Free Republic

President Trump revealed Monday that he will confer with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about when to end the military campaign against Iran, suggesting the decision would be “mutual” between the US and its Middle Eastern ally. “I think it’s mutual… a little bit,” Trump told The Times of Israel in a phone interview, adding that he and Netanyahu have “been talking.” “I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account,” the president added. Trump previously suggested that the war against Iran could last approximately four weeks, but other members of his administration...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Kyiv’s drone experts will be “on site” in the Mideast “next week,” as he seeks US air defense missiles in exchange for drone expertise. “I think that next week, when the experts are on site, they will look at the situation and help,” Zelensky tells a press conference, when asked how the Ukrainians would be able to help the United States and the Gulf states to repel Iranian drones.

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he didn’t want Kurdish fighters from Iraq to join the war against Iran, after previously expressing support for the idea. “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran… They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them I don’t want them to go in… The war is complicated enough as it is… We don’t want to see the Kurds get hurt or killed,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, after attending the return of the bodies of the six American soldiers killed in the conflict with Iran. The US leader spoke as...

“Saturday Night Live” mocked former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for being “reassigned under the bus” after President Trump fired her this week. Ashley Padilla’s Noem – decked out in the 54-year-old’s signature coiffed hair and caked-on makeup – opened the sketch show by claiming she wasn’t axed, she “self-deported,” while taking aim at her rumored plastic surgery and a shocking excerpt from her book about killing her dog. “I just want to make it clear that I didn’t get fired, I self-deported,” she joked, skewering Noem’s controversial ads that pushed immigrants to leave the US voluntarily. “And though I...

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has hit back at President Trump's criticism of the UK response to the conflict in Iran. Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Cooper said: "It won't surprise you that we don't agree with President Trump on every issue." It's the prime minister's job to "take decisions in the UK's national interest... not in the interest of any other country", she added. In a social media post, the US president had earlier said the UK was considering sending aircraft carriers to the Middle East. He appeared dismissive of the move, writing: "We don't need people that join...

U.S. and Israeli airstrikes alone are unlikely to result in the ouster of the Iranian government, according to an expert in air campaigns, who said that the risks are growing for a more drawn-out war that could spread beyond the Middle East. Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied air power for three decades, told CBS News 24/7 that history does not support the idea that bombing alone can unseat a regime and install a more friendly leader. "The fact of the matter is, for over a century, states have been trying...

American intelligence agencies have determined that Iran or potentially another group could retrieve Iran’s primary store of highly enriched uranium even though it was entombed under the country’s nuclear site at Isfahan by U.S. strikes last year, according to multiple officials familiar with the classified reports. Officials familiar with the intelligence said that Iran can now get to the uranium through a very narrow access point. It is unclear how quickly Iran could move the uranium, which is in gas form and stored in canisters. U.S. officials have said that American spy agencies have constant surveillance of the Isfahan site...

Professor Jiang Xueqin made three big predictions back in 2024. The first was that Donald Trump would win the election and become President of the United States again. The second was that Donald Trump would start a war with Iran. Both of those predictions came true which makes the third prediction concerning for the United States. And that is because the professor predicted that it would lose the war to Iran. Jiang made an appearance on “Breaking Points” this week to lay out how he fears it all could play out. “Given my analysis of how the war is progressing,...

President Trump said the Texas Republican Senate candidate that does not get his endorsement should drop out of the race, announcing on Wednesday that he will throw his weight behind the race “soon.” In a lengthy TruthSocial post, Trump argued that the GOP primary race in the Lone Star State “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.” “IT MUST STOP NOW! We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively! Both John [Cornyn] and Ken [Paxton]...

Sir Keir Starmer's unpopularity crisis deepened last night as a bombshell national poll put the Greens second – ahead of Labour. Zack Polanski's party has also leapfrogged the Tories following last week's by-election humiliation for the Prime Minister. It prompted warnings that Labour will be forced to form a 'scary coalition of the Left' with Mr Polanski, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the SNP at the next election. Support for the Greens is now at 21 per cent, up by four points in the week since their victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election, according to the YouGov voting...

Ukraine is offering to share its hard-won battlefield lessons on Iranian drones with allies now confronting the same threat it has for years, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warning that no country can assume it’s fully protected from the kind of drone barrages Russia unleashes nightly. “Everyone can now see that Ukraine’s experience in defense is, in many respects, irreplaceable,” Zelensky said in a post to X Monday urging deeper cooperation with partners. “We are ready to share this experience and help those nations that helped Ukraine this winter and throughout this war. We are ready to work on developing...

The modern international order rests on a foundational promise: states must resolve disputes peacefully, and force may be used only as a last resort and only within the bounds of law. The US helped build this system after World War II, embedding these principles in the UN Charter and in its own Constitution. Yet the US military operations in Venezuela in January 2026 and in Iran on February 28, 2026 represent a sharp break from these commitments. Both actions were undertaken without United Nations authorization and without congressional approval, raising profound questions about legality, constitutional governance, and the erosion of...

Sir Keir Starmer has told MPs that the government "does not believe in regime change from the skies", putting him at odds with President Trump over the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. In his first statement to Parliament since the strikes, Sir Keir defended his decision not to permit the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks. "President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain's national interest," he told MPs.

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend. Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tells Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides “clearly and unequivocally” that Cyprus was not the target of an Iranian missile attack, according to Cyprus’s readout. Earlier, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said that two Iranian missiles were fired toward Cyprus. “We don’t believe they were targeted at Cyprus,” says Healey in a Sky News interview. The UK has two large sovereign base districts in Cyprus.

Saudi Arabia joined Israel in lobbying the US to launch strikes against Iran. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, argued in favour of an attack during multiple phone calls with Donald Trump in the past month, sources told the Washington Post. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, also continued his long-standing campaign urging the US to join strikes on Iran, the Post reported. Iran has continued its retaliation after the US and Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Saturday morning, killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Correspondents in Dubai reported a fresh round of explosions on Sunday...

Clearly, the “Saturday Night Live” writing team had a lot of work to do on Saturday, as they opened the show with a sketch about President Trump’s early morning attack on Iran. In the Feb. 28 cold open, Trump (played by James Austin Johnson) gives a press conference about the military action. “It’s me, Donald Trump, FIFA Peace Prize winner and Nobel Peace Prize taker,” he began. “Remember that? I launched this attack after me and my board of peace…we were bored of peace. As we all know, Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for...

Norway’s foreign minister argues that the strikes on Iran broke international law, calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. “The attack is described by Israel as a pre-emptive strike, but it is not in accordance with international law. A pre-emptive attack would require the existence of an imminent threat,” Espen Barth Eide says in an email sent to AFP by his office. He does not mention US strikes.

French President Emmanuel Macron called President Trump’s attack on Iran “dangerous” and urged both sides to go back to the negotiation table. “The ongoing escalation is dangerous for all,” he said in a statement posted on social media. “It must stop. The Iranian regime must understand that it now has no other option but to engage in good faith in negotiations to end its nuclear and ballistic programs, as well as its regional destabilization activities. This is absolutely necessary for the security of all in the Middle East.” He also called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security...

Missiles streaked across the skies of the Middle East on Saturday morning as the United States and Israel began “Operation Epic Fury,” a joint operation targeting the Iranian regime—and one that President Donald Trump hopes will not only destroy the Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear program, but deliver regime change itself. After months of moving American military assets into the region, the Americans and Israelis began their attack by striking regime infrastructure. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Tehran palace was turned to rubble, killing the Supreme Leader, according to officials. Additional reports said that the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had been targeted....