Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for The Washington Times. He can be reached atcliff@fdd.org.
Dear President Trump: I understand you're thinking about meeting with Vladimir Putin again, this time in Budapest.Published October 21, 2025
SharesFor the past few days, large crowds of healthy, energetic Gazans have been cheering, dancing in the streets and chanting "Allahu akbar!" -- all recorded on their fully charged cellphones.Published October 14, 2025
SharesThey say there are no atheists in foxholes. When it comes to Hamas, that's not reassuring.Published October 7, 2025
SharesWhen I was in graduate school, back in the previous century, I took two courses simultaneously on the United Nations.Published September 30, 2025
SharesA disturbing thought experiment: Imagine your children have been kidnapped and are being tortured in a dungeon.Published September 23, 2025
SharesLast week, we remembered the almost 3,000 victims of the al-Qaida terrorists who, on Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked passenger aircraft and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.Published September 16, 2025
SharesFor centuries, Jews have been the targets of lies. I'll mention just three.Published September 9, 2025
Shares"A clean energy revolution is helping to save this planet." Thus spoke President Obama in 2015.Published September 2, 2025
SharesAs a foreign correspondent roving around Africa years ago, I often met United Nations personnel.Published August 26, 2025
SharesFriday's summit meeting in Alaska was short on substance but long on symbolism.Published August 19, 2025
SharesAt a United Nations Security Council meeting on Sunday, U.S. Amb. Dorothy Shea offered an observation about the Gaza conflict: "This war could end today if Hamas would let the hostages go."Published August 12, 2025
SharesPresident Trump now sees Vladimir Putin through clearer eyes. I suspect first lady Melania Trump deserves much of the credit.Published August 5, 2025
SharesThe Arab Spring was the media's name for a wave of protests -- some peaceful, some violent -- against various Middle Eastern dictatorships from 2010 to 2012.Published July 29, 2025
Shares"You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies." That aphorism, attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, has always struck me as more hopeful than convincing.Published July 15, 2025
SharesInterpol is such a cool idea: Cosmopolitan cops chasing criminals around the world. The reality, I'm sorry to tell you, is rather different.Published July 8, 2025
SharesPresident Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth were hopping mad last week over attempts to minimize what they had achieved against the nuclear weapons facilities in IranPublished July 1, 2025
SharesThe uranium enrichment plant at Fordow was known as the jewel in the crown of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.Published June 24, 2025
SharesIn 1979, I spent several months in Iran covering what was then called the Iranian Revolution.Published June 17, 2025
SharesA statue of Josef Stalin was recently unveiled in Moscow's Taganskaya subway station.Published June 10, 2025
SharesNot so long ago, homicidal antisemitism in America was widely regarded as peculiar to neo-Nazis, White supremacists and other far-right extremists.Published May 27, 2025
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