Free Republic

Sixty years ago, I first gazed out on the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam peninsula of Oman. I was there as private secretary to my godfather, Selwyn Lloyd, who had been Britain’s foreign secretary during the Suez Crisis. The previous evening our host, Sultan Said bin Taimur, the ruler of Oman for nearly 40 years, commented gloomily: ‘When two fish are fighting in these waters, the British are behind it.’ I estimate that I must have made at least 250 visits to the Gulf states in the intervening six decades. The key question which would surely now be asked...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to request a phone call, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel. The official does not say what Netanyahu wishes to discuss. According to Ynet, Netanyahu wants to discuss cooperating on countering Iranian drones, which Ukraine has been facing for years.

A Massachusetts man on Thursday was charged with attempting to assassinate a member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet, after he brought Molotov cocktails to the Capitol in January. Ryan English, who turned himself into Capitol Police over the incident, allegedly admitted in January that he brought knives and two Molotov cocktails fashioned out of 50 milliliter Absolut Vodka bottles, which were stuffed with cloth doused in hand sanitizer, to Capitol Hill. The man is now charged with carrying a dangerous weapon or incendiary device on the grounds of the Capitol, and unlawful possession of an incendiary device, the department said....

America's deeply divided Republican Party voted Friday to keep its Donald Trump-backed national committee chair in place, in an election seen as a test of the former president's sway. The GOP has been in disarray since a predicted "red wave" failed to materialize in November elections, with the party eking out only a slim majority in the House, and failing to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats.