Free Republic

The coming week may prove another defining moment for Barack Obama on the world stage, and a major test of his failing leadership. As tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators prepare to take to the streets of Tehran on February 11 in defiance of the security forces on the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution, the president will have to make it clear whose side he is on – the brutal Islamist dictatorship or dissidents fighting for their freedom. He can no longer sit on the fence as a dispassionate neutral observer. As the leader of the free world President...

It’s a good thing we had Dick Cheney in the Vice President’s office in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Cheney was the right man at the right time in history and was instrumental in launching the counter-attack against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and across the world, which has kept the United States safe from assault to this day. It was a strategy that worked, from the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay to the battlefields of south Asia. It also included wiping out thousands of jihadists in Iraq, including much of the leadership of al-Qaeda in the region. Those who say...

Talk about standing by your man! When a foreign policy expert explained the timing of today’s Iranian missile launch in terms of a Persian perception of Pres. Obama’s weakness, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer lept to PBO’s defense, throwing in an invidious comparison with Pres. Bush for good measure. Nile Gardiner, Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, was Contessa’s guest during the 11 AM hour today. When Brewer asked “why now?” about the Iranian launch, Gardiner responded: “This is an administration that has gone to great lengths here to try and appease opinion in Tehran, extending the hand...

In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy - a move Brooks describes as "my personal government bailout." Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros's Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial...