Free Republic

As a regime that for more than forty years has sponsored violent abduction, hostage taking, kidnapping, blackmail, piracy, assassination, warmongering, and oppression, the Iranian dictatorship has no equal. They have plowed men and resources into proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza. They have openly backed terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. Through the extra-territorial Quds Force wing of their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), they have directed extremist operations throughout the Middle East and further afield, even sending registered diplomats on terror missions. Now, they are supplying kamikaze drones to Russia for use in their illegal war...

"We have seen them provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they're considering providing lethal support,..."...Blinken confirmed that Chinese companies are already providing non-lethal support to the Russian effort. He noted the relationship between Chinese companies and the Chinese government, saying, "To date, we have seen Chinese companies and of course, in China, there's really no distinction between private companies and the state."

Russian forces have conducted a series of operations against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria this month, including one this week at a strategically located base in the southern part of the country, U.S. military officials said. The Russian actions have alarmed U.S. military officials, who are concerned that a miscalculation might escalate into an unintended conflict between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria. Tensions between the two countries are already high following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and American efforts to arm the Ukraine military to defeat Russian forces there. On Wednesday, Russia carried out airstrikes at the...

The length, scope, and operational duration of the attack suggests it is a targeted towards regime stability and an internal audience. Whether it leads to further escalation is a political call. Last night, around the time Iranian missiles were dropping on U.S. bases, a friend from the Pentagon texted me saying, “Oh, well, it appears they will do something dumb, and we may go to war.” Any crisis leads to paranoia, hysteria, and essentially all other basest instincts in a human being. What differentiates a realist or a strategist from an ideologue or a cultist is how one thinks in...

Iran: Incredibly, the Bush national security team's sole holdover has announced Peace in Our Time as the only hope against a nuclear Tehran. There is no defense for Secretary Robert Gates. Appearing in Paris with the French defense minister on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made an announcement to the world that will astonish our friends and embolden our enemies. "We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue," Gates said of the never-ending defiance of the free world by Iran's Islamofascist regime as it moves ever closer to becoming a nuclear weapons power. "The...

NATO officials say they have caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces, in what the officials say is a dramatic escalation of Iran's proxy war against the United States and Great Britain. "It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence "of the involvement of the Iranian government in...

Russia has every right to sell arms to Iran, its defense minister said on Wednesday, responding to mounting criticism of a $1 billion deal announced last week. The United States, calling Iran a "state sponsor of terror", said selling weapons to the Islamic Republic did not help the Middle East. "This deal, this contract is absolutely legitimate. Like it or not, it's our affair. There are plenty of things we don't like either," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in comments shown on NTV television.

Many people have good ideas, but few live to see those ideas define an era and even win a war. George Kennan did, even though he eventually backed away from the ramifications of his idea. In 1946, as the United States was trying to decide how to deal with the post-World War II world, Kennan weighed in with the famous “Long Telegram” from Moscow. The Soviet Union is “impervious to the logic of reason,” Kennan warned his superiors at the State Department, but “it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.” Thus began the policy of containment -- a...