Free Republic

During today’s unscheduled press conference President Barack Obama responded to a wide range of questions varying from race relations in the United States to the Russian incursion into Ukraine. The president spent over an hour answering questions from the White House press contingent, offering the frankest assessment of his administration’s policies to date. With regard to Israel the president came down strongly on the side of Israel and directed a stern warning against the Iranian regime in Tehran, advising the ruling mullahs that the United States stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel, our staunchest ally in the Middle East. The...

There are still nearly two years left in Barack Obama's presidency, but historians looking back on his record in foreign policy will surely identify one costly error: his refusal to follow through on the implied threat in stating that the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons would be a "red line." That statement was made in a press conference on Monday, Aug. 20, 2012. The president was not scheduled to appear; press secretary Jay Carney said, "Looks like there's a surprise guest here." After fielding questions on other topics (Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, Mitt Romney's attack ads and tax...

Never in the history of our nation have we experienced such a frighteningly inept and incompetent presidential administration. One could make a good argument that this would apply in all areas, but it’s particularly applicable in the area of foreign policy and national security. Right after Bowe Bergdahl’s release in the trade for five senior Taliban commanders, National Security Advisor Susan Rice described the Army deserter as serving with “distinction and honor”. The very same soldier now charged with ‘desertion and misbehavior’ by the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice. Charges that can send Bergdahl to a military prison for...

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that." View the video here.

If you're looking for gratitude from the Afghans, President Ashraf Ghani is your man. When he appeared before Congress Wednesday, he expressed thanks to American troops, their families, Congress, Barack Obama and "ordinary Americans whose hard-earned taxes have over the years built the partnership" between the United States and Afghanistan. He couldn't have laid it on any thicker if he'd been using a trowel. Americans in uniform, he attested, "have come to know our snowcapped mountains, our verdant valleys, our windswept deserts, our parched fields, our unharnessed, flowing rivers, and our plains of waving wheat." He said, "Veterans will always...

“Traitors.” That’s a strong term, obviously. It should never be used lightly. Yet there it was, flying around like confetti in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. And why? Because 47 GOP senators who are understandably concerned about the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran sent a letter to that country’s leaders about the deal now being struck with the United States and other countries. Their message: The next U.S. president can overturn “with the stroke of a pen” any deal Congress doesn’t approve. “Judas got thirty pieces of silver. What did you get?” one New Jersey resident tweeted. Others, sparked...

Mounting chaos in the region puts the administration on the defensive. Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran. The meltdown has Obama officials defending their management of a region that some call impossible to control, even as critics say U.S. policies there are partly to blame for the spreading anarchy. “If there’s one lesson this administration has learned, from President...

President Obama said at a White House press conferenceTuesday that his decision to reevaluate United States policy towards Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election is not personal, it's strictly business. "One last point about this because I've heard a lot of the commentary," Obama said in response to a question about whether there was anything Netanyahu could do to stop Obama from changing his administration's policy on Israel. "There is a tendency I think in the reporting here to frame this somehow as a personal issue between myself and Prime Minister Netanyahu." "I have a very businesslike relationship...

Where are the wise diplomats? Day upon day, the Secretary of State, President and those who stand in firm opposition to current US diplomacy with Iran, make their pleas to the public. The gist of the pleas by the Secretary and sitting President boil down to: “We can get a deal,” although “gaps remain.” The rejoinder is: “A bad deal is worse than no deal.” Within this frame, the arguments go back and forth. Missing is wisdom, hard-headed, history-anchored, sage and solemn wisdom. In essence, one side thinks any deal that retards or slows the break-neck pace of Iran’s ambition...

It sounds like a replay of Eastern Europe in the 1940s, complete with the Red Army sweeping aside old borders in the wake of the Second World War and establishing Russian supremacy over one captive nation after another from the Baltics down to the Balkans, while a stunned West mainly watched in dismay. These days the old borders that a revived Russian empire has violated extend from Crimea in the south, now part of that empire again, all along the eastern Ukraine to what used to be Russia's border but is being expanded again and again. A new reign...

Jeb adviser James Baker to keynote J Street conference Leading talk show host and best-selling author Mark Levin assailed Jeb Bush last night over the revelation that one of his top foreign policy advisers, James Baker, will keynote an anti-Israel conference this weekend. The annual conference of the activist group J Street features an array of anti-Israel speakers, including proponents of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divest (BDS) movement, which seeks Israel’s destruction, and advocates for the terrorist group Hamas. Jeb Bush’s selection of Baker as a foreign policy adviser has sparked concern among conservatives and in the Jewish and pro-Israel...

There’s more than a passing similarity between Obama’s race baiting and his Netanyahu baiting: lies, agitprop, media complicity, shady financing, and prejudice -- in one case against whites, in the other against Jews. Jack Cashill, who often graces these pages, explains this week how the president has been ginning up racial animosity with the help of his friends and funders, describing techniques which I see Obama also using against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel. Begin with some big lies and a media willing to “dismiss as racist anyone who challenged anything about Obama.” The war against the tea party was...

Politicians should stop referring to the President of the United States as "the Commander-in-Chief," as he is often referred to. Most recently, Hillary Clinton, whom I admire, said the following about Republican senators who wrote an open letter to Iran: "Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the Commander-in-Chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy." But the president is not the Commander-in-Chief for purposes of diplomatic negotiations. This characterization mistakenly implies that President Obama — or any president — is our Commander, and that his decisions should receive special deference. This is...

What has gone wrong with the U.S. government in the past month? Just about everything, from the fundamental to the ridiculous. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States to warn Congress about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. He spoke without the invitation of an irritated President Obama, who claimed that he did not even watch the address on television. Obama declined to even meet with the Israeli prime minister, announcing that it would have been improper for him to have such a meeting so close to Netanyahu's re-election bid. But if Obama was so concerned about not...

Full title: we petition the obama administration to: Award medals to the 47 courageous Senators who wrote a letter to the Iranian government against Obama's wishes. As one of three co-equal branches of our government, and with power to approve of or reject any treaty with foreign governments, the 47 Senators were perfectly justified in writing a letter informing the Islamic Republic, a sponsor of world-wide terrorism, that any agreement signed by this administration is subject to approval by our Senate. The courage shown by these 47 Senators deserves a medal for their opposition to the proposed agreement, which will...

Many of you probably saw the network news reports about the United Airlines flight yesterday that returned to Dulles International airport when a crazed passenger yelling something about Jihad was restrained by other passengers. What you might have seen only on local but not on national broadcasts was a crazed Pennsylvania State University professor who began ranting loony left slogans on a flight from Nicaragua to Miami last weekend.  The Washington Post published a story about professor Karen Halnon whose rantings sounded too embarrassingly close to an MSNBC host for NBC Nightly News or the other national broadcasts to cover. Even the...

Joe Scarborough introduces Cruz and makes note of recent stories of little girl, Julia, in New Hampshire about the world being on fire. (clip) Cruz speaks about how he spoke to the mother of Julia yesterday. Discussion about New Hampshire press and national press .The local press was not focused on the “world on fire”. Asked by Joe, and Cruz answered: The tough question is: How can we trust you? Joe brings up other issues such as crony capitalism. Do you talk about these things? Cruz responds that working men and women are hurting and the way to resolve it...

Why do our “best and brightest” fail when faced with a man like Putin? Or with charismatic fanatics? Or Iranian negotiators? Why do they misread our enemies so consistently, from Hitler and Stalin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph?

Everyone says President Obama is a feckless commander, weak in statecraft, especially compared to the great leaders of the Western world, such as Reagan and Churchill. I believe this does Obama a great injustice. It's so easy to react the way a great leader would. Sure, Obama could have left a small contingent of American troops in Iraq, preserved America's victory, and prevented the entire region from collapsing into chaos and terror. He could have refrained from issuing empty "red line" threats to Syria. He could call ISIS "Islamic." But anybody could do that -- even ISIS calls itself "Islamic."...

While American leadership on the Islamic State terrorist group has been marked by reluctance and lethargy, the response of its Australian ally has been strikingly different.The anodyne words of the Obama Administration in describing the terror threat have been conspicuously absent in the highest levels of the Australian government. The latter has demonstrated repeated willingness to identify the enemy, with repeated references to “Islamist” and “the Muslim community”, and is yet to use the term “violent extremism”. This comes amid reports that Prime Minister Tony Abbott canvassed unilateral action against ISIS in Iraq with 3500 ground troops, with Australia’s leading...