Free Republic

Biden’s policy and treatment of Israel since October 7 demonstrate clearly that despite his words of support for Israel, his administration continues to support Iranian interests over the Jewish state, America’s most important Middle Eastern ally.

Biden Admin wants two-state solution for Israel Taiwan is hem haw hem haw Putin is crazy and evil and therefore I'm using my tough voice Biden is smart and articulate Blahblahblahblah

The Obama administration support for Muslim Brotherhood Islamists in Egypt is driving the powerful military there against the United States and toward Moscow, according to U.S. officials and reports from the region. The pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance is undermining decades of U.S. policy toward the Middle East state and prompting concerns that the United States is about to “lose” Egypt as a strategic partner, said officials familiar with intelligence reports. Disclosure of the concern over the administration’s policy failure in Egypt comes as a security crackdown on pro-Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo resulted in scores killed. “The Obama administration’s blatant Islamist...

In the wake of the devastating earthquake, American eyes are again turned toward Haiti—something that only seems to happen when yet another disaster strikes, and never during the daily chaos and misery that plague the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I’ve spent a good deal of time in Haiti, reporting first on the repression under the Duvaliers, then on the rise of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's popular movement, and then on the 1991 military coup that brought him down. I was there during the period of the 1994 military intervention that restored Aristede to power. US interest in the country seemed...

It took two weeks of intensified government repression against protesters in Iran before Barack Obama, the US president, moved from cautious commentary to describing the crackdown as "violent and unjust". The acknowledged elephant in the room preventing a more robust US response to the Iranian crisis is the Anglo-American-organised coup in 1953, which overthrew Mohammed Mossadeqh, the nationalist prime minister, and brought the 33-year-old Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, back to the country as unchallenged ruler. The coup was motivated by Mossadeqh's and the Iranian parliament's decision to nationalise the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, and by the fear that...

1. The Obama administration is demanding additional Israeli concessions beyond Oslo. 2. Current settlement activity no longer diminishes Palestinian territory. 3. The Gaza disengagement proves that a settler presence does not undermine future territorial compromise. 4. Does the Obama administration reject defensible borders and settlement blocs and expect Israel to return to the 1967 borders?

here are voices in the Obama Administration who believe that the Kremlin is able and willing to exert pressure on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, perceived geopolitical and economic benefits in the unstable Persian Gulf, in which American influence is on the wane, outweigh Russia's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran. The Kremlin sees Iran not as a threat but as a partner or an ad-hoc ally to challenge U.S. influence. Today, both Russia and Iran favor a strategy of "multipolarity," both in the Middle East and worldwide. This strategy seeks to dilute American power, revise current...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama said Monday he is considering whether to overturn a Pentagon policy that bans the media from taking pictures of the flag-draped coffins of U.S. troops returning from the battlefield.A leading military families group says the policy, enforced without exception during the administration of former President George W. Bush, should let survivors of the dead decide whether photographers can record their return.

The international community is deploying a new mission to Kosova [Kosovo] with a more acceptable name than the previous one. But, the powers of the new mission remain the same as the old one's. EULEX will have the power to replace the president, prime minister, and other more junior officials. It will have the power to appoint key officials, annul laws, and arrest us - each and everyone of us - indefinitely and without justification. These are the "executive powers" of EULEX, which have been described as "softer," "less severe," and "more humane" than those that UNMIK [UN Interim Administration...

One of the natural and negative consequences of political assassinations is that they personalize the general and simplify the complex. Policies formed in the aftermath of assassinations are rarely wise and tend to focus on secondary - personal - issues while ignoring larger strategic ones. It is fairly clear that this is what is happening in the international reaction to last Thursday's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zadawi and her teenage son have now taken charge of her political party in the interest of maintaining her "legacy." Backed by the Bush administration, they...

Washington (AFP): Four top former US foreign policy officials, including ex-secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, called for a world free of nuclear weapons in an opinion piece Thursday. The article, which appears in the Wall Street Journal, is also signed by former secretary of defense William Perry and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It brings no joy to issue a public rebuttal against a valued colleague, but there are moments that demand no less. The occasion is the publication of an essay titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," written by two professors, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, the academic dean and my colleague at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In essence, their 82-page piece argues that U.S. policy in the Middle East has been hijacked by a pro-Israel "Lobby." "The core of the Lobby," they say, "is comprised of American Jews who make a significant effort...

A Chinese military official says Beijing will use nuclear weapons against the U.S. if the Americans attack the Asian nation in a fight over Taiwan. "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Zhu Chenghu, a major general in the People's Liberation Army, said at an official briefing, according to the Financial Times. Speaking at a function organized for foreign journalists, the official noted the definition of China's territory includes warships and aircraft. "If the Americans are determined to interfere [then]...

With the East Asia Security Act of 2005 (H.R. 3100), Congress has the opportunity to give the President valuable leverage to form a strategic consensus on arms sales to China. EASA mandates that any person, firm, or country that provides military arms, equipment, or technology to China or dual-use items to the Chinese military, security forces, police, or other repressive agencies face heightened scrutiny of its arms relationship with China and, if warranted, be denied access to U.S. weapons technology. By giving teeth to U.S. diplomats’ warnings to Europeans who would end the EU’s embargo on arms sales to China,...

It pays to take a look at the books George W. Bush hands out to his staffers. Last year Bush's book was Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which argues that countries that do not protect individual rights cannot be reliable partners for peace. You could hear Sharansky's arguments in Bush's extraordinary second inaugural speech in which he promised to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the world. Bush's critics like to mock him as the sort of person who never read books. But he does, and...

Nagging questions about the Iraq war remain unanswered. Both advocates and opponents have failed to address a range of issues even when they seemingly could be used to bolster their respective positions. Until and unless we obtain answers to some of the questions presented here it will be difficult to fully trust the judgment of either side in this debate. Administration advocates for regime change in Iraq have failed to make their best case. Their response to the charge of no WMD found in Iraq is weak, and consequently has allowed the opponents to further charge that the Bush administration...

Back in July, the Justice Department held a bells-‘n-whistles press conference to announce a major case: a 42-count indictment, charging seven men and an ostensible charity with underwriting Hamas to the tune of nearly $60 million. Hamas, a ruthless terrorist organization dedicated to the annihilation of Israel and responsible for numerous gruesome attacks that have claimed the lives of hundreds of victims — including Americans — has been formally designated as a terrorist organization under various U.S. laws for many years. In announcing the indictment, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft could not have been more straightforward: “To those who exploit good...

Will the 21st century be another "American Century" or will it be the first "Asian Century"? A peaceful - for now - struggle has been joined. For the past few weeks Americans have been focused on news from the Vatican. And for the past few years the bulk of "foreign news" has concerned the Middle East. But in the Far East three huge fuses are burning. First, the prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, traveled to India and declared that the two countries would be the "two pagodas" of economic might in the coming hundred years - the "Asian Century,"...

In the middle of fighting the global war on terror, America has forgotten about their "strategic competitor" to the East. The Chinese have noticed.THE POST-9/11 WORLD has been a mixed bag for the Chinese. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the deployment of forces to Central Asia renewed fears of American encirclement and upset a decade of careful diplomacy. Beijing's efforts to negotiate security and stability along its continental border--a prelude to greater activity in maritime Asia--seemed all for naught. But then came the invasion and, more significantly, the occupation, of Iraq. The U.S. military, which had seemed entirely invincible,...

TODAY'S TOPIC: HATING AMERICA Our Country Is Under Attack! The weapons of choice are hateful words and images aimed at distorting American policy. Host John Gibson shines a bright light on the haters themselves in "Hating America." Tune in Sunday at 9pm / midnight ET. The America Haters — Is bitterness against the U.S. getting worse? Read what John Gibson has to say in an exclusive commentary, plus read an excerpt from the "Big Story" host's book. Take a sneak peek at this Sunday's special. John interviews a Canadian journalist who says elements of the U.S. government were "complicit" in...