Free Republic

In this episode of Straight Up, Daniel Seaman cuts through the week's headlines to examine why media narratives often paint a very different picture from geopolitical reality. You'll learn why some of Israel's loudest critics continue to dominate the conversation, how new strategic alliances are expanding across Europe, Latin America and Asia and why Israel's growing technological and security influence may be reshaping global politics despite the headlines. Plus, you won't want to miss a remarkable New York Times report on an alleged Mossad operation that sounds almost too unbelievable to be true.

US President Donald Trump urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call last week to begin withdrawing Israeli troops from southern Syria and Lebanon, Barak Ravid of Channel 12 and Axios reported Tuesday, citing American and Israeli officials.According to the report on the Thursday call, Trump warned that Israel’s military presence in Syrian territory is creating tensions that could lead to an escalation, telling Netanyahu, “They don’t want you there. You should redeploy.” He reportedly made a similar request regarding Lebanon......Netanyahu was said to push back, citing Israel’s security needs.

‘My whole life, all I do is deals,” President Trump said Wednesday, but Iran’s regime “is from a different school,” he had to admit. “They’re liars, they’re cheats, they’re sick people.” Mr. Trump cited the tens of thousands of Iranians slaughtered by the regime in January and explained how its word has proved worthless. “I don’t want to deal with them anymore,” he said.The President is so mercurial that it’s impossible to know if he’s serious that the cease-fire is “over,” as he said. He could declare it back on tomorrow. But he’s right that Iran’s regime has been wasting...

In a stunning departure from decades of established US foreign policy, President Donald Trump revealed that a forthcoming peace agreement with Iran will likely allow the regime to retain its conventional ballistic missiles. Standing before reporters at the G7 meeting in France, the President argued that a complete ban is unrealistic because 'they got to have some.' 'What am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them?' Trump said during the briefing. 'Missiles aren't the problem. They hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.' A reporter...

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth all have voiced doubts about Iran’s commitment not to build a nuclear weapon. Rubio and Hegseth speak to press. Malcolm Ferguson. June 16, 2026 CIA Director John Ratcliffe and others within the Trump administration don’t think Iran is being serious about its promise not to develop or attain nuclear weapons, according to anonymous sources from Axios.

President Trump announced that he canceled planned strikes against Iran on Thursday and claimed Iran's leadership "approved" a draft agreement that would extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and launch 60 days of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. (snip)The sources said the gaps were narrowed on three key issues: The mechanism for releasing Iran's frozen assets — the most important issue for the Iranians.Arrangements for reopening the Strait of Hormuz during the 60-day ceasefire period.How negotiations over Iran's nuclear program would be conducted during the 60-day ceasefire period.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.That’s...

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has introduced travel bans on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has confirmed. Mr. Ben-Gvir is the Israeli national security minister, while Mr. Smotrich is the minister for finance. The Taoiseach was speaking at the EU-Western Balkans Summit in the city of Tivat in Montenegro. Mr. Martin said the ministers’ actions and words “amount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine”. He added that he believes that there should be further EU measures introduced against them. …

If a former CIA agent’s report is accurate, Iran may find itself making a decision the U.S. was faced with making in 1945. The agent, Larry Johnson, revealed that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister personally delivered a disturbing, secret message to Secretary of State Mark Rubio claiming that Iran does possess a nuclear weapon. He also reports Tehran intends to demonstrate soon this capability to the world community. The immediate question obviously is just how Iran intends to demonstrate it?In 1945, during World War II, the U.S. had to decide how to demonstrate to Japan it possessed an atomic weapon, developed under...

The United Nations is going broke as the U.S. and China withhold payments to the institution in a jostle for control. Washington has failed to pay billions of dollars owed to the international body and exited dozens of its programs and agencies, including the World Health Organization, to combat what President Trump describes as wasteful spending and bad policymaking. The U.S. is more than $4 billion in arrears to the U.N. China has compounded the U.N.’s liquidity crisis by slow-walking its own payments, even as Beijing declares itself the organization’s leading defender and, in a jab at the U.S., the...

It was the kind of sweeping, last-minute demand that would have torpedoed most diplomatic talks: President Donald Trump insisting this week that in exchange for him ending the war with Iran, several Arab and Muslim countries should sign on to his Abraham Accords to normalize their diplomatic relations with Israel. But there’s been almost no response from any of the countries that Trump mentioned by name — more than half of whom already have diplomatic relations with Israel — and no statement of support from an Israeli government that would reap enormous benefits from such a deal. Analysts said Trump’s...

Most voters think President Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, leaving the Republican Party on rocky political footing heading into the midterm elections as his approval rating sinks and economic concerns rise.Majorities of voters said that the war was not worth the costs and held deeply pessimistic views about the economy.Mr. Trump’s approval rating — a key historical predictor of how a president’s party will fare in an election — has sunk to a second-term low in Times/Siena polls of 37 percent amid the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict....

As we mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe this Friday, 8 May, it’s clear that Germany will again be the leading European military power. Already next year its defense spending will be as much as that of France and Britain combined — and it is projected to be significantly larger by 2030. The German government’s declared goal is to have the strongest conventional army in Europe. True, France and Britain have nuclear weapons, but that means less money to spend on the rest of defense. So, the question is not “will this...

Trump isn’t negotiating with Iran—he’s dismantling its regime piece by piece, leaving a hollow state with nothing left but bluster and collapse.A famous saying of Anton Chekhov’s has been making the rounds. “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall,” Chekhov advised, “in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”I wonder if the thugs and theocrats who have been plundering Iran for the last 47 years have read Chekhov. If so, I conclude that they are slow...

A secretive contingent of elite soldiers have been quietly deployed to the Middle East amid fears the conflict in the region could escalate.Exclusive: Australia has sent SAS troops to the Middle East to be on standby in case the Iran war escalates.A small contingent of around 90 Special Air Services members were sent to the region two weeks ago, sources have revealed.The elite soldiers were likely to have travelled to the Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, 15km south of Dubai.Defence Minister Richard Marles declined to comment on the Australian deployment when his office was sent questions...

Since its creation some 47 years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated resourcefulness and dedication to its goals of regional hegemony and proliferation of Islamic radicalism. As a result, the extent of Iranian military recovery from the attacks in June 2025 should not have been surprising. Clearly, if the regime remains in control in Tehran, it will not relent and will continue to represent a danger to the West. Specifically, should the present conflict leave the regime with the resources to do so, it will seek to recover quickly and even expand its capabilities, including further developing its...

A majority of the American public, polls suggest, have been against the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign in Iran from the day it started. Republicans, however, have largely stuck by their president as the war approaches the end of its fourth week. But that may be changing. At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas, some of the party faithful expressed concern about why the US started this war, how Donald Trump is going to end it and whether the effort has been worth the costs. "I just wish that there was more transparency on why we're doing what...

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke on Tuesday of a “deep rift” with traditional ally the United States and said the US-Israeli war on Iran was a “breach of international law”. In unusually strong comments, the German head of state said that just as there was no going back from Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, “there will be no going back to before January 20, 2025”, when US President Donald Trump entered the White House for a second time. “The rift is too deep and the trust in American power politics has been lost, not only among our allies but…...

European Union foreign ministers showed “no appetite” to expand an EU naval mission in the Middle East to the Strait of Hormuz for the time being, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says. US President Donald Trump has called on other nations to help police the strait after Iran responded to US-Israeli attacks by using drones, missiles and mines to ‌effectively close the channel for tankers that normally transport a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas. The EU’s Aspides mission — named after the Greek word for “shields” — was established in 2024 to protect ships from attacks...

“World War III” is not a phrase to be casually tossed around, yet declaring its impending eruption has become a staple of political punditry. The current war in the Middle East is no different. The British media has debated how their country could get sucked into World War III if it allowed U.S. aircraft to use British air bases on their way to bomb Iran. In 2022 and 2023, figures including John Mearsheimer, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk warned that helping Ukraine fight Russia would set off a global conflagration. A recent poll conducted by Politico found that a majority...