Free Republic

Donald Trump outlined an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday, telling The Washington Post's editorial board that he questions the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has formed the backbone of Western security policies since the Cold War. The meeting at The Post covered a range of issues, including media libel laws, violence at his rallies, climate change, NATO and the U.S. presence in Asia. Speaking ahead of a major address on foreign policy later Monday in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Trump said he advocates a light footprint in the world. In spite...

TEHRAN - The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran conducted a second successive day of missile tests on Wednesday, firing two rockets that it said hit targets over 850 miles away and were capable of reaching Israel. The tests appeared clearly aimed at sending a message to the Israelis as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was visiting. Tehran says that it has a right to pursue defensive weapons systems and that, since it has given up any semblance of a nuclear program, it cannot in any event be working on a nuclear capability. Iranian commanders seemed to go out...

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards test-fired several ballistic missiles on Tuesday, state television said, challenging a UN resolution and drawing a threat of a diplomatic response from the United States. Two months ago, Washington imposed sanctions against businesses and individuals linked to Iran's missile program over a test of the medium-range Emad missile carried out in October 2015. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Boner said Washington would review the incident and, if it is confirmed, raise it in the U.N. Security Council and press for an "appropriate response".

NBC is calling it for Clinton.

Ignoring recent US sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi on Monday announced planned "massive missile drills," to be held by the end of February. Firouzabadi was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency saying the "missile wargames" are set for the first half of the Iranian month of Esfand, which spans from February 11 to March 5. A key weapon being developed by Iran is its nuclear-capable medium-range Emad missiles, which Tehran recently vowed to upgrade. Emad is said to have a 1,700 kilometer range, putting Israel and much of...

Anyone have strong enough stomach and information junkie brain to dare watch with me?

Russia's air campaign in Syria has killed hundreds of civilians and caused massive destruction in residential areas, according to a report released Wednesday by Amnesty International. The rights group claims the pattern of attacks "show evidence of violations of international law." Russia has been engaged in a military campaign in Syria in support of embattled President Bashar al-Assad since September. Moscow says its operation is aimed at defeating "terrorist targets" there, but the United States claims the Russian airstrikes are targeting Syrian opposition forces rather than ISIS, which has taken control of large parts of the country. The Amnesty report,...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush claimed Sunday that he hated being the GOP front-runner during the beginning of the primary process, and prefers trailing the current front-runners. Bush told "Face The Nation" host John Dickerson that he always thought there would be a "high expectation" for him to do well because of his family history. He said that he feels good about where the campaign is situated right now.

Iran has carried out a new medium range ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions, a senior U.S. official told Fox News on Monday. The missile, known as a Ghadr-110, has a range of 1,800 – 2000 km, or 1200 miles, and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The missile fired in November. Iran appears to be in a race against the clock to improve the accuracy of its ballistic missile arsenal in the wake of the nuclear agreement signed in July.

President Barack Obama has paid a late-night tribute to those killed in the terrorist attacks in Paris two weeks ago, shortly after his arrival for climate talks in the French capital. The American president's motorcade went straight from Orly Airport on Sunday to the famed French concert hall, the Bataclan, site of the worst bloodshed when the terrorists struck on Nov. 13.

French President Francois Hollande promised early Saturday morning that France would respond to terrorist attacks that killed more than 120 people with a "pitiless" war against the group responsible. "We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless," he said at the Bataclan, the site of one of the attacks, according to the Guardian. "Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities, they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we express infinite sorrow," Hollande added....

Michelle might want to gently tap the president on the shoulder and remind him "umm, Barack, you're not in the faculty lounge any more. You're actually, uh, President and Commander-in-Chief. So you don't get to criticize your own failed policies as if you're not responsible for them. They're, umm, your policies, you know?" Commenting on President Obama's 60 Minutes interview in which he said he was "skeptical from the get-go" about his administration's failed policy of training Syrian rebels, WaPo's David Ignatius on today's Morning Joe called the president's reaction "weird," adding "he spoke almost like a man vindicated when...

BAGHDAD -- U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria have likely killed at least 459 civilians over the past year, a report by an independent monitoring group said Monday. The report by Airwars, a project aimed at tracking the international airstrikes targeting the extremists, said it believed 57 specific strikes killed civilians and caused 48 suspected "friendly fire" deaths. It said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State militants.

The conflict in Iraq has taken a terrible toll on civilians with nearly 15,000 killed and 30,000 wounded during a 16-month period ending on April 30, by the Islamic State group, Iraqi security forces and others, according to a U.N. report released Monday. The U.N. mission in Iraq and the U.N. human rights office said in the report that violations of international humanitarian law and gross human rights abuses by the Islamic State group, which controls large swaths of Iraq's north and west, may in some cases amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. Iraq is going...

Iraqi troops supported by Iranian-backed Shiite militias have launched a military operation to recapture the country's biggest province, Anbar, from Isis, the military announced on state television. In a statement also read out on state TV, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that the terror group is facing "defeats after defeats" against Baghdad's forces. "We will punish the criminals of Isis in the battlefields," he said. A joint spring offensive between Iraqi forces, Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen and US-led coalition aircraft to retake Mosul, the country's second city, has been delayed until 2016.

The U.S. State Department announced this morning that Iran and the major countries negotiating a nuclear deal have extended the deadline from today to July 7 to "allow more time for negotiations to reach a long-term solution." At issue is how fast billions of dollars in sanctions relief against Iran’s economy will be implemented by the international community, as well as the level of access inspectors will have to Iranian military sites and nuclear scientists.

The hardline Islamic State group has beheaded two women in Syria, the first time it has decapitated female civilians, the founder of a group monitoring the war said on Tuesday. The beheadings took place in the eastern Deir al-Zor province this week said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. One of the women was beheaded along with her husband in Deir al-Zor city. In al-Mayadeen city to the south east, the group beheaded another woman and her husband. All of them were accused of sorcery, the monitor said

President Barack Obama was elected on a promise of extricating the U.S. military from Iraq — what he called a “clean break.” More than six years later, he’s found there’s simply no escaping the pressure to send U.S. combat forces back. But the move, which follows the embarrassing fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, drew immediate criticism from Republicans. Further exacerbating Obama’s political crisis, Democrats on the other side accused him of unnecessarily escalating U.S. involvement and risking “mission creep.” “The last thing he foresaw was the need to reintroduce troops into Iraq,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California,...

The United States is considering establishing additional military bases in Iraq to combat the Islamic State, the top American general said on Thursday, a move that would require at least hundreds more American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake cities lost to the militant Sunni extremist group. President Obama’s decision this week to send 450 trainers to establish a new military base to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, could signal the beginning of similar efforts in other parts of the country, said Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint...

The White House is reportedly planning a shift in strategy in Iraq that would see hundreds of American military trainers deployed to help retake Ramadi and the delay of long-held plans to drive the Islamic State from Mosul. Six months after US forces began training Iraqi troops to take on the jihadist fighters, a string of defeats on the battlefield has prompted the Obama administration into a recalibration of its plans. The American military hopes to build up enough well-trained and well-equipped Iraqi forces to retake the city of Ramadi, which fell to Isil in mid-May. The plan would see...