Clifford May
Clifford May
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Pundicity: Informed Opinion and Review
 

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The dagger in the Ayatollah's cloak
President Trump decided to take it away from him

June 24, 2025  •  The Washington Times

The uranium enrichment plant at Fordow was known as the jewel in the crown of Ali Khamenei, Iran's "supreme leader." It would have been more accurate to call it the dagger in the ayatollah's cloak, or maybe the bomb in the terrorist's backpack.

It was one ingredient in a decades-long strategic cocktail: Cook up terrorist proxies to kill and die for you and your goals; place them in a "ring of fire" around Israel; obtain a nuclear weapons capability; stir or shake vigorously.

All this and more grew out of the revolution that erupted in Iran in 1979. Its objective was not to make Iran great again but to restore Islamic power and preeminence in the Middle East and far beyond.

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Roots of the Middle East conflict trace back centuries

June 17, 2025  •  The Washington Times

In 1979, I spent several months in Iran covering what was then called the Iranian Revolution. My attempts to learn Farsi were unsuccessful. But all these years later, two phrases stick in my mind: "Marg bar Esrāʾil!" and "Marg bar Āmrikā!"

Many of my fellow reporters insisted that "Death to Israel!" and "Death to America!" should not be taken literally or even seriously.

And many Iranians didn't believe that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the religious leader who led the revolution, intended to become a dictator and mass murderer.

They failed to understand that Mr. Khomeini's antipathy toward the "Little Satan" and the "Great Satan" was implacable – subject to neither negotiation nor compromise.

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What a Stalin statue in a subway station should tell Trump about Putin

June 10, 2025  •  The Washington Times

A statue of Josef Stalin was recently unveiled in Moscow's Taganskaya subway station. It's no anomaly. Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, more than 100 monuments to the Soviet dictator have been erected across Russia.

This tells you all you need to know about Mr. Putin. More importantly, this should tell President Trump all he needs to know about Mr. Putin.

But Mr. Trump is juggling multiple crises, as are his advisors. So, in case they've missed this development, I will endeavor to explain its significance.

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A secular jihadi brings the intifada to Washington

May 27, 2025  •  The Washington Times

Not so long ago, homicidal antisemitism in America was widely regarded as peculiar to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists, men such as Robert Gregory Bowers who, in 2018, murdered 11 worshippers and wounded six more at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.

Meanwhile, within the American left, antisemitism has been metastasizing. Last week, we saw the results.

A college-educated terrorist shot and killed – "allegedly" if you insist, but he admitted it and there's surveillance footage – Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim,

They were young Israeli embassy staffers, one Jewish, one Christian, though Elias Rodriguez could not have known such things.

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What Qatar wants, Qatar gets

May 21, 2025  •  The Washington Times

Lots of people have been duped by the Qataris. I was one of them.

For years, I watched as the Qataris spent billions of dollars in Gaza, a territory from which the Israelis had withdrawn in 2005 and which Hamas – a designated terrorist organization committed to the extermination of Israel – took over two years later.

But, I reasoned, surely the Qataris don't want their expensive buildings rubbled. And if their investments improve life for Gazans, couldn't that diminish Hamas's enthusiasm for jihad? And won't the Qataris counsel Hamas not to start wars likely to end catastrophically for Gazans?

I was naïve.

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