Free Republic

President Donald Trump is failing as the sheriff of Saudi Arabia, we are instructed to believe. We are scolded that Trump must prosecute a murder of a Saudi citizen, Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, inside Turkey. Who knew that the U.S. president must prosecute crimes in foreign countries? Yet Trump apparently cannot give orders to his own attorney general or the U.S. Department of Justice. The left is outraged, in full hysteria mode, that Trump wanted to tell DOJ to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Our president is the chief law enforcement officer of Saudi Arabia, we are told, but certainly not of the...

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Sunday she would rather not see the U.S.-Mexico border close despite threats by President Trump to prevent certain groups of migrants from crossing into the U.S. "We would prefer that we keep it open, so let's work really hard to make sure that we're addressing the asylum seekers before they actually come over the border," Ernst said on CNN's "State of the Union."The Iowa Republican was responding to Trump's suggestion that he may close the southern border if Mexico does not agree to hold migrants while the U.S. processes their asylum claims. "I think the...

In the wake of Trump’s announcement this week that his administration would continue to “stand with Saudi Arabia” despite the recent murder of Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi, America’s mainstream media elites erupted in their usual paroxysms of despair and condemnation of the president. Although this time the typical “orange man bad” stories tended to omit calls for Trump to be immediately overthrown by the military or his own cabinet, almost every other major trope was preponderant. This was especially true of Khashoggi’s former place of employment at the Post, where journalists almost universally portrayed Trump as having blood on...

But Democrats view it as yet another expression of the prime minister’s overzealous backing for a despised U.S. president The Mossad’s Kidon unit, which foreign media describe as Israel’s official assassination squad, must be worried sick over the fallout from the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Alongside its many successful hits, some of which are surely still unknown, Kidon’s men (and presumably women) have also known notorious failures, including the mistaken 1970 killing of Moroccan waiter Ahmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer, Norway, the failed 1997 assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan and...

• A nightmare scenario involving a potential armed showdown between Saudi Arabia and Iran would put America and President Trump in a high-stakes dilemma. • U.S. policy performs best when focused on a longer-term strategic purpose. In the Middle East, the approach must be on preventing any new conflicts, ending civil wars and unlocking the region's human potential while opposing extremism, writes Atlantic Council President and CEO Fred Kempe. • The U.S. and its Western allies should leverage the post-Khashoggi crisis to achieve some good in the Middle East, Kempe writes....

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on Muslims worldwide on Saturday to unite against the United States, instead of “rolling out red carpets for criminals”. Washington in May reimposed sanctions on Tehran, after President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran under which they had been lifted. “Submitting to the West headed by America would be treason against our religion ... and against the future generations of this region,” Rouhani told an international conference on Islamic unity in Tehran, in a speech broadcast live on state television. “We have a choice to either roll out red...

Just when you thought the story of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Turkey couldn’t get any stranger, Turkish media adds a new wrinkle. It’s being claimed by a columnist for the newspaper Hurriyet that the CIA has a recording of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordering Khashoggi to be “silenced” prior to the killing. No sources are named in the story and nobody else is confirming it, but it’s stirring up all the actors involved in this tale. (Reuters) A Turkish newspaper reported on Thursday CIA director Gina Haspel signaled to Turkish officials last month...

BERLIN — Denmark became the second European country to halt future arms exports to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, following a similar decision by neighboring Germany earlier this month. The Danish announcement comes the same week President Trump backed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA assessing that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Denmark’s ban includes goods that can be used both for military and civilian purposes but is still less expansive than the German measures, which also included sales that had already been approved. While the Nordic country is a tiny arms equipment exporter in...

At the height of the media storm over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, otherwise known as MBS, met with a visiting delegation of evangelical Christians from the U.S. for two hours. One of the Saudi attendees was the General Secretary of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), Dr. Mohammad Al-‘Issa. The MWL was a major engine for the propagation and spread of Wahabist jihad throughout the Western world since it was formed by the Saudi regime in the 1960s. The MWL founded the...

I am already sick of Turkey.I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at State Department, at Pentagon and in congressional offices — continue to make the case for Turkey as a “strategically important” partner to the US. On paper, the country looks good: It sits at the center of many of Americas most pressing foreign policy concerns, it is a member of NATO, it's stable, and it can offer foreign partners access to its airbases and intelligence cooperation. I used to think of...

Sen.-elect Mitt Romney(R-Utah) (R-Utah) on Wednesday condemned President Trump's and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's latest comments about journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing, calling them "inconsistent" with the U.S. national interest. "The President's and Secretary of State's Khashoggi statements to date are inconsistent with an enduring foreign policy, with our national interest, with basic human rights, and with American greatness," Romney said in a statement. "Sanctions do not necessarily require ending the alliance; they do demand real and painful consequence," he added.

Sinan Selen, a 46-year-old Istanbul-born counter-terrorism expert, will be the first Muslim to fill a top leadership position within Germany's intelligence community. Throughout his government career, Selen has been resolute in confronting Islamic fundamentalists in Germany. He also led efforts at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to monitor the Turkish nationalist Milli Görüs, an influential Islamist movement strongly opposed to Muslim integration into European society. The leadership changes at the BfV were spurred by a cellphone video that purportedly showed right-wing mobs attacking migrants over the murder of a German citizen in Chemnitz by...

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump struck a nakedly political tone during a Thanksgiving call with US service members stationed around the world as he steered the conversation toward controversial political topics. Speaking with a US general in Afghanistan, Trump likened the fight against terrorists to his efforts to prevent a group of migrants from illegally entering the United States, and he assailed federal judges who have ruled against his administration. The President also pressed the commanding officer of a Coast Guard ship in Bahrain on trade before touting his trade policies and arguing that "every nation in the world is taking...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday.

The 633-word statement of President Donald Trump on the Saudi royals' role in the grisly murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi is a remarkable document, not only for its ice-cold candor. The president re-raises a question that has roiled the nation since Jimmy Carter: To what degree should we allow idealistic values trump vital interests in determining foreign policy? On the matter of who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump does not rule out the crown prince as prime suspect: "King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the...

Mr. Trump’s sidestepping of reports that the C.I.A. believes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing as “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” was jarring. But every president since Harry Truman has aligned with unsavory Middle Eastern rulers in the service of national interests. The difference here is that Mr. Trump seemed unapologetic about this state of affairs with only a passing nod to the affront to our values that Mr. Khashoggi’s murder represents. That’s nothing to cheer. But it is vitally important to evaluate the policy on its merits more than its mode of expression. And...

Following the sinking of one of the world’s largest dry docks on October 29 in a shipyard in the far northwest part of Russia, officials have finally admitted that they are unable to continue work on Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, for the time being. While Russia’s shipbuilding industry is reportedly looking into alternatives, no timely and viable solution to continue retrofitting work on the Russian Navy’s flagship has emerged to date. “We have alternatives actually for all the ships except for [the aircraft carrier] Admiral Kuznetsov. Our enterprises are in operation, [including] the Nerpa [Ship Repair Factory],”...

FULL TITLE: Unfixable? Several nations have tried to restore democracy after populist strongmen. It was never the same. In April, aided by massive gerrymandering, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling coalition crushed opposition in Hungary’s national elections, claiming a supermajority in the parliament. The prime minister — who had used two prior terms in office to dominate media outlets, alter electoral rules so that urban areas were massively underrepresented and seize control of the top courts — moved to further consolidate his power. He is pushing Central European University, a leading academic institution backed by George Soros, whom Orban has demonized,...

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has a message for President Donald Trump: “Being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.’” Gabbard sent the tweet to @realDonaldTrump earlier this morning, ratcheting up criticism of the president’s continued support for the country despite the CIA’s conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not “America First.” — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) November 21, 2018 “If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake,” Trump told reporters outside of the White House Tuesday. “We’re with Saudi Arabia. We’re staying...

On FBN (Maria Bartiromo Morning Show), the business panel outlined the clever moves made by POTUS, Donald J. Trump to push the Saudi's to lower oil prices as punishment for their "murder incident in Turkey". As a result of this artful move, Trump forced the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians to follow suit...and low and behold the American nation now has much lower (10-20 dollars a barrel lower) oil prices for the "Holiday Season"!!! Shucks it's like another healthy tax cut for the American taxpayer during the Holiday Season!!! Of course the "Fake News Media" has nary a clue and...