Lunch between the French and Iranian leaders is CANCELLED after President Hollande refused to take wine off the menu for his meeting with Muslim counterpart Rouhani

From The Daily Mail UK via H/T at Instapundit:

Department of things you never thought you'd say: I agree fully with the action taken today by French President Francois Hollande.

A lunch between the French and Iranian presidents in Paris was scrapped today because France refused to remove wine from the menu.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has been on a tour of Europe, signing billions of pounds worth of business deals with different nations, after economic sanctions against the country were lifted.

He was due to dine with President Francois Hollande at an upmarket restaurant in the French capital.

More like this, please.

You know the world is really messed up when one has more respect for the French President than the American one. President Hollande also has a much better set than our Dear Leader.

Politifact Tries to Retcon the Ending of the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis

From Powerline Blog via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

Reagan had absolutely nothing to do with it you see.

We flagged Rubio's comment as a misleading framing of history. Reagan's inauguration in 1981 may have coincided with the release of the hostages, but historians say it did not cause it. Instead, the Iranians had tired of holding the hostages, and that the administration of Jimmy Carter did the legwork to get the hostages released.

...It's a GOP talking point we've debunked before. In 2012, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said, "I believe the right course is what Ronald Reagan called peace through strength ... There's a reason why the Iranians released the hostages on the same day and at the same hour that Reagan was sworn in." We rated his claim Pants on Fire.

...Despite the showy announcement, scholars of the period say that Reagan did not play any significant role in freeing the hostages.

Well except for his very existence, his implied threats of military force against Iran, and his imminent control of the White House and the US military.

And Steven Hayward points out that even the Washington Post editorial page the day after the hostage release gave Reagan's reputation credit:

"Who doubts that among Iran's reasons for coming to terms now was a desire to beat [Reagan] to town?"

Quote of the Day I

From National Review via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

Two thousand years ago, a Roman could wander the known world confident that he would be unmolested by local unruly elements, protected only by the statement "Civis romanus sum," I am a Roman citizen. His confidence stemmed from a demonstrated assurance that any group that dared attack a Roman would trigger a response in the form of a Roman legion, which would deal swift and brutal justice. Juxtapose this image of a previous world-spanning hegemon with the image of ten American Sailors kneeling on the deck of their own vessel with their hands clasped together over their heads. It is an image of indignity and failure that is accompanied by the smell of rotting power.

...This is where we find ourselves today, kneeling on the world's stage, with our hands clasped over our heads, all the while trying to convince ourselves that this new position demonstrates our strength and earns respect. Civis americanus sum, I am an American citizen. Let the molesting begin.

-- Jerry Hendrix

Humiliated By Iran -- How Did The Navy Let It Happen?

From Investor's via H/T at Lucienne:

Weakness: How can an advanced, ultra-agile U.S. combat boat suffer a "navigation error" that leads to a terrorist state capturing its sailors? Tehran just revealed military ineptitude warranting a congressional probe.

The Swedish-designed Combat Boat 90 can make the sharpest of turns at high speed, stop nearly on a dime, maneuver like magic and, with its Rolls-Royce jet-propulsion system, can speed along at over 45 miles an hour in rivers and shallow coastlines while transporting 18 amphibious troops.

But what good is any of that if it falls into enemy hands?

There is something fishy about how such a high-tech U.S. craft can "stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error," as Defense Secretary Ash Carter described it on Thursday to Univision. The Pentagon had previously claimed engine trouble for an incident that's humiliated the U.S., as Iranian video showed to the world 10 American sailors on their knees at gunpoint.

A retired operations commander for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, Christopher Harmer, told CNN the capture constituted "a severe failure," charging that "either the naval leadership put these sailors in an impossible situation, or the sailors are professionally incompetent." Harmer has researched the increased lethality of Iran's submarine fleet for the Institute for the Study of War.

There is something very fishy about this story.

Iran Seizes Two US Navy Vessels, 10 American Sailors.

From Breitbart National Security:

The Islamic Republic of Iran seized two U.S. Navy vessels while they were navigating the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, detaining the ships and ten American sailors near Iran’s Farsi Island, the Pentagon said.

Farsi Island is home to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) military base.

It has been confirmed that the boats were captured by the IRGC, whose leaders are aligned with the regime’s hardliners and have expressed staunch opposition to the now-historic nuclear deal.

This may be an act of war.

Update: These sailors were not mentioned during the State of the Union address.

Welcome to the White House's Nightmare

From The National Journal:

Already swamped by domestic and foreign crises, Obama finds that even his self-proclaimed successes are at risk. That's just about the last thing he needs now. .................

More than anything, these events and others have served as a rebuke to Team Obama’s worldview that a new generation of leadership could move on from both the Clinton-era and Bush-era policies. Both of those administrations were more hawkish and aggressive about the exercise of American power, whether it was to intercede in regional conflicts in the Balkans or take down Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

Disdainful of much of Washington’s foreign policy establishment, Obama and his close-knit circle of advisers, on the other hand, talked about engaging Iran diplomatically, using sanctions to punish bad actors, “pivoting” to Asia, and neutralizing the threat of terrorism more bloodlessly through the use of drones. They viewed American power in terms of limits. This was a president, after all, who opposed the U.S. “surge” that arguably stabilized Iraq to the point where Obama could pull the troops out.

Yet here was Obama on Thursday using the language of presidents past such as John Kennedy and George W. Bush, talking of sending “advisers” into a global hot spot and warning of the need to deny “safe haven” to terrorist groups. “Right now, this is the moment when the fate of Iraq hangs in the balance,” he said—something that sounded So 10 Years Ago.

"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it" is a quote which truly applies to the clown in the Oval Office. He did not learn from the Jimmy Carter's disastrous presidency regarding foreign AND domestic policy.

Another prime example of an Ivory Towered "intellectual" who responds to crisis by saying, " But it not supposed to happen this way!! My thesis says otherwise! Read it here!!!!