FDD's Foreign Podicy

📺: Watch this episode on YouTube here.In addition to slaughtering Iranian citizens by the thousands, Iran’s Islamist rulers are waging a cognitive war. To conceal their brutal crackdown, the regime has shut down the internet inside Iran. Beyond Iran’s borders, one corner of the digital world remains fully operational — shaping much of the world’s perceptions of what’s happening inside the Islamic Republic. That corner is Wikipedia, now an integral node in a nefarious network that propagates Islamist disinformation while whitewashing Tehran’s human rights atrocities. Investigative journalist Ashley Rindsberg joins Cliff to unpack Wikipedia’s rol...

📺: Watch this episode on YouTube here. Iran is once again convulsed by nationwide protests — but this time, the regime has pulled the plug. With the internet shut down and security forces unleashed, the Islamic Republic is violently crushing dissent in virtual darkness, silencing both protesters and the outside world. As the Iranian people continue risking everything for freedom, will America finally put its money where its mouth is? When? How? Reuel Marc Gerecht and Behnam Ben Taleblu join host Cliff May to discuss.

📺: Watch this episode on YouTube here. The arrest of Nicolás Maduro was a complex operation that exposed the weakness of a narco-dictatorship and sent a clear signal to America’s adversaries. In short: it was a tactical success. But taking out a dictator is not the same as dismantling a regime — and Venezuela’s regime remains largely intact. Host Cliff May is joined by Carrie Filipetti to assess what the operation changed, what it didn’t, and what comes next — from who still holds power in Caracas and the fate of political prisoners, to what Venezuela’s...

For more than three decades, Somaliland has functioned as a free, independent, Muslim, pro-peace, anti-Islamist republic on the Horn of Africa. Now, Israel has formally recognized it as a sovereign state. Somaliland’s bad neighbor, Somalia, and other Islamist regimes are furious. Britain also insists the people of Somaliland have no right to decide their future.Meanwhile, Somaliland is looking toward America — and is eager to join the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords.Host Cliff May is joined by Bashir Goth, Somaliland’s representative to the United States, and Middle East analyst Michael Rubin to discuss why Israel...

This Christmas week, we're left to confront a hard truth: Christians are under attack in many corners of the world.On October 10, the Chinese Communist Party arrested Pastor Ezra Jin, founder of Beijing’s Zion Church — along with 28 other leaders — in the largest crackdown on a Christian church in China in decades.Pastor Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, joins host Cliff May to scrutinize Beijing’s campaign against Christians and Christianity.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.China isn’t just competing economically — it’s coercing strategically. Drawing on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s latest report, guest host Craig Singleton is joined by Commission Vice Chair Randy Shriver and Commissioner Mike Kuiken to unpack how Beijing weaponizes its economic power — and why Chinese economic statecraft now sits at the center of U.S. national security.

Politicians love to tell Americans what we think about U.S. leadership, our military, our allies, and our enemies — but the data tells a different story. A new Reagan National Defense Survey cuts through the noise to reveal what Americans actually believe during a moment of strategic flux. To unpack the findings and what they mean for U.S. power, deterrence, and America’s role in the world — guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by Roger Zakheim, Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute and co-founder of the Reagan National Defense Forum. 

Guest host Behnam Ben Taleblu is joined by former U.S. intelligence official Norman Roule to examine Iran’s postwar moment: from puncturing the comforting illusion created by viral clips of loosened social activity (or, as Norm puts it, why “a few videos of dancing and hijab-free afternoons don’t outweigh 21,000 arrests and expedited executions”) to exposing the harsh reality of a regime so unpopular that its fragility may leave it with “no alternative but to crack down” and the rising pressure both guests describe as the Islamic Republic’s “greatest” — and “most dangerous” — long-term threat.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.Africa rarely makes the headlines — but it should. Here are just a few: Islamist movements are expanding from Nigeria to Mozambique, Mali to Somalia. The French have been pushed out, Russian forces are moving in, while China is building influence and quietly extracting wealth from African earth and people. Ambassador Alberto Fernandez joins Cliff to explain how jihadist militias, local warlords, regional powers, and great-power competition are reshaping the continent — and why America ignores this at its own risk.

President Trump gave Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, A.K.A. MbS, a royal welcome to Washington. But beyond the flashy diplomacy, quite a lot of business was transacted. Host Cliff May is joined by Edmund Fitton-Brown to discuss the visit, the future of U.S.–Saudi relations, the threat from Tehran and the Houthis, Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions, and how a changing kingdom is changing the Middle East.

📺: Watch this episode on YouTube here.Filmmaker Michael Pack joins host Cliff May to tell the extraordinary story of The Last 600 Meters, his gripping documentary on the battles of Fallujah and Najaf. Though the film was finished in 2007, it sat on a shelf for 17 years before PBS finally aired it this Veterans Day. From young Americans fighting al-Qaeda and Iran-backed militias in brutal urban combat to political leaders pulling the plug mid-mission and media outlets like Al Jazeera shaping the narrative, Cliff and Michael connect these lessons highlighted in the film to the wars of today — a long-b...

Guest host and Senior Director of FDD’s Iran Program Behnam Ben Taleblu sits down with historian Ali Ansari to explore why the Islamic Republic is rewriting Iran’s past to justify its present, how Iranians are reclaiming their identity from the regime, and what the nation’s search for identity reveals about the Islamic Republic’s fading future.

President Trump just returned from a whirlwind week in Asia closing trade and investment deals and strengthening security alliances. Host Cliff May sits down with FDD’s Craig Singleton to discuss what Trump accomplished, as well as the challenges – and threats – that remain.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.For two years, Israel has been fighting a war on multiple fronts. And although it has delivered blows to Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas on the ground, it’s losing another fight: the information war, a campaign of slander and blood libels fueled by a media empire built by the Muslim Brotherhood. To expose where — from Al Jazeera’s studios in Doha to Turkish satellite channels and newsrooms in London — and how this empire works — amplifying Hamas, laundering Islamist ideology through “journalism,” and reshaping the narrative from Cairo to Washington — host Cliff May is...

Host Cliff May is joined by retired Ukrainian Admiral Ihor Voronchenko, the former inspector general of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and former commander of the Naval Forces of Ukraine; along with retired U.S. Marine Colonel Andy Bain, executive director and co-founder of the Ukrainian Freedom Fund; and FDD's retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery to assess the state of Russia’s war on Ukraine — what Kyiv needs from the West and where the fight goes next. 

Watch this episode on YouTube.LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman join host Cliff May to explain why diplomacy only works when backed by force. From Gaza to Ukraine, they trace how strength — not illusions — shapes outcomes and frustrates the ambitions of the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.From China’s stranglehold on critical minerals to the coming AI power crunch, an energy arms race is underway. Rich Goldberg, on loan from FDD to the White House, helped establish a new National Energy Dominance Council. He’s now building a program at FDD that will focus on energy as a key component of national security. Rich, who has served as a Navy Intelligence Officer and National Security Council official, joins host Cliff May to discuss.

Born into a well-educated and well-off Syrian family, Ahmad al-Sharaa – also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani – joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq, after the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003. Following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, he established al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria: Jabhat al-Nusra. In 2016, he severed ties with al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra evolved into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — the force that in 2024 toppled Bashar al-Assad’s Tehran-backed regime.Today, the former terrorist is the interim president of Syria. With the U.S. bounty on his head gone...

America’s military faces extraordinary threats — and when resources lag, missions can fail. Guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by Krista Auchenbach of CSIS to discuss her forthcoming report, alongside Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, as they unpack how presidents convey orders, how the Pentagon manages risk, and how to avoid a dangerous ends-means mismatch.

On the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Cliff May sits down with Amb. Edmund Fitton-Brown — former British ambassador to Yemen and UN terrorism monitor, now FDD senior fellow — to assess what we’ve learned — and failed to learn — about global jihad.From Hamas leaders living lavishly in Qatar, the Houthis’ missile threat, al Qaeda’s quiet alliance with Iran, and the West’s waning grip in Africa, to the Taliban’s return to Kabul and UN failures with Hamas and Gaza, Cliff and Edmund warn that because the jihadi threat isn’t over, neither is the fight to defend the