Free Republic

This is just too rich. Seriously. From the insufferable Iran deal… to the appeasement “Russian Reset”… to the Libya fiasco… to the rise of ISIS… to installing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt… to the explosion of terrorism in Yemen… to civil war in Syria… to the crisis in Ukraine… to the 2010 State Department apology tour (WikiLeaks cables scandal)… to their inability to stop North Korean nuclear ambitions and the rise of China as an influential power… there were/are zero foreign policy successes in eight years of the Obama administration. There was not a single Obama foreign policy initiative that...

(3rd LD) U.S. prepared to take action if N. Korea behind ship sinking: Campbell By Kim Young-gyo HONG KONG, April 26 (Yonhap) -- The United States is prepared to take action if the sinking of a South Korean warship is linked to North Korea, a senior U.S. diplomat said Monday. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell did not elaborate, but U.S. officials have expressed support for further United Nations sanctions, as proposed by South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan. North Korea is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests last year. "We will diagnose the cause of the...

Kurt Smolek, a Diplomatic Security special agent with the State Department and Dayton Police Academy graduate, was found dead in the Potomac River on Wednesday and the cause is listed as undetermined pending an autopsy. We're hearing tonight that Smolek, 45, is a 1998 academy graduate and one of his assignments as a special agent was as a member of Condoleezza Rice's security team. According to DC Metro police, Smolek was last seen Monday, Aug. 28, in the 600 block of Water Street, Southwest, about 10 p.m. A missing persons bulletin described hims as white with graying brown hair, brown...

Hillary Clinton continued sending classified information even after leaving the State Department, The Post has exclusively learned. On May 28, 2013, months after stepping down as secretary of state, Clinton sent an email to a group of diplomats and top aides about the “123 Deal” with the United Arab Emirates.

No good deed goes unpunished; this must be what US Ambassador to China Gary Locke must have been thinking as a firestorm of criticism erupted over his embassy’s handling of the Chen Guangcheng case. Under great pressure, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner arriving for high profile talks with China’s leadership, the embassy and colleagues in the State Department including Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell had negotiated a delicate deal with Chinese counterparts that Chen accepted. Negotiated with the involvement of top legal scholar Jerome Cohen, and based on a...

Pic courtesy another major Japanese national TV network, TBS For those who have been following this, the Japanese press is filled with snippets, chortling and stories and about the keystone-cop-ish US White House (specifically the National Security Council under Tom Donilon) and the White House website, which mistakenly listed the first name of Japan's Prime Minister (the third largest economy in the world you recall) as a common Japanese "female first name", "Yoshiko" (sic), and now the Chunichi Shimbun News off a Kyodo News Agency story (which is the blue ribbon equivalent of AP), has run an article saying...

WASHINGTON – Crusty and unapologetic, Donald H. Rumsfeld is the public face of an unpopular war and a target of unrelenting criticism. A growing number of commanders who served under him say he has botched the Iraq operation, ignored the advice of his generals and should be replaced. The White House insists the defense secretary retains President Bush's confidence. Few close to the administration expect him to be shown the door. “The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday as the administration circled...