Columns by Clifford D. May
In early 1979, I was sent to Iran to report on the rebellion then underway. I was woefully ignorant of Iranian history, politics and theology.
Published
December 29, 2020
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"Build Back Better" was Joe Biden's campaign slogan. How different is that, really, from "Make America Great Again"? Both BBB and MAGA suggest the need for restoration, for reversing deterioration and decline, for fixing what's broken.
Published
December 22, 2020
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We are now in that quadrennial season when Washington wonks spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to divine the policies of the next administration based on the individuals named as presidential advisers.
Published
December 15, 2020
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How much does the average Palestinian know about the Jewish refugees from Arab countries? My guess: very little.
Published
December 8, 2020
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China has been waging a Cold War against America for years. The current administration has recognized that reality.
Published
December 1, 2020
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The assassins were professionals and they had planned carefully. On Aug. 7, 2020, around 9 o'clock on a warm evening, they rode a motorcycle down a street in Pasdaran, a well-off Tehran neighborhood.
Published
November 24, 2020
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With the defeat of the Axis Power in 1945, the United States emerged as the strongest military, economic and cultural power on earth.
Published
November 17, 2020
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How consequential will it be if the French acquiesce, agreeing to carve out an exception to free speech in deference to Islamists? Very.
Published
November 10, 2020
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Natan Sharansky was born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky in 1948 in Stalino, a grimy Ukrainian coal town renamed Donetsk following the death of the second Soviet dictator in 1953.
Published
November 3, 2020
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Mr. Xi is pursuing not global leadership but global domination. His intention is to build a new illiberal international order, one with rules made in China, for China and enforced by China.
Published
October 20, 2020
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Tyrants have learned to use high technology to spread disinformation while, in totalitarian countries, censors have become adept at repressing truthful information they find inconvenient.
Published
October 13, 2020
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There was a simplicity to the Cold War. Free peoples, and those who aspired to that status, were threatened by communism, a totalitarian ideology aggressively propagated by the Soviet Union, an expansionist empire.
Published
October 6, 2020
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Before there was a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, there was an Arab-Israeli conflict. Last week, on the White House lawn, that older conflict was put to rest.
Published
September 22, 2020
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The 75th session of the U.N. General Assembly is underway. Publicists are calling it "historic." I suspect you're thinking: Is this exciting or what?
Published
September 15, 2020
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The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington were a wakeup call. They led a low-intensity armed conflict that, 19 years later, remains inconclusive.
Published
September 8, 2020
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It was once thought probable, if not inevitable, that from the ashes of the U.S.S.R. would arise liberal democracies. But few Soviet republics have become real republics.
Published
September 1, 2020
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Long before the blast, Lebanon had begun shattering, politically and economically. Its elites bear the blame, and street protests against them have raged for almost two years.
Published
August 25, 2020
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Iran's rulers characterized what happened at the U.N. Security Council last week as a "heavy defeat for Washington," and I can't say they're wrong.
Published
August 18, 2020
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The rulers of North Korea and China have found nefarious ways to limit speech critical of them, intimidating and manipulating what we might otherwise consider powerful and independent individuals in Hollywood, professional sports, and the news media.
Published
August 11, 2020
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"The dissolution of the USSR was a time of hope in the West. Western thinking was, if not to integrate Russia fully, at least to ensure that it became a partner. By the mid-2000s, it was clear that this had not been successful."
Published
July 28, 2020
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