What just happened in the Middle East?

President Trump – now also President-elect Trump – has named the team he wants to advise him on foreign policy and national security. How will they fare in facing challenges like the Islamic Republic of Iran's war on Israel (and America), Russia's war against Ukraine, and the threat from China’s Communist rulers?Host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleague Richard Goldberg to discuss.

45 years ago this month, followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage. Last weekend, regime supporters in Tehran celebrated that blatant violation of the most basic international law by rallying outside what used to be the embassy building. Over the decades since, the threats posed by the regime that came to power, the misleadingly named Islamic Republic of Iran, have not diminished. What should be America’s policy toward Iran?Host Cliff May asks Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and author of a new “special report” entitled: Navigating the Iranian Opposition: A National Security Briefing for the United States.

FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery just returned from Ukraine where he was on a mission to support and train the Ukrainian general staff in planning and executing integrated joint operations and, secondarily, to get a prioritized assessment of what the Ukrainians need to retain their independence, to prevent being re-colonized by Russia, to defend their homes and families.He joins host Cliff May to share what he learned about the terrible and illegal war that Putin is waging against the Ukrainian people — including Russia’s addition of North Korean soldiers to the battlefield.

On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel and carried out the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon began firing missiles at Israel, and the attacks have continued ever since.Last month, Israelis defended themselves against Hezbollah in new ways, including by exploding thousands of pagers worn on the belts of Hezbollah members and eliminating longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.Soon after, Israeli troops began operating in southern Lebanon and uncovered a Hezbollah plot to invade Israel — all right under the noses of UN employees who claim to be peacekeepers and are bankrolled by U.S. tax dollars.To discuss Lebanon’s colonization by Tehran, its war with Israel, its storied past, its troubled present, and its uncertain future – host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues Hussain Abdul-Hussain and David Daoud.

Yahya Sinwar is dead.He was the leader of Hamas, the architect of the October 7 attack on Israel — the largest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.He has the blood of many Americans on his hands, too, and was designated as a terrorist by the U.S.
For Israel, this is a significant battle won in a long and multi-front war.What’s next? Host Cliff May discusses with his FDD colleagues Mark Dubowitz, Jonathan Schanzer, and Hussain Abdul-Hussain.

Gen. H.R. McMaster has written a memoir about his action-packed 13 months serving as national security advisor to the 45th president of the United States. It’s titled “At War With Ourselves,” and it focuses on the widening divisions among Americans — divisions not just between the major political parties but very much within them.H.R. is an historian as well as a soldier, and his mission, in writing this book was, as he spells out for readers, “to explain what the Trump Administration achieved and failed to achieve in the areas of foreign policy and national security during a pivotal moment in American history.”Gen. McMaster now chairs FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power where Bradley Bowman is the senior director. They both join host Cliff May to discuss the new book and a range of conflicts, crises, and issues. 

America and other free nations are threatened by enemies – an axis of tyrants, of aggressors, of authoritarians, of revanchists – all those terms are apt. But the response of Western leaders continues to be woefully inadequate.The most imminently endangered democratic societies: Ukraine and Israel.Host Cliff May discusses with Bernard Henri-Lévy and Oleksandra Matviichuk.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and conducted the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. The next day, Hezbollah began to rain missiles from southern Lebanon on Israel’s northern communities. Officials at the UN, other transnational organizations, various non-governmental organizations, and media platforms — AKA the “international community” — has responded to this Iran-backed terrorism mostly by aiding and abetting the terrorists and attacking Israel with a campaign we’ve come to call “lawfare.”Host Cliff May is joined by two leading international law practitioners and experts: Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel and FDD senior fellow Orde Kittrie.

The theocrats in Tehran have surrounded Israel with proxies — a “ring of fire,” as it’s being called. The regime’s nuclear weapons development program has made progress, too. And so has its development of the missiles that could deliver these nuclear weapons to targets anywhere in the world.Plus: the regime has made common cause with Communist China, neo-imperialist Russia, and the dynastic dictatorship in North Korea: an “axis of aggressors,” as it’s being called.For an update on Iran, its rulers, its proxies, its subjects, its victims, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues Mark Dubowitz and Reuel Marc Gerecht.