Free Republic

<p>Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn from the 9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. The Iraq War critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead. Well, of course Iran is a threat. But how exactly would the critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Can you imagine the Iraq War critics actually supporting war with Iran?</p>

TEHRAN, 26 July 2004 — Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday branded as “daydreamers” US senators who have sponsored a bill aimed at toppling Tehran’s Islamic government by supporting opposition groups inside and outside the country. Republican senators Rick Santorum, representing Pennsylvania, and John Cornyn of Texas introduced the “Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2004” earlier this month. The bill authorizes the US president to provide $10 million to foreign and domestic Iranian “pro-democracy” groups such as radio and television networks in order to promote regime change in the Islamic state. “Those who draft such plans lag behind the times, they...

Real FreedomState backs Iranian “reformers” — who don’t exist. Recently, the State Department has posted a 15-page document on its website under the title of "Voices Struggling to be Heard." This document has been presented as a "fact sheet," but much of it is more fiction than fact. Although it's a positive step on the part of the State Department to publish such a report in the first place, what is disappointing is that this publication is geared more towards promoting the so-called reformists in Iran than exposing human-rights violations by the Islamic regime. State Department: "Today the courageous voices...

Iraq has a new interim government that will take over authority from the U.S.-led coalition on June 30th. The selection of the new government, headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar, is a significant move toward a free and fully independent Iraq. The interim government's greatest task will be to guide Iraq to national elections by next January. President George W. Bush says that “a fully sovereign nation with a representative government” will realize the dream of the Iraqi people. But it will also do more: A free Iraq in the heart of the Middle...

House Condemns Iran's Nuclear Program May 06, 2004 The Associated Press Jom Abrams WASHINGTON -- The House on Thursday accused Iran of "continuing deceptions and falsehoods" involving development of nuclear weapons and said that Europe, Japan and Russia should cut commercial and energy ties until Iran permanently end such activities. Among the few dissenters in the 376-3 vote was Democratic presidential contender Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who said the nonbinding resolution endorsed the administration's doctrine of preventive war. The resolution states that despite Iran's promises to the International Atomic Energy Agency to end uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, "it...

It may turn out to be the next foreign policy crisis, on par with the Cuban Missile Crisis and America’s recent showdown with Iraq. And remember, you heard it here first. NewsMax has learned from a senior State Department official that President Bush has, Alamo-style, drawn a line in the sand over Iran's nuclear weapons programs. Bush's warning: Either Iran dismantles its nuclear weapons program or else. Here is how the “crisis” has been unfolding. On Saturday, Iran halted all international inspections of its nuclear facilities. This came, as the AP reported, “hours after the U.N. atomic agency issued a...

This is excerpted from Rep. Robert Andrews address in the House 3-03-04 Topic : IRAN "What is the lesson of September 11? There are two lessons. The first is if you give terrorists sanctuary, they will exploit that sanctuary and, like a snake that is coiled in the corner, they will wait till precisely the right moment to strike. And the second lesson of September 11 is if you wait for the snake to strike, it always will. If our strategy in the face of this global struggle is to wait and see if terrorists who enjoy sanctuary will attack...

Among Sen. John Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. Nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Argentina by President Bill Clinton in 1999, Nemazee eventually withdrew his nomination after a former partner raised allegations of business improprieties. Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees. In 2001,...

An Open Letter To Senator John Kerry SMCCDI (Public Statement) Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) ________________ February 19, 2004 Dear Senator Kerry: For the past few months we have listened and observed with apprehension and dismay to your statements and views regarding the terrorist theocracy in Iran. Yet, we had remained silent! We have read how you refer to the theocratic regime in Iran as a "democracy;" we have heard how, if elected, as the president of the United States you intend to "engage" this barbaric regime; this very terrorist regime that your own State Department...

The Iranian Deception February 24, 2004 The Wall Street Journal Review & Outlook Now is precisely the time for Mr. Bush to show solidarity with the majority of Iranians who want greater freedom, just as Ronald Reagan spoke up for the people of Poland in the early 1980s. The only way to stop Iran's despotic regime from getting nuclear weapons is to help Iranians change the regime. So when are President Bush's critics, including those in his own State Department, going to concede that he was right all along to include Iran in the "axis of evil"? Now would seem...

<p>On Friday, there was a coup d'état in Iran. By preventing thousands of democratic candidates from participating in the parliamentary elections, the clerics eliminated yet another relatively independent institution of political power. Their next target is the presidency. If President Mohammad Khatami is replaced in 2005 through a similar faux electoral process, then the concentration of monopoly power in the hands of a clique of despotic clerics will be complete.</p>

The United States has urged North Korea, Syria and Iran to "get smart" and follow Libya's example in pledging to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and join the rest of the world in productive cooperation. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tripoli's decision had put the United States and its allies "on a bit of a roll," and states still pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons would be better off if they followed suit. "We hope that the North Koreans are watching all of this, and realizing that others are getting smart, and it's time for them to...

The spider holes where terrorists and the nation-states who back them hide from public view lie in the murkiest recesses of the murky world of intelligence. Rarely do victims of terrorist attacks get to face their attacker, let alone know his identity, especially when the attacker is a foreign government. Individual terrorists such as Osama bin Laden or Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (aka "Carlos the Jackal") - who openly boast of their evil deeds and thus can be tracked, targeted and eventually taken out - are the exception, not the rule. Or so said the conventional wisdom until a recent...

A black hole in the U.S. commitment to transform the greater Middle East hovers over Iran. An attentive newspaper reader can describe the goals that President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, have in mind with respect to Iraq, Palestine and the Arab political order. On Iran, the jury of two is still out. That is not a bad place for them to be. Iran's volatile internal politics -- and the strategic changes created by U.S. troops camping on Iran's borders and new international pressure on Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons program -- make planning ahead...

Libya's decision to dismantle its secret weapons programme turns the spotlight on the remaining "rogue states" in Washington and London's sights. North Korea is the biggest concern. Pyongyang's Communist regime responded to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by declaring that a nuclear weapon was the only way to keep the Americans at bay. The country, led by the dictator Kim Jong-il, has a large conventional arsenal and has had a nuclear weapons programme since the late 1970s. The United States claims that North Korea also has advanced chemical and biological weapons and was trying to test-fire ballistic missiles in breach...

Former FBI director Louis Freeh testified yesterday that he believed there was "overwhelming evidence" that senior Iranian government officials financed and directed the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. Freeh testified as a key witness on behalf of the families of 12 Americans killed in the bombing, who are suing the government of Iran. The former director took particular interest in the investigation into the bombing, traveling to Saudi Arabia soon after the June 25, 1996, explosion. The bombing ripped a dormitory in half and killed 19 Air Force servicemen and servicewomen. Freeh's testimony came at a fragile stage...

The United States is expected to target the regimes in Iran and Syria in the next stage of the war against Islamic insurgents. A report by the U.S. Institute for Peace has warned that the war that began with Afghanistan and then Iraq could include multiple targets. The most likely targets are Iran and Syria. The institute, which is under the auspices of Congress and contains leading U.S. analysts, said in the report that Stage 3 of the U.S. war against terrorism would be significantly different from previous phases. The next stage of the war would be challenging, the report...

The following is the full text of US President George Bush’s televised White House statement on the capture of Saddam Hussein: “Good afternoon. Yesterday, December 13th, at around 8.30pm Baghdad time United States military forces capture Saddam Hussein alive. “He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit in a swift raid conducted without casualties and now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions. “The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. “It marks the end of the road for him and all who bullied and...

Ambassador Mark Palmer in an interview with Ramin Parham, Washington, DC November 13, 2003 Free Iran at ActivistCHat.com! Ambassador Mark Palmer in an interview with Ramin Parham, Washington, DC November 13, 2003 RP: the Iraqi situation is quite telling in what's basically wrong in our world. Rug regimes, terror networks, and criminals, in pursuit of common tactical and maybe strategic goals, are closely and effectively cooperating. Meanwhile, democracies are either fighting or neutralizing each other with crippling regulations and media friendly fire. Will democracies be hanged with their own rope, cutters and plane tickets? MP: well, I think the American...

Why We Are Publishing This Article by David HorowitzThe article you are about to read is the most disturbing that we at frontpagemag.com have ever published. As an Internet magazine, with a wide circulation, we have been in the forefront of the effort to expose the radical Fifth Column in this country, whose agendas are at odds with the nation’s security, and whose purposes are hostile to its own. In his first address to Congress after 9/11, the President noted that we are facing the same totalitarian enemies we faced in the preceding century. It is not surprising that their...