Iran on the brink — or is the West getting played?

Host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman to assess the growing cooperation among adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—also know as the 'axis of aggressors.'From the Kremlin's efforts to manipulate perceptions in the West, particularly regarding NATO, to Iran's nuclear ambitions and the geopolitical implications of its relationship with China and the continuing threat from North Korea, they discuss why a robust U.S. response to these challenges is needed in order to maintain global security.

Is Iran on the brink, or is the West getting played again? Filling in for host Cliff May, Behnam Ben Taleblu is joined by Andrea Stricker and Saeed Ghasseminejad to discuss Trump’s renewed demand for full nuclear dismantlement, the regime’s internal weakness, and why half-measures won’t cut it. From stalled negotiations to nationwide strikes and the case for a “strike fund,” they unpack how to confront the Islamic Republic in 2025.

President Trump’s May 19 phone call with Vladimir Putin does not appear to be two hours well-spent. According to readouts, the Russian ruler agreed to continue talking about talking.Around the same time, Putin launched a massive drone strike against Ukrainian soldiers defending their country and civilians attempting to survive the long war waged against them by an enemy seeking to destroy their freedom and identity.Despite President Trump’s multiple threats to impose “devastating” sanctions on Russia if Putin continues to refuse even a temporary ceasefire — to which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed — Putin does not appear to be taking Trump’s threats seriously.If Trump isn’t bluffing, a new FDD Memo details exactly how the president can exert significant economic pain on Russia to give Putin pause — and maybe even pause the missiles strikes.Joining host Cliff May to discuss are memo co-author John Hardie and FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, who just returned from the frontline in Ukraine.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and the pogrom carried out by terrorists from Hamas and affiliated Islamist organizations, and some Gazan civilians as well, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opined that the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”Well, he’s correct just not in the way he intended.Hebron is an ancient city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in Judea, now more usually referred to as the West Bank. Hebron is the burial place of Abraham, and Jews and Muslims lived there mostly peacefully for centuries until the morning of Aug. 24, 1929 when 67 Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors. It was one of the worst pogroms ever perpetrated outside of Europe, where many pogroms were perpetrated over many years.“Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict” is a meticulously researched and beautifully written account of this pivotal event by the eminent journalist Yardena Schwartz, combining historical analysis with contemporary insights.She joins host Cliff May to discuss the Hebron massacre and the long history of Arab-Israeli conflict.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author.Her weekly column currently appears in The Times of London. She’s a regular panelist on BBC Radio’s The Moral Maze and speaks on public platforms throughout the English-speaking world.Her best-selling book, “Londonistan,” about the British establishment’s capitulation to Islamist aggression, was published in 2006. She followed this in 2010 with “The World Turned Upside Down: the Global Battle over God, Truth and Power.” She has a new book: “The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – and Why Only They Can Save it.”She joins host Cliff May to discuss her work's pertinence in the context of Israel's defensive war in Gaza and rising global anti-Semitism.

China is conducting what a top US military officer called a breathtaking expansion and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces. An October 2024 Defense Intelligence Agency report estimated that by 2030, “China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.”Meanwhile, Russia maintains the largest foreign nuclear stockpile in the world and is actively modernizing its arsenal to be able to circumvent US missile defenses.North Korea and Iran have been busy improving their ballistic missile inventories, as the latter continues inching closer to a nuclear weapons capability.How can the United States deter these growing threats and protect American lives? 

Last week, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that talks with the Trump administration appear to be going well.This tells host Cliff May that from an American perspective, the talks are going badly.President Trump has said that America’s goal is the “full dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, including its capacity to produce missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to targets anywhere in the world.Mr. Araghchi’s goal is to prevent President Trump from achieving his goal. Who are you betting on?Cliff asks Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, who just wrote a piece together in Politico arguing that sanctions and maximum pressure have never made the clerical regime abandon its nuclear ambitions.Which raises the question: What will?

According to host Cliff May, "Mark Montgomery is an admirable admiral. Another adjective I’d use to describe him: peripatetic. Which is a fancy way of saying he’s on the road more than Willie Nelson—whom he does not otherwise resemble."Most recently the retired flag officer has been in Lithuania, which on the east shares a border with the Russian vassal state of Belarus, and on the southwest has a border with the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, which was called Königsberg until Russia took it from Germany following World War II.You start a war and lose that war, you may lose territory. Which is a good segue to Israel, another country Mark has recently visited. Also on the list is Taiwan.And, perhaps most mysteriously, he very recently spent time in an elaborate private wine cellar in California. Which is odd because he’s not much of a drinker. It had something to do with a cyber security conference and... The Godfather?So many mysteries, so little time. 

If you were to visit Turkey years ago, it might’ve felt both Middle Eastern and European. It was Muslim and secular. It was, more or less, free and democratic.  Host Cliff May says the food was great, too. Now? Well, he’s told the food is still great.  To explain what has happened and what is happening in Turkey, Cliff is joined by his FDD colleague Sinan Ciddi. About SinanSinan is also an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at the Marine Corps University in Quantico. Earlier, Sinan was Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, based at Georgetown University. He continues to serve as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He received his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He’s the author of Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People’s Party: Secularism and Nationalism.

Filling in for host Cliff May is FDD CEO and host of The Iran Breakdown, Mark Dubowitz, joined by former Israeli national security advisor Jacob Nagel, now a senior fellow at FDD.Following President Trump’s recent signaling that he's open to nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, Mark and Jacob revisit the flaws of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the  general complexities of Iran's nuclear program. They discuss Iran's current nuclear capabilities and the implications of the program for regional security—and explain why addressing weaponization and delivery systems in any potential deal is of utmost importance.