Clifford D. May

Trump’s clear view of the Golan Heights

The Middle East is vast and, within it, Israel is no more than a speck, a shard, a sliver clinging to the easternmost shore of the Mediterranean Sea. At present, it is the only nation in the region that is free and democratic, with rights guaranteed to all its citizens, including its significant Arab and Muslim minorities. Saying that will make some people angry, but it's a fact.

April 9, 2019

The European Union’s quarrel over immigration intensifies

Most people want to survive. What could be more natural than that? Most peoples want to survive, too. That's no less natural.

April 2, 2019

Why Kim Jong-un must feel ‘maximum pressure’

It was worth a try. For decades, one administration after another, Republican and Democratic alike, failed to successfully address the metastasizing threat posed by the dictatorship that rules North Korea. So President Trump took a different tack: He played Mr. Nice Guy. He twice trekked to Asia to meet with Kim Jong-un, the country's mass-murdering young despot. He flattered, sweet-talked and — apparently, at least — befriended him.

March 19, 2019

Hating Jewish people is as old as Judean Hills, remarkably diverse

A freshman member of Congress openly espouses bigotry toward Jews and Israel. Her fellow Democrats, with only a few exceptions, fail to forcefully condemn her words and views. Troubling to be sure, but let's remember: This gnarly tree grows in an old, luxuriant and global forest.

March 12, 2019

Things we know that aren’t so

It's been observed — and variously attributed to Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Ronald Reagan, among others — that what gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, but what we know that isn't so.

March 5, 2019

In Syria, Trump is steering between isolationism and interventionism

Precipitously and with no plan in place, President Trump late last year announced his intention to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria.

February 26, 2019

An Arab-Israeli talk-fest for peace

In Warsaw last week, the Trump administration convened a conference on peace and security in the Middle East. The two-day ministerial did not change the world. But it did highlight significant ways in which the world has changed.

February 19, 2019

Trump’s State of the Union speech was a personal best but with one Obamanian slip

Last week's State of the Union — widely predicted to be a boring laundry list better mailed to Congress than recited with pomp and circumstance in the grand chamber of the House of Representatives — turned out to be quite the blockbuster.

February 12, 2019

Democracies die in daylight

"Democracy is difficult — perhaps the most difficult to operate and preserve of all known forms of government." Bernard Lewis, the late, great scholar and historian, offered that observation more than a quarter century ago.

February 5, 2019

New Irish legislation threatens Israelis, Palestinians and the Irish economy

Last Sunday was Holocaust Remembrance Day and, in America and Europe, people are working hard to put an end to anti-Semitism. They can look forward to permanent employment. Anti-Semitism is a virus that can be treated but not cured. It morphs.

January 29, 2019

The age of neo-imperialism

China, Russia and Iran are very different nations in very different parts of the world, but they have three significant commonalities: All once were great empires. All are now ruled by men who aspire to build great empires anew. All regard the United States as their rival and adversary.

January 22, 2019

A plaintive cry for Argentina

Why isn't Argentina as wealthy as Canada? For that matter, why are all the countries of Latin America, without exception, so much less prosperous than their neighbors to the North?

January 8, 2019

The first two years of Trump

The president of the United States has no responsibility more imperative that this: To defend Americans from those intent on doing them harm.

January 1, 2019

President Trump repeats the strategic errors of his predecessor

For almost two years now, President Trump has seemed clear-eyed about the threat posed by those who proudly call themselves jihadis.

December 25, 2018

A modest Middle East detente

Perhaps Barack Obama deserves that Nobel Peace Prize after all. His achievement: Bringing Israelis and Arabs closer together. He produced that result by throwing both under the bus. While there, they had coffee and a little baklava, and recognized how much they actually have in common.

December 18, 2018

Punishing the Saudi prince

Consult a map of the Middle East. Locate the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow sea passage separating the Arabian Peninsula from Iran, and connecting the Gulf -- whether you call it the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf is a thorny question -- to the open oceans beyond.

December 11, 2018

Substitutes for victory in Afghanistan

Ten years ago this month, I joined a small delegation of think tank types invited by the U.S. military to see how the war in Afghanistan was going. My takeaway was that the American-led forces were not defeating the Taliban, but that their mission could be accomplished — if the incoming Barack Obama administration provided the additional resources the generals were saying they needed.

November 20, 2018

Bring Asia Bibi to America

Eight years ago this month, Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian, was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to be hanged on the charge of blasphemy. She has spent the years since on death row. Now, Pakistan's Supreme Court has overturned her conviction on grounds of insufficient evidence. So this sad story turns out to have a happy ending, right? C'mon, you knew it wasn't going to be that simple.

November 13, 2018

The advance of illiberal world disorder

You don't know much about history if you don't know this: "Until 1945 the story of humankind going back thousands of years was a long tale of war, tyranny, and poverty. Moments of peace were fleeting, democracy so rare as to seem almost accidental, and prosperity the luxury of the powerful few."

November 6, 2018

Donald Trump’s progress on the Palestinian-Israeli file merits attention

Tibetans would like a state of their own, as would Uyghurs. China's rulers do not intend to let those peoples go. The Kurds would like a state of their own. The governments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria remain determined to prevent them from establishing one. The Chechens would like a state of their own. Russian President Vladimir Putin will allow that when pigs fly.

October 30, 2018