FDD's Foreign Podicy

For 1,300 years, there were caliphs — “successors” to the Prophet Muhammad. In 1924, however, the last caliph, Abdulmecid II was sent into exile by Mustafa Kemal — Ataturk, father of the secular Republic of Turkey. In Egypt, four years later, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization dedicated to reviving the caliphate, and uniting Muslims around the world. In its motto, the...

More than 50 nations now recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president. But Cuba, Russia, Iran and China have formed an anti-American and authoritarian alliance to prop up Nicolas Maduro who, following in the footsteps of Hugo Chavez, has turned what was once a wealthy, free and promising land into an impoverished and oppressive hellhole. To discuss what went wrong and why, and...

In the Middle East, elections are few, far between and rarely free and fair – except in Israel. After a tight, tough race, Benjamin Netanyahu has again been chosen by Israelis, positioning him to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. FDD senior vice president Jonathan Schanzer was on the ground during the final days of the campaign. He joins host Cliff May to discuss the outcome and what...

Yoram Hazony is a political philosopher, president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and the author—most recently—of a book that’s been stirring controversy: “The Virtue of Nationalism.” He joins host Cliff May to discuss tribalism, nationalism, imperialism, freedom, sovereignty, and globalism.

Israeli elections are approaching, President Trump’s envoys are working on a new plan aimed at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to threaten the Jewish state with annihilation. To help make sense of these complex challenges, host Cliff May is joined by former Ambassador Daniel Shapiro and FDD Senior Vice President and expert on Pales...

War is always going to be hell, but the laws of war are intended to make armed conflicts a little less hellish. With that in mind, Congress recently passed—and the president signed—critical new legislation against the use of human shields: putting civilians in the line of fire to protect combatants. But more remains to be done. To discuss this war crime, host Cliff May is joined by FDD CEO Mark Du...

H.R. McMaster served as a U.S. Army officer for thirty-four years—including deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan—before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018. He then served as White House national security advisor. Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, he also chairs the Board of Advisors at FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power. He joins host Cliff May for a discussion abo...

Anti-Semitism is sometimes called the “the oldest hatred,” and one never knows where it will pop up next. That said, many people have been surprised—as well as disappointed—to see it crop up in Ireland in the form of legislation promoting economic warfare against Israel. On this special edition of Foreign Podicy, host Clifford D. May reads his Washington Times column on this topic, and then discus...

Four decades ago, Iran was convulsed by one of the great revolutions of the 20th century. The leader of that revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, would take the title: “supreme leader.” He was to be regarded, literally, as God’s “representative on Earth.” A charismatic, fire-and-brimstone cleric, he preached jihad against America and the West. When he died in 1989, his disciple, Ayatollah Ali...

The United States has the most powerful military in world history. But after 17 years fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, an American victory is nowhere in sight. With that and many other threats and challenges in mind, FDD has opened a new Center on Military and Political Power. CMPP will attempt to promote—on a bipartisan basis—better understanding of the defense strategies, policies and capabi...

On this special edition of Foreign Podicy, host Clifford D. May reads his latest column for The Washington Times co-authored by FDD senior vice president Toby Dershowitz about Alberto Nisman—the intrepid Argentine prosecutor who spent years revealing the truth behind the worst terrorist attack in his country’s history—and who paid for it with his life when he was found murdered four years ago toda...

Iran has a plan. February will be 40 years since Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran to lead what he called an Islamic Revolution, and begin forming a government committed to jihad. By the end of 1979, he was supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What he and his acolytes intend has been stated clearly and with consistency by Iran’s ruling ayatollahs. They intend to destroy t...

America’s conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan, now well into its second decade, is not going well. The U.S. military has called it a “stalemate.” During his farewell speech in early September, General John W. Nicholson Jr., who first oversaw the military effort for President Trump, said: “It is time for this war in Afghanistan to end.” But most wars don’t end – they are won or they are lost....

Andrew Roberts is one of the world's greatest living historians and biographers. He has written or edited 19 books, which have been translated into 22 languages. His latest,  Churchill: Walking With Destiny , is a thousand-page biography. Professor Roberts is the first biographer granted permission by Queen Elizabeth II to unfettered access to the diaries of her father, King George VI, revealing h...

Since the end of World War II, we have seen the emergence of a “liberal world order.” By any historical standard, it’s brought us extraordinary peace, prosperity and progress. Though imperfect, it’s preferable to any other option currently available. But unless the U.S. defends it and invests in it, it will die—sooner rather than later. That, in a nutshell, is the argument Robert Kagan makes in hi...

Stuart Eizenstat has had a long and extraordinary career. Among the influential positions he’s held: President Jimmy Carter’s chief White House Domestic Policy Advisor, President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the European Union, and an undersecretary in the departments of Commerce and State. He’s today a leading international lawyer with Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. He’s now written “P...

Yaya Fanusie is the director of analysis at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF). He spent seven years as both an economic and counterterrorism analyst in the CIA, where he regularly briefed White House policy makers, U.S. military personnel, and federal law enforcement. In 2009, he spent three months in Afghanistan providing analytic support to...

If the attacks of September 11, 2001 were a second Pearl Harbor, where are we in the war that began on that day? Are we winning, losing or stalemated? Last year there were more than 10,000 terrorist attacks worldwide—about five times the number in 2001. So what have we learned—or, more importantly—what do we still need to learn? Are there policies and strategies that ought to be put in place? Toda...

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was one of the visionaries who helped create the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Six years ago, FDD inaugurated an award in honor of the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — a statesman who vehemently opposed totalitarianism and resolutely defended American values.   This year, FDD’s Jeane J. Kirkpa...

Israel is a tiny country: its land area about a fourth the size of the United Arab Emirates, its population less than that of Tehran—capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet Israel is the subject of constant comment and controversy, and is frequently attacked—both kinetically and rhetorically—by its enemies, its adversaries, and too often even by those who should be its allies. To help make se...

For seven long years, Syria has been engulfed in civil war. The death toll now exceeds a half million. More than five million refugees have fled abroad, and millions more are internally displaced. The dynastic dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad almost certainly would have fallen had it not been for the intervention of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah , various Iranian-contr...

Kazakhstan is one of the ten largest countries in the world, yet most Americans couldn’t find it on a map. Today, the former Soviet Republic is an anti-Islamist, Muslim-majority nation, yet most Americans have no idea we have friends there. To learn more about this distant and intriguing corner of the world, host Clifford D. May is joined by Svante Cornell, Director of the Central Asian Caucasus I...

Syria has been at war for seven long years. More than a half million people have been killed. More than 11 million – close to half Syria’s pre-war population – have been displaced either internally or as refugees in other countries.  But Syrians are not the only ones involved in this fight.  The Islamic Republic of Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah – the Iranian regime’s foreign legion – and Russia have he...

Not so long ago, Turkey appeared to be the model: a Muslim-majority nation that was becoming free, democratic and prosperous; a NATO ally; a friend of America and Europe. Today, all of that is very much in doubt. To discuss Turkey’s trajectory in the aftermath of elections that have strengthened the hand of the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, FDD president and Foreign Podicy host  Clifford D. May...

Lebanon and Iraq both recently held elections, which is good news – or is it? Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist foreign legion, is now more firmly in control of Lebanon than ever before. Meanwhile, Iraq still faces many perils, not least from the Islamic Republic of Iran as it pursues its imperialist ambitions in the region. In episode 14 of Foreign Podicy, host Clifford D. May discusses these developme...