FDD's Foreign Podicy

The first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state was Egypt. Following the Yom Kippur War of 1973, came the Camp David Accords of 1978 which provided both countries with tangible benefits. While the peace has never been warm, it has held. But since October 7, Egypt’s behavior has been distressing.  What’s more, there’s now evidence that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has...

Hamas called its October 7 terrorist attack “Operation al Aqsa Flood,” suggesting a religious – rather than nationalistic – motive. The al Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam, sits atop the ruins of both the ancient temples of the Jews. The first was built by King Solomon and was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The second was built in the sixth century BCE and stood for nearly...

Americans and our allies confront an extraordinary array of threats from an emerging “axis of aggressors,” consisting of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. That’s the bad news. The good news? Americans have an unmatched network of allies and partners with whom we can work to defend our common interests and counter growing threats. Among our partners in that network are three beleaguered democra...

A war is being waged against Israel by Iran’s rulers and their proxies, and they don’t hide their goal — they boast of it: annihilation. Extermination. Genocide. Now seven months into Israel’s defensive war in Gaza following the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7, Hamas is down but not out. And they are literally down: its leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, are believed to be ensconced in an ela...

In the aftermath of World War II, the establishment of the United Nations seemed like a promising idea: global unity in resolving conflicts peacefully while promoting human rights. Surely everyone in the new international community will support such efforts, right? Wrong. U.N. corruption is obvious to anyone willing to look, but most Americans and Europeans in positions of authority don’t look. An...

Ali Khamenei, Iran’s longtime ruler, saw the possibility of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia as a threat to his hegemonic ambitions. On Oct. 7, Hamas, one of Tehran’s proxies, invaded Israel and committed multiple acts of barbarism. That sparked a war and froze prospects for a new Saudi-Israeli relationship.   However, The Wall Street Journal reports that Washington is pushing for a “...

Last weekend, Iran’s rulers launched a massive missile and drone assault on Israel. Though the attack was thwarted, it should be obvious that the Islamic Republic is willing to pursue its goal of “Death to Israel!” — not just by utilizing Arab proxies and pawns, but now also directly from within its own territory. We must assume that Iran’s rulers are also now adjusting their strategies for the ji...

Six months after Iranian-backed terrorists perpetrated the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Israel’s ground war against Hamas in Gaza, its conflict with Lebanon-based Hezbollah in Israel’s north, and Tehran’s multi-front shadow war against the Jewish state continue. For a status update, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues Bradley Bowman, senior director of FDD’s Center on...

The Israeli airstrike next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1 targeted several high-ranking members of Iran’s Quds Force — an elite division of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Among those killed: top IRGC-QF commander in Syria and Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Zahedi.  The regime in Tehran has vowed revenge, and Israel is...

President Reagan knew a detent with the Soviet Union wouldn’t win the Cold War. If we take off the gloves and force Soviet communism to compete with American democracy, he thought, the U.S. will prevail. In a phrase: “We win, they lose.” He was right. The U.S. won. The Soviet Union collapsed.  But in the decades since as America’s role in the world diminished and the rules-based order decayed, Rus...

After World War II, the United States attempted to construct something new: a liberal, American-led, rules-based international order that would promote human rights, Enlightenment values, and democracy. Today, the dictatorial rulers of China, Russia, and Iran are attempting to establish something different: a world order that is radically illiberal with rules made in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran, a...

In Gaza, Israelis are fighting a ground war – and an underground war – against Hamas, a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israelis also are responding to missile attacks from Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanon-based foreign legion. These are serious conflicts. But they are not separate conflicts. And they could be something else – something worse. Mark Dubowitz , FDD’s chief executive, worries that...

Next month marks 30 years since the onset of the world’s worst mass slaughter since the Holocaust: the Rwandan genocide. Among the forces that ushered in an end to the conflict was a military officer who would ultimately become Rwanda’s president: Paul Kagame. FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery recently met with President Kagame and other senior officials in Kigali. In addition to a debrief on his...

Joining Cliff for this episode is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, whose first column appeared 30 years ago this week. Jeff’s career as a journalist has included interviews with Elie Wiesel and Mikhail Gorbachev, and on-the-ground reporting from such exotic locales as Cuba, the Korean DMZ, and Gaza. Cliff asks Jeff how he came to his world view; what he saw in Gaza during visits from the 1970s...

Given the mandate of the United Nations, you might think a genocide perpetrated by a terrorist organization against a democracy in the Middle East would be an opportunity for the UN to exercise its moral authority — perhaps even an obligation, considering the U.S. tax dollars that bankroll it. But you’d be wrong. The UN doesn’t recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Moreover, when the UN use...

As Israel's defensive war in Gaza enters its fifth month, host Cliff May is joined by FDD experts retired  Major General Amir Eshel  and retired  Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery  to talk about the current state of the war including how many Hamas terrorists are thought to remain active on the battlefield in Gaza; the whereabouts of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif; and IDF efforts to redu...

The U.S. is in a decisive moment. Harried by turmoil and challenges at home, many Americans look overseas and see a world on fire. Ukrainians are fighting for their lives against Putin, wondering whether the west will abandon them; Beijing is undertaking an unprecedented military expansion in preparation for potential aggression in the Taiwan Strait; Iran-backed terrorists are attacking U.S. troop...

Jeffrey Herf has a new and timely volume on the current moment. It’s title: “Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left and Islamist.” He joins host Cliff May to discuss the multiple manifestations of Jew-hatred – a growth industry since the terrible pogrom of October 7, 2023. 

Colonel Richard Kemp has spent three decades fighting terrorists and insurgents around the world, including as commander of British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has been present during each conflict between Israel and Hamas since 2008 and has been in Israel since the beginning of the current Gaza war.    Col. Kemp joins Cliff to discuss why Israel is not guilty of genocide and why Hamas, Hez...

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Senator Roger Wicker (R-MI) are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On January 11, they issued a noteworthy joint statement after receiving a briefing from Admiral John Aquilino, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific. The briefing’s topic? The threat from China and how we should respond.  The tw...

Host  Cliff May  is joined by FDD experts  Jonathan Schanzer  and  Richard Goldberg  to discuss Qatar donning the facade of ‘mediator’ and ‘peacemaker.’ The reality is rather different. They unpack Doha's bad behavior, including how a plethora of bad actors — e.g., Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Islamic Republic of Iran (or, as Jon calls it, “the cantina scene...

The October 7 attack against Israel was carried out by Hamas with support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Other Tehran proxies include Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen-based Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthi rebels. Although President Trump designated them as a foreign terrorist organization, President Biden removed them from that blacklist. Since November, the Houthis have used Tehran-s...

Dr. Nadia Schadlow previously served as the U.S. national security advisor for strategy, and she led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy (and in record time). She shares what it was like to formulate such a strategy while in the Trump White House and while her predecessors rejected much of it, she shares one Strategy “core which is very, very important” reiterated b...

General David Petraeus joins the show to discuss his new book (co-authored by Andrew Roberts, our recent episode with him here ), Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine . Primarily through the lenses of Ukraine and Israel, Cliff and the General examine what has evolved into modern-day warfare. They discuss the status of Ukraine's defensive war against Russia, including criticism t...

Podcast host and author Dan Senor joins Cliff to discuss his new book, The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World , and Israel's defensive war in Gaza. Among the complexities they ponder: How does Hamas continue to rain rocket fire across Israel — do they have that many weapons stockpiled, or are they being resupplied? Is Israel achieving its militaril...