Free Republic

Since his arrest last July -- he was accused of helping to plan the post-election uprisings -- Kian's family and friends have made countless appeals for clemency to the Iranian government, written letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pleading his innocence, and signed dozens of petitions. All to no avail. I've come now to realize that the regime probably thinks we're obtuse. Indeed, they know better than anyone that Kian is an innocent man. As the expression goes in Persian, "da'va sar-e een neest," i.e. that's not what this fight is about.

As French authorities struggle to get to grips with the vast network of Muslim extremists in its country - some 10,000-strong according to official estimates - a sermon recorded at a mosque in southern France on the day of last week's attacks in Paris illustrates how extremist preachers are spreading radical Islamist doctrines, and talking openly about taking over the country During his sermon in Montpellier, translated by MEMRI, Imam Mohammed Khatabi sough to rile up the crowd by suggesting that "Westerners" do not see Muslims as human, while urging them to reject any affiliation with or loyalty to the...

Whatever else you might think about the war in Iraq, the fact is that the Iraqis have stopped supporting Islamic terrorism outside their borders and no longer pose a threat of using or supplying WMD to these monsters. Al Qaeda violence in Iraq has been quelled, and the problem there has shifted to the traditional enmity between Shi’as and Sunnis that has led to extreme violence in the presence of a weak government and our reluctance to use overwhelming force. The scene has now shifted to Iran, where major Islamic terrorism against America started in 1979, and where, fortunately, we...

In a recent commentary, former New York Mayor Ed Koch - a Democrat with at least half a brain (which makes him the leading intellectual light of his party) - asked rhetorically, "Why do so many Americans refuse to face the fact that our country is at war with international terrorism?" Because they're liberals? During the Spanish Civil War, as the climactic battle for Madrid approached, Nationalist leader Francisco Franco told a reporter: "I have four columns marching on Madrid and a fifth within the city ready to rise at my call." Franco's comment gave rise to the World War...

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government showcases Mohammed Khatami, former president of Iran. Khatami gets the royal treatment although the U.S. State Department places Iran on the A-List as a state sponsor of terrorism. Another triumph for enemy propagandists. This week marks the fifth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist strikes on our nation. How best to honor the memories of the nearly 3000 fallen from those vicious attacks? Let's start with the lunacy emerging from distinguished Harvard University. The oldest institution of higher learning in the United States has stepped forward...