Free Republic

Berlin — Six former European diplomats are calling on European governments to coordinate efforts to urge an incoming Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, from which President Trump withdrew in 2018, and to agree with the regime in Tehran on steps for mutual compliance. The call comes amid fears that Friday’s assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh could complicate attempts to restore the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “In response to reimposed U.S. sanction [sic] since 2018, Iran has increased its nuclear activities and continues to step away from its commitments under the...

A new Pentagon paper paints a grim picture of the emerging great power rivalry in Asia and suggests that a toe-to-toe balancing with China is now out of the question. The document titled “Military and Security developments in the People’s Republic of China” charts where China has already far surpassed the United States.For example, by the end of 2019, China possessed the world’s largest standing ground force and leading maritime militia. China has now the world’s largest navy, already with around a 50-ship advantage over America, a gap that is steadily increasing in a competition that is at a...

Key point: The risk of war may be low, but it is ever present. As the United States enters an election year, prospects for global stability remain uncertain. President Trump’s foreign policy stood at odds with those of his predecessor, and will likely a central point of contestation in the election. At this point, several crises might emerge that would not only turn the election, but potentially bring about a wider global conflict. Iran-Israel Iran and Israel are already waging low-intensity war across the Middle East. Turkey The state of the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey has decayed to...

A non-profit global science and security group says in a new report that Iran has built a plant to produce nuclear weapons despite its insistence that all its atomic endeavors are wholly peaceful. The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security said the 30-page report is based on documents from the Iran Nuclear Archive that were seized by Israel two years ago. The analysis, posted Wednesday, said Tehran has "clearly" been dishonest with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on government cooperation and onsite inspections. "Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency and allow...

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said there was room for maneuver in reimposing the 2015 agreement that kept Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. But he added it would only happen if Germany, France and the UK showed the same willingness to reinstate the deal’s economic benefits for Iran. The landmark agreement has been on life support ever since US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed economic sanctions on Tehran, leaving Germany, France and the UK struggling to breathe life into the ailing deal. […] “We have said that we are prepared to slow down or reverse...

A Syrian was killed and another was wounded when government supporters attacked American troops and tried to block their way as their convoy drove through an army checkpoint in northeastern Syria, prompting a rare clash, state media and activists reported. The U.S. military said its force came under fire, and that troops responded in self-defense. It said an investigation of the incident was underway.

The EU’s new foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, will meet with Iranian leaders on Monday, as the EU seeks to salvage the tattered 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The meeting comes amid a policy split between European signatories to the nuclear deal and the US. The US dropped out of the accord, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and reimposed sanctions on Iran in August 2019. Tehran has responded by rolling back its commitments to the deal’s core elements, which include capping uranium enrichment. On January 6, Iran said that it would no longer adhere to its...

Two Mississauga, Ont., men have been indicted for allegedly helping to run an international procurement network over a five-year period to traffic materials such as aircraft parts and satellite communications equipment to support Pakistan’s nuclear program. Father and son Muhammad Ahsan Wali, 48, and Haji Wali Muhammad Sheikh, 82, are among five men accused of being associated with an alleged front company called Business World, based in Rawalpindi, a city in northern Pakistan, according to the United States Department of Justice. The other three charged include another one of Sheikh’s sons in Pakistan, as well as one man in Hong...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is limiting U.S. diplomats' contact with Iranian opposition groups, according to a cable sent to all U.S. diplomatic outposts Tuesday. Pompeo’s order says diplomats should not meet with Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) or five other groups because it could damage the United States' chances to negotiate with Iran,... “Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior,” the cable said, according to Bloomberg. It also added that these groups “try to engage U.S. officials regularly to gain at...

(Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will introduce and vote on a war powers resolution this week to limit U.S. President Donald Trump’s military actions regarding Iran.

You had to know this was coming. Iran is done with the nuclear agreement it negotiated with the Obama Administration and the European Union. Via Islamic Republic News Agency aka the official Iran news outlet. "The cabinet said Iran will observe no restrictions in operational areas, including enrichment capacities, enrichment percentage, the volume of enriched material as well as research. The cabinet further stated in its statement that as the fifth step to reduce its commitments, Iran will abandon the last key restriction in the operation field put up in the JCPOA literally 'the limitations in the number of centrifuges'....

On Thursday evening, the Pentagon confirmed that at the direction of President Donald Trump, US forces killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike near Baghdad's airport, the most drastic step toward conflict with Iran in the 21st century. Soleimani was for decades one of the most important and highly regarded military figures in Iran, playing a pivotal role in shaping Iranian foreign policy and the politics of the Middle East today. The killing of the high-level commander, first reported by Iraqi state TV and later confirmed in a Pentagon statement, is the US's most significant escalation of tensions...

It’s beginning to look like Rep. Adam Schiff isn’t content with simply ousting the president, instead hinting that he’s going for a total sweep of the White House by involving the vice president as well. The move would seemingly put his ally and fellow California Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in charge of the United States. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hinted at the bombshell turn in a Dec. 18 talk with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Maddow asked Schiff about his continuing role in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. COMMENTARY Schiff Goes for Total Coup, Now Targeting Pence...

World powers pressured Iran on Friday to reverse recent atomic activities that violate the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, but stopped short of deciding on whether to proceed with a move that could see the case brought before the UN Security Council and a “snapback” of sanctions that had been lifted under the accord, according to a Chinese official. Fu Cong told reporters after the meeting that brought together Iran with the five powers remaining in the deal that China had argued against invoking the so-called dispute resolution mechanism of the agreement. “Iran has made it very clear that all the...

Iran, China, and Russia will hold in the coming weeks their first-ever joint war drills, which leaders say are meant to send a "message to the world" about increased military cooperation between the rogue countries. The commander of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will team up with Moscow and Beijing within the next month to hold the mass war drills. "The joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in...

Iran has discovered a new oil field in the country’s south with over 50 billion barrels of crude, its president said Sunday, a find that could boost the country’s proven reserves by a third as it struggles to sell energy abroad over U.S. sanctions. The announcement by Hassan Rouhani comes as Iran faces crushing American sanctions after the U.S. pulled out of its nuclear deal with world powers last year. Rouhani made the announcement in a speech in the desert city of Yazd. He said the field was located in Iran’s southern Khuzestan province, home to its crucial oil industry....

At the joint press conference (Video embedded below), Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We are now the largest bilateral donors in the Palestinian territories." According to Germany's Bild news, the federal government announced that in 2018 about 166.2 million euros flowed to the Palestinians. In addition, Germany transferred about 173.2 million euros to UNRWA, a UN agency for Palestinian Muslims. Throughout her years as Chancellor, Angela Merkel gave the Palestinian Authority more than half a billion dollars, not including foreign aid to UNRWA. The Palestinian Authority openly pays salaries to every terrorist who murdered Jews as an act of jihad. In...

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely. He warned that the “inequality” between states who have nuclear power and who do not undermines global balances. This comes amid global concern following news that Iran has exceeded limits to its uranium stockpile and was enriching the chemical to beyond limitations imposed by the Iran nuclear deal. Earlier this month, Tehran announced it would use advanced centrifuges prohibited under the deal. President Erdogan said: “The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone.” …

The United Nations released an “unprecedented” report on anti-Semitism on Monday, which pointed out that the frequency appears to be increasing. It also linked anti-Semitism to denunciations of Israel as well as the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for a boycott of all Israeli products. The report stressed that the “prevalence of anti-Semitic attitudes and the risk of violence against Jewish individuals and sites “ is significant. The report, “Combating Antisemitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief,” was released on Monday by U.N. Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on freedom of religion or...

Eighteen years after the September 11 jihad attacks that murdered nearly three thousand people, this is where we are: the Bloomfield Hills Baptist Church in Michigan has canceled an event called “9/11 forgotten? Is Michigan surrendering to Islam” under pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. And so the answers are clear: yes, 9/11 has been forgotten, and Michigan is indeed surrendering to Islam. The event was to feature an ex-Muslim, Shahram Hadian, speaking on “How the Interfaith Movement is Sabotaging America and the Church” and economist and investigative...