proclaimed in his inaugural address in January 2009. He characterized those to whom this was addressed in negative terms, but the implication was that this president, unlike his predecessor, would be willing to negotiate with and make concessions to unfriendly nations. It is a promise he has striven to keep, with Russia initially and Cuba more recently, but most of all to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The hand has been extended, more than once. But has the fist come unclenched? That question has become...

In an announcement that could complicate the cornerstone of America’s mission in Iraq—training Iraq’s military to fight ISIS—an Iranian general said Monday that he also is prepared to begin training Iraqi military officers. The message comes after Baghdad and Tehran reached a security agreement in December, which has not been made public but will reportedly increase military cooperation between the two countries. Washington and Tehran have quietly cooperated in the fight against ISIS largely by avoiding direct contact and keeping to separate spheres of influence. If Iran begins training Iraqi officers at the same time the U.S. carries out its...

The Success of Iran’s Taqiyya Tactics KhameneiIn his eagerness to conclude a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear program, U.S. President Barack Obama has knowingly or not, overlooked what is known to Muslims as “taqiyya.” According to the Middle East Forum “The Quran allows Muslims to have a declared agenda, and a secret agenda (Jihad, slaughter, and mayhem) during time of weakness, this is called Taqiyya.” To put it in simpler words, it is the “art” of deception, or more correctly, of deceiving non-Muslim infidels. While negotiations with the P5+1 are ongoing, last Monday (February 2,...

More than two weeks after saying during his State of the Union address that an interim agreement with Iran had “halted the progress of its nuclear program”—a claim since disputed—President Obama repeated the assertion in his National Security Strategy report, released on Friday. “We are currently testing whether it is possible to achieve a comprehensive resolution to assure the international community that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, while the Joint Plan of Action has halted the progress of Iran’s program,” Obama wrote in the introductory letter to the NSS. The report repeats the claim on two other occasions, referring in...

President Barack Obama is about to make a "dreadful mistake" by cutting a deal with Iran on its nuclear program without approval from Congress, which not only puts the United States in danger but the whole world, renowned legal expert Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax TV. "This is a very serious crisis about separation of powers — the president mistakenly believes that the executive has the authority to make this deal with Iran without any input from Congress," Dershowitz, professor emeritus from Harvard Law School, told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on Friday. "He's wrong constitutionally, he's wrong historically, he's wrong...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday he would continue to try to defeat an expected agreement between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear development program as Washington predicted a handshake on the matter in the coming weeks. “The [international] powers and Iran are racing forward with an agreement that will allow Iran to arm with nuclear weapons, something that will threaten the existence of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said before the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Netanyahu declared that he was ready to go head to head with US Secretary of State John Kerry in order...

AS THE Obama administration pushes to complete a nuclear accord with Iran, numerous members of Congress, former secretaries of state and officials of allied governments are expressing concern about the contours of the emerging deal. Though we have long supported negotiations with Iran as well as the interim agreement the United States and its allies struck with Tehran, we share several of those concerns and believe they deserve more debate now — before negotiators present the world with a fait accompli. The problems raised by authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen....