Free Republic

NEW YORK (CNN) -- One of the most memorable episodes of the U.S. presidential election of 2008 was the much-publicized September 2008 interview that CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric did with Republican vice presidential candidate and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Quite a number of embarrassing revelations dawned on the American presidential election scene after that interview, including the fact that the person potentially a heartbeat away from U.S. presidency could not name a single newspaper or magazine that she regularly read. The interview turned out to be so crucial a piece in the course of the presidential campaign that...

IS the Islamic Republic facing a growing revolt by Iran's Arab minority? Until a couple of years ago, the question would have sounded naive. In the '80s, Arab-Iranians fought bravely against Saddam Hussein's forces, even though they were linked to the invading Iraqis by ethnic, tribal, linguistic and religious ties going back 1,300 years. Data from the Foundation for the Martyrs (which is supposed to look after war veterans and families of the war dead) show that the number of Arab-Iranians who died for the fatherland was proportionally four times higher than Iranians from other ethnic backgrounds. In the last...