Free Republic

President Trump’s foreign policy has been coasting so far on his verbal threats and public cajoling. But he’ll soon face moments of decision on U.S. adversaries that will echo throughout his second term and could determine his legacy The first year of presidencies often sets the tone for the events that follow on foreign policy. Joe Biden’s Afghan withdrawal gutted U.S. deterrence and convinced Vladimir Putin and Iran’s mullahs they’d meet little resistance if they sought military gains. Barack Obama let China occupy islands in the South China Sea and steal U.S. secrets with little resistance. Ronald Reagan rebuilt U.S....

By Mehmet Kalyoncu This provocative analysis of Turkey's nuclear ambitions, informed by current political realities and a historical summary of the country's previous plans and nuclear partnerships, asks the devil's advocate question: what do the US and EU plan to give Turkey to keep it from going nuclear? Recent heated statements of a nuclear variety made by both Iran and Israel toward each other introduce a whole new dimension for Turkey’s security concerns in its neighborhood. Given the current circumstances, Turkey could even be considered late in developing nuclear capabilities for defense purposes. However, that Turkey can and that Turkey...

My plan is working well. When I, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ruler of Iran, launched my plan to get you Americans to do our work for us - to destroy our personal enemy, Saddam Hussein, and also to destroy our historic enemy, the country of Iraq - I could only pray that my plan would work so quickly. Our weapon of mass destruction, of course, was Ahmad Chalabi. Please don't confuse me with my predecessor in power here: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in 1989. I've been the supreme leader ever since. And if my name sounds similar, I am...

If we are still in a state of war after the attack on 9/11/01, then the past two years have proven remarkable in our efforts to put al Qaeda on the run, avoid another disaster on the scale of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and rid the world of the Taliban and Hussein tyrannies. But if we feel the fighting is, or should be, over and we have arrived at peace, then the loss each week of Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq appears intolerable. That crude dichotomy of perception sums up the current conundrum over the daily news...