Free Republic

During the eight years of the Obama administration, half a million Christians, Yazidis and Muslims were slaughtered in the Middle East by ISIS and other Islamic jihadists, in a genocidal campaign waged in the name of Islam and its God. Twenty million others were driven into exile by these same jihadist forces. Libya and Yemen became terrorist states. America - once the dominant foreign power and anti-jihadist presence in the region – was replaced by Russia, an ally of the monster regimes in Syria and Iran, and their terrorist proxies. Under the patronage of the Obama administration, Iran - the...

Donald Trump blasted Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement as the worst deal ever. It was sold to the American people on the lie that it would stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But a new report reveals just how badly Obama lied about the deal. As part of the deal, the Obama administration had to release seven Iranian prisoners. The Obama administration claimed the prisoners were not charged with being terrorists or for committing violent crimes. Politico reports: “When President Barack Obama announced the “one-time gesture” of releasing Iranian-born prisoners who “were not charged with terrorism or any violent...

The so-called Arab Spring was started by people who were inspired by universal ideals to put an end to authoritarian rule and corruption and to demand liberty, dignity and social justice. Although these demands have transcended the borders of various Arab countries, their trajectories and outcome have differed because Arab regimes are diverse among themselves in terms of their ruling mechanisms, domestic power structures, international relations, and the societies they have ruled. The ‘Syrian Spring’ began gradually in March 2011 but escalated into a violent conflict that drew in regional and international actors and various competing opposition and regime forces....

The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books («Whose Sarin?» and «The Red Line and the Rat Line») has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set...

The Obama administration’s effort to engage Iran remained a matter of suspicion until the 44th American president left the White House. Concerns began mounting especially after Obama turned his back on the 2009 uprising in parallel to the revelation of secret correspondence with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. As more light is shed, the more we realize how far this relationship expanded. Known members of Iran’s lobbies and others enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House. This new knowledge calls for a complete overhaul of the corrupt U.S. foreign policy establishment. *snip* And this is only a tip of the...

...Pew's new data also show unprecedented polarization when it comes to another top foreign policy issue: Israel. Similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats have sympathized more with Israel than with the Palestinians dating back to the late 1970s. Today, though, 74 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel, while just 33 percent of Democrats do the same. And perhaps most notably, for the first time this century — if not ever — Democrats are now about equally split between sympathizing more with Israel (33 percent) and with the Palestinians (31 percent).The change across the political spectrum is clear when you...

Iranian-supplied rockets killed as many as 15 U.S. troops per month in Iraq in the summer of 2011, and Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis had a plan to retaliate. The Obama administration denied his request. Six U.S. soldiers were killed in a single such attack in early June of 2011, with another three killed just weeks later. Mattis, then the commander of U.S. Central Command, had had enough and decided the U.S. must strike back before the Iranian rockets caused further bloodshed. In conjunction with then Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey, Mattis proposed a strike inside Iranian territory, according to...

Lawmakers and congressional insiders continue to raise questions about a senior Obama administration official and proponent of its Iran diplomacy following revelations he was denied interim security clearance before being given a senior role in the White House, according to conversations with multiple sources. The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed last week that Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser who handled the administration’s efforts to mislead the public about the terms of the Iran nuclear agreement, is being probed by Congress following disclosures the FBI may have denied him top-level security clearances. Lawmakers told the Free Beacon...

Christians continue to be the most persecuted believers in the world with over 90,000 followers of Christ being killed in the last year, according to prominent Italian sociologist and author Massimo Introvigne. Introvigne, the founder of the independent Center for Studies on New Religions based in Turin, Italy, cited statistics compiled by the Center for Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for a annual report that is expected to be released next month. Introvigne said that there are between 500 to 600 Christians throughout the world that can’t profess their faith in Christ freely without fear of persecution....

The chilly December wind whipped rain across the strewn wreckage of a city that, nearly 3,000 years ago, ruled almost the entire Middle East. Rivulets of water ran through the dirt, washing away chunks of ancient stone. The city of Nimrud in northern Iraq is in pieces, victim of the Islamic State group's fervor to erase history. The remains of its palaces and temples, once lined in brilliant reliefs of gods and kings, have been blown up. The statues of winged bulls that once guarded the site are hacked to bits. Its towering ziggurat, or step pyramid, has been bulldozed.

A headline that would become famous appeared in the New York Daily News in October 1975 after then-President Gerald Ford denied federal assistance to spare the city from bankruptcy. It read: "Ford to City: Drop Dead." President Obama has told Israel much the same. By instructing his U.N. ambassador not to veto a resolution condemning Israel for building so-called settlements on disputed land, the president has aided and comforted that nation's enemies. The U.S. abstention will inevitably invite stepped-up attacks against Israelis, as well as calls for more boycotts by the European Union, whose ugly anti-Semitic past and present is...

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” former United Nations ambassador John Bolton took aim at the Obama administration for allowing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in so-called disputed territory to go forward. Bolton told fill-in host Eric Bolling it goes back to Obama having a “score to settle,” which was reflective of the current president’s ideology

Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say. Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad's Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change and would need the buy-in of Assad and the rebels and, eventually, the Gulf states and the United States, sources familiar with Russia's thinking say.

"While Secretary Kerry mentioned Gaza in his speech, he seems to have forgotten the history of the settlements in Gaza, where the Israeli government forced settlers to withdraw from all settlements and the Palestinians responded by sending rockets from Gaza into Israel," Schumer said in a statement. "This is something that people of all political stripes in Israel vividly remember.

Full title : Kerry: “Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both. And it won’t ever really be at peace.” …”The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing any reversible — an irreversible one state reality that most people do not actually want."Today, there are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state...

Here are 36 reasons why I would not be surprised if Obama wanted Iran to destroy Israel I have a crazy conspiracy, for which I have no proof, and for which I could be completely wrong: Obama’s #1, long term, biggest goal as President, which supersedes anything else, is that he wants to help Iran get enough uranium to build enough nuclear bombs to destroy Israel. Here are 36 reasons why I would not be surprised if it turned out that Obama really did want Iran to use nuclear bombs to destroy Israel:1) When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Obama...

An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure. In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John...

TURKEY’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed he has “confirmed evidence” US-led forces have supported ISIS. Erdogan said “it’s very clear” the US is supporting terror groups in a damning press conference in Ankara. He said: “They were accusing us of supporting Daesh (Islamic State). “Now they give support to terrorist groups including Daesh, YPG, PYD. It’s very clear. We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos.” Casualties have mounted as the military tries to take the town of Al-Bab from ISIS jihadists and Ankara has become incresingly impatient over the lack of support from the US against the...

The UN resolution could subject settlers and Israel officials to criminal sanctions, while creating pretexts for more terrorist attacks Everyone has heard by now that Obama “threw Israel under the bus” or whatever expression you want to use, by refusing to veto Friday’s UN resolution condemning settlements in the West Bank and other territories captured from the Palestinians. Indeed he did, but it’s worse than that. This is not a mere resolution of condemnation. This is a theoretically enforceable piece of international law that the UN has been trying to pass for decades, always coming up short because of the...

All our Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is missing is a fiddle. For the duration of the seemingly endless Syrian civil war, she has figuratively fiddled while that country burns. Now, with one foot out the door from a tenure that has all but obliterated her once formidable reputation as an anti-genocide activist, she’s decided to kick Israel in the teeth. What most amazes me about this past Friday’s anti-Israel resolution that was cooked up by Barack Obama, John Kerry, Susan Rice, and Power is not that it took place. We have long known that the quartet had...