Free Republic

Iran is supporting its Houthi rebel allies and proxy in Yemen to conduct an increasing war against Saudi Arabia, the Saudi-led Coalition, and also against Yemen government forces in Marib. Twenty four hours have seen an increased offensive against Marib in Yemen, a reported ballistic missile attack on Saudi Arabia on Saturday night and an attack on a ship in the Gulf of Oman. It is part of a series of tensions across the region linking Iran to conflicts in numerous places. This could be seen as a kind of “total war” that Iran is pushing across the Middle East....

On a number of national security issues, the Biden administration is showing troubling signs of a backslide with regard to the historic progress Trump made.Whatever your views of Donald Trump’s presidency, it is hard to dispute that he produced a stronger record of achievement across the board when it comes to protecting the American people from a range of foreign threats than any other president in at least a generation. His national security accomplishments in four short years included taking on China, forging the historic Abraham Accords in the Middle East, defeating the ISIS caliphate, countering Iran, and standing up...

....I mean, that kind of is what you voted for, is it not? There was no secrecy surrounding the fact that Joe Biden is a foreign policy idiot who believes in the typical establishmentarian, Bush-Obama approach to the Middle East. Did any Biden voter really think he wouldn’t start bombing something shortly after taking office? Heck, he did make it an entire month. That says something, right? As to the $2,000 checks, that was predictable as well. Had Republicans kept the Senate, Trump would have been able to push them through. With Democrats in charge, Pelosi is too busy stuffing...

The problem with the strike is two-fold, however. First, he hit the wrong target. Despite Bidens’s efforts to emphasize proportionality, the airstrike was not proportional; rather, it was less. A U.S. Embassy or an airport where U.S. forces reside are not the equivalent of a dusty outpost used as a tea stop for militiamen traversing from Iraq into Syria. Nor are U.S. forces the equivalent of an Iranian-backed militia. A proportional response would more directly target Iranian interests or property. The danger is not Iranian escalation, but rather the normalization of rocket attacks on embassies or airports. Iranian authorities might...

Uzra Zeya nominated for undersecretary of civilian security, democracy, and human rights President Joe Biden's nominee for a top State Department position played a key role in assembling a book on the nefarious influence of the "Israel lobby" while working for an organization that promoted claims about Jewish media control and dual loyalty to Israel. As a staffer at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Uzra Zeya compiled research for a book that argues that "the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy" by establishing a secret network of "dirty...

With a chill wind starting to blow toward Israel from Washington as US President Joe Biden still has not called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his spokeswoman equivocated oddly when asked whether Israel remained an important US ally, this might be the time for Israel to look at upgrading and revamping ties with France. Amazing how quickly things can change, isn’t it? When Donald Trump was president, Israel had their strongest ally possible with the United States, but a Joe Biden presidency has returned to Obama-era policies and is ignoring the Jewish state. That leaves the door wide open for…you...

The new Biden Administration has largely been focused on fulfilling its election promises in its first month in power. After reversing an extensive list of Trump policies via executive orders, Biden is now focusing on the Middle East. In stark contrast to his predecessor, Joe Biden’s administration is taking a reserved and diplomatic approach towards the ongoing crisis in the Middle East region. While the new administration is yet to fully address Iranian Sanctions or the JCPOA-agreement, it has stepped up the pressure on some Arab countries by temporarily blocking U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In...

The head of a Messianic Jewish ministry is very concerned about Joe Biden's decision to restore relations with the Palestinians, including the millions of "aid" dollars that will be going toward that effort. As One News Now recently reported, acting U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills says the new administration believes in the "Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a state of their own and to live with dignity and security." Biden's team will take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed during President Donald Trump's administration, and it also intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that are supposed to support economic development...

Is the future of Republican foreign policy Trumpian? Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, thinks that Trumpism will not define the future of foreign policy. Kroenig is writing primarily to push back against a narrative he sees among foreign-policy professionals and commentators here and abroad that the Republican Party is permanently changed, becoming “a more isolationist GOP — one that is skeptical of free trade and international institutions, indifferent to democracy and traditional allies, and solicitous toward dictators, such as Russian president Vladimir Putin.”

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article first appeared on JNS. Israel recently signed agreements establishing relations with four Muslim nations: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Both good and bad news surround this development. The bad news is bland and predictable: a permanent peace between Israel and its Muslim neighbors is, according to Islamic law, or sharia, impossible: any land that was once part of Dar al-Islam—that is, any land that was ever conquered by Muslims for any length of time—is always part of Islam and must be recovered by...

A second wave of desert locust swarms has begun striking an already hard-hit East Africa in recent weeks after heavy rains and a late-season cyclone sparked a new round of breeding, with swarms invading Kenya and southern Ethiopia, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The first wave of locusts was reported in East Africa in January of last year, when heavy rains sparked a round of largescale breeding, according to FAO. Weather conditions remained favorable for locust reproduction and growth throughout the year, feeding outbreaks of locust from East Africa to Iran. With the...

As Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America today, while the U.S. Senate takes up the second impeachment attempt against Donald J. Trump by the House of Representatives, we are left with some thorny issues that deserve answers sooner than later.Looking Beyond WordsAs Nathaniel Fischer reminds us, “When judging a statesman, we must look beyond his words and values to assess his true impact. While good values can play an important role, impact also depends on prudence to navigate contemporary challenges, the work ethic to push for results, and the...

The knives were out for me in January 2017 when I arrived in Washington as the White House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. You see, I worked for what scolds liked to call Sheldon Adelson's paper -- and that was a no-no. Adelson died Monday night, and I never got a chance to say this. Had he given me marching orders? I heard that question a lot in 2017. In fact, I didn't meet or talk to Adelson until 2018, when I introduced myself at an event ahead of the Jerusalem Embassy opening. The "marching orders" question is one...

Ayear after a U.S. military operation rid this world of the Iranian terrorist-general Qasem Soleimani, the same tired voices are repeating the same tired message, even on the eve of their return to power: “The Trump administration is on the brink of war with Iran!” “Trump is a very wounded and very cornered animal in an end-game scenario. He’s got a few weeks left, and we know that he is capable of extremely erratic behavior,” says Professor Danny Postel of Northwestern University. After the events of last Wednesday, it’s hard to argue with Postel’s assessment of the president’s psyche. But...

It is nigh impossible to look away from the chaos in Washington, but U.S.-Iran relations in the waning days of the Trump administration deserve a wary glance. Two U.S. bombers flew a “deterrence mission” in the Gulf region this past Thursday. U.S. Central Command has yet to release a statement on the flight, but an official described the last such mission in December as a means of ensuring “that if the Iranians do think they have a plan that’s executable, that they think twice before executing it, because they do see that we have a robust posture and presence still...

At least 23 members of Iranian and Syrian-regime forces were killed in Israeli air strikes in eastern Syria early Wednesday, and more than 28 militiamen wounded, some seriously, according to a U.K.-based war monitor. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that Israel had struck targets in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, quoting a military source as saying that the strike occurred just after 1 a.m. but providing no further details. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the area between the city of Deir ez-Zor and the Syria-Iraq border, in the al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal districts, had been hit no...

Iran wasted no time setting a terrible tone for its 2021 foreign policy this week, making it clear that Tehran remains firmly committed to expanding its nuclear program and defeating U.S. sanctions. First, its paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy seized a South Korean-flagged chemical tanker sailing the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, reportedly for maritime pollution violations, according to Tehran. The tanker and crew are being held in Iran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards repeatedly have seized ships in international waters off Iran’s coast as a means of taking hostages to use as bargaining leverage in disputes with foreign...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking American troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf. Officials said on Friday that the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, had ordered the redeployment of the ship in part as a “de-escalatory” signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Trump’s waning days in office. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a...

ONE YEAR AGO, in a column headlined "What was so great about the 2010s," I remarked that the first decade of the 21st century, "for all its sorrows, has been the best time to be alive." Despite the media's relentless focus on bad news, I argued, humankind was living in the most fortunate era our species had ever known.Then came 2020.The past 12 months have brought misery, turmoil, and distress on a scale that most Americans couldn't have imagined last New Year's Eve: the emergence of the coronavirus, a torrent of sickness and death, economic and social lockdowns, a tidal...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel could be open to future cooperation on missile defence with Gulf Arab states that share its concerns about Iran, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday... ...Jitters about Iran were a driver of a U.S.-brokered pact on Sept. 15 formalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for the first time. Saudi Arabia has encouraged the rapprochement, while holding off on having its own bilateral ties with Israel for now. Prior to those deals, a senior Israeli official had told Reuters there would be no coordination on missile defence with Gulf countries.