Free Republic

A profoundly alarming thread has surfaced this evening on Twitter. It is written by Gabriel Noronha, a former Iran official at the US State Department. The thread is about the activities of America’s Iran envoy Robert Malley in the current Vienna talks with Iran about a renewed nuclear deal. This is a lightly edited version of what Naronha writes: 1. My former career @StateDept, NSC, and EU colleagues are so concerned with the concessions being made by @RobMalley in Vienna that they’ve allowed me to publish some details of the coming deal in the hopes that Congress will act to...

It’s a new year, but the news about Iran is not new. The timing of recent rhetoric throughout the Middle East is directly related to renewed nuclear negotiations with Iran. Nobody thinks the Iranians are honest players or can be trusted. But there are world leaders who think that continuing to negotiate, even if the same outcome is likely, is a goal in and of itself. Included in the rhetoric recently was a blunt statement from Israel’s otherwise diplomatic president that Israel reserves the right to do whatever is needed to keep the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons, and that...

While much of the international focus has remained on Iran's nuclear program, Tehran has steadily advanced another major instrument of instability, i.e., drones. For over a decade, the regime has sunk billions of dollars into the effort as part of its regional destabilization policy. To avoid more crises in hotspots like Lebanon and Syria, the international community must act now to curb Tehran's massive drone initiative. Let’s start with the facts. Despite crippling economic misfortune, Tehran has invested billions in drone production, in a bid to compensate for its failing Air Force. On October 6, 2021, a sweeping expositionon the...

Nuclear Weapons!! In the mid-1970s Pakistan embarked upon the uranium enrichment route to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, shortly after India's nuclear tests, declaring itself a nuclear weapon state. Pakistan currently possesses a growing nuclear arsenal, and remains outside both the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). It also is the sole country blocking negotiations of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). Capabilities Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris characterize Pakistan as having, "the world's fastest-growing nuclear stockpile." [1] According to the SIPRI 2018...

The remarks by United States President Joseph Biden at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last week (July 27) made a strong but ambivalent impression in Moscow. His warning regarding Russian misinformation and interference in the 2022 mid-term elections in the US was countered with the usual denials (RIA Novosti, July 28). Instead, the most emotional protests came in response to Biden’s assertion that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was dangerous because he presides over a weak economy. Russia boasts “nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else,” he argued (Izvestia, July 28). This was certainly a deliberate...

Recently released satellite imagery reveals that China has embarked on what the Washington Post termed “a building spree that could signal a major expansion of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities.” Nuclear analyst Jeffrey Lewis revealed that China is building what appears to be 119 missile silos across more than 700 square miles in the Gansu desert. Construction began in February. The silos suggest Beijing no longer seeks to maintain only a “minimal deterrent.” The Chinese military may even be building a nuclear “war-fighting” capability. Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, has...

In a May 24 tweet Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Palestinians to “purify the Holy Land from the contamination of the usurpers.” The following day, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that Iran is “enriching at 60%...only countries making bombs are reaching that level.” Both statements are screaming testimony to Iran’s intentions. Nonetheless, Biden administration officials are working very hard to re-join the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), a deal which supposedly limited Iran’s race to nuclear weapons while simultaneously both releasing tons of money to Iran and eliminating harsh economic...

#Iran appears to have falsified the RED NOTICE profile of the person wanted by it as someone who sabotaged #Natanz uranium enrichment plant. There is no such profile in Interpol's search system.

In case you missed the explosion, no worry. You may still be hearing its echoes and reverberations for a long time. This past week, reports within and outside Iran have confirmed a massive explosion deep underground at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility. Iran claims that Natanz and other facilities like it are just for civilian, nuclear energy use, which they declare is their right. But successful foreign intelligence operations, as well as their own announcement that they will begin enriching uranium to 60%, leave no doubt that their intent is militaristic, and malicious. All this comes in context of a...

What does it take to get a U.S. House member to...very publicly threaten to nuke American citizens who want to defend their constitutional rights under the Second Amendment? Nothing more than pushing back on Twitter against that congressman, Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)'s proposal from earlier this year to fully ban and buy back every one of what he wants to designate as "assault weapons" with the added bonus of "criminally prosecut[ing] any who choose to defy it." Rep. Swalwell, willing to make sure the war against any possible American citizen resistance over gun confiscation doesn't fall into the endless quagmire of...

The bits they were not able to recover. A B 52 with two MK 39 nuclear weapons has the engine catch fire, which ends up with the plane exploding, in mid air, but no before the pilot had ejected the two nuclear weapons. In addition 5 crew members ejected and survived and another 3 crew members perished. Of the two nuclear weapons, one landed safely after its parachute deployed. The other one's parachute did not deploy , hit the ground at 700 MPH and sank into a swamp in North Carolina. After digging for 40 feet and not finding the...

The chief of staff for Israel's Defense Forces said this week Iran is close, just "months" or "weeks" away from developing a nuclear weapon, the Times of Israel reports. "No one has any doubt: Iran hopes, wants, identified, and built the capabilities necessary to be a military nuclear power, and maybe even use them when it decides it wants to," Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said in a speech to Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.

The 20th century saw the development of many weapons that could have ended civilization as we know it, but nothing compares to the potentially devastating power of the Soviet Union‘s epic “Tsar Bomba.” It will be remembered as the most powerful nuclear bomb ever built, and it had a blast that was more powerful than 50 million tons of TNT.

This month, an intercontinental ballistic missile was fired in the general direction of the Hawaiian islands. During its descent a few minutes later, still outside the earth’s atmosphere, it was struck by another missile that destroyed it. With that detonation, the world’s tenuous nuclear balance suddenly threatened to come out of kilter. The danger of atom bombs being used again was already increasing. Now it’s grown once more. The ICBM flying over the Pacific was an American dummy designed to test a new kind of interceptor technology. As it flew, satellites spotted it and alerted an Air Force base in...

Mohsen Fahrizade, Iran's chief military nuclear scientist, has been assassinated, according to Iranian media outlets. He led the "Amad" military program which Israel alleged was researching how to build a nuclear weapon. The program reportedly ended in the early 2000s. BREAKING: Mohsen Fahrizade the architect of Iran's military nuclear program was assassinated in Tehran, Iranian media reports— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) November 27, 2020An Iranian scientist that Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic's military nuclear program before it was disbanded has been killed in a shootout, Iranian state television said.https://t.co/uCgiGMcEN0— The Associated Press (@AP) November 27, 2020As the AP reports:The semiofficial...

As August 6 approaches, how will the mainstream media depict our use of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago? Nevermind that our nation was already stretched to the limits by four years of all-out war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and that Truman’s advisors had estimated 400,000 to 800,000 Americans deaths in a ground invasion of Japan. Today an imbroglio persists about the Trump Administration hampering Iran’s nuclear capability, versus the prudence of the Obama Administration enabling them to develop a nuclear facility. The confused and uninformed say that Iran would develop one anyway. The essential information about...

The Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey open for business today..... Car-rental company Hertz filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in Delaware today.... Economic advisers to the President see better economic news later this year...... For the first time since a major economic downturn in 2002, Argentina is in default on a loan tonight..... Iran's top military commander says his country has intelligence on US military movements in the Persian Gulf region and far beyond....... A successful test of a laser weapon by the United States........ The US is considering a nuclear weapons test for the first time since 1992.........

The world was a dangerous place before -- and will be after -- the coronavirus pandemic. While Americans debate the proper ongoing response to the virus and argue over the infection's origins, nature and trajectory, they may have tuned out other, often just as scary, news. Many Americans are irate at China for its dishonest and lethal suppression of knowledge about the viral outbreak. But they may forget that China has other huge problems, too. Its overseas brand is tarnished. Importers can never again be sure of the safety or reliability of Chinese exports. They will know only that their...

For the fourth time in recent weeks we have an upwards revision of the number of Americans injured in the Iranian missile strike at the Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8th. First the number was 11, then it was 34 and then it was 50. But now the number is 64..... The United States lifting sanctions against a unit of a Chinese company COSCO..... The impeachment trial of President Trump rolling forward on Newsdump Friday with a vote to not call any witnesses.... A woman who figured prominently in the House impeachment inquiry is retiring..... The United States...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Francis said Tuesday that the latest round of financial scandal at the Vatican is actually a success story, because the situation was revealed thanks to an internal Vatican probe, which he said demonstrates that new controls are working. The pontiff also called both owning and deploying nuclear weapons “immoral,” saying that point should be added to the Catholic catechism, and suggested that it might be time to re-think the veto power wielded by a handful of countries in the United Nations Security Council. His comments came during an airborne news conference on the return...