Napoleon Bonaparte

October 9, 2024 | Clifford D. May |

Atoning for Britain’s colonialist past

By encouraging China’s colonialist present

September 13, 2024 | Ben Cohen |

Afghanistan and Gaza: Tragedy and farce

You wonder why a Hamas rapist who gets what he deserves is reinvented as an innocent civilian murdered as part of a “genocide,” while Afghan women are transformed into chattels and slaves, and the world remains silent.

November 3, 2023 | Hussain Abdul-Hussain |

Gaza and the De-Colonization Narrative

Western views of Arab society often get one major thing wrong – Arab agency.

June 28, 2022 | Reuel Marc Gerecht |

The Israeli Moment

If anyone is going to derail the Islamic Republic’s regional ambitions, Israel is really the only local counterweight that counts.

October 30, 2019 | Samantha Ravich, Annie Fixler

The Economic Dimension of Great-Power Competition and the Role of Cyber as a Key Strategic Weapon

Excerpt Napoleon Bonaparte may have said that an army marches on its stomach, but it is perhaps even truer that a military force marches, sails, flies, and attacks on the back of its nation’s economy....

January 21, 2018 | Grant Rumley

The Tragedy of Mahmoud Abbas

Picture a Palestinian leader in the twilight of his reign. Besieged on all sides and challenged by younger upstarts, he lashes out against Israel, his Arab bret...

November 2, 2016 | Clifford D. May |

The “ideals of 1776”

Andrew Roberts, one of the world’s great historians, took America to task last week. Let me rephrase that: He took Americans to task for what they — or rather we — are doing to...

December 9, 2015 | Clifford D. May |

Divided We Fall?

“Divide and conquer” describes an age-old military concept: If your enemies are fighting among themselves, they can’t effectively battle you. Phillip II of Macedon, Julius Caesa...

October 26, 2015 | Michael Ledeen |

Who’s Winning in Syria?

Who’s winning the Middle East war?  It’s never an easy question to answer, even for the most skilled and informed analysts.  Things rarely, very rarely, go the way we expect...

July 28, 2015 | Tony Badran |

Obama’s Equilibrium Fantasy

With the nuclear deal finally out of the way, President Obama can now get down to what, for him, has always been the real business—engaging Iran on regional issues. As one adminis...

January 7, 2015 | Clifford D. May The Washington Times |

Napoleon in the Middle East

The French emperor’s war against an Islamic empire is instructive

February 24, 2014 | Michael Ledeen |

What If We Were Winning But Nobody Noticed?

It’s all about winning and losing, but the best man doesn’t always win, and outcomes frequently have more to do with luck than with merit.  Brilliant strategies fail, and fools s...

June 27, 2012 | Lee Smith Tablet

What’s Next for Egypt?

The Muslim Brotherhood, which won the presidency Saturday, sees itself as a corrective to modern Egyptian life

August 25, 2011 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Michael Ledeen, Clifford D. May

Long, Hot Arab Summer

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Commentary on the Arab Spring is much like the famous parable of the blind men learning about an elephant by touching it: Most observers glimpse...

June 15, 2011 | Clifford D. May |

You Must Remember This

 There’s an anniversary this week we might do well to recall. On May 29, 1453 – just 555 short years ago -- troops led by Mehmed II broke through the walls of the ancient Christi...

June 15, 2011 |

The First Time

Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia by Charles Townshend Belknap Press, 624 pp., $35 THIS BOOK IS an exquisite history of the excruciatingly diffi...

March 24, 2011 | Emanuele Ottolenghi |

Libya a Fatal Distraction From Iran

Why are British planes bombing Libya? Humanitarian intervention - that's the answer. Consider this: until two months ago, Libya was a new friend - and a textbook example of the kind...

June 22, 2009 | |

The June 12 Revolution

The modern Middle East has had numerous "game-changing" moments, when history turned. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798, Muhammad Ali's conquest of the Nile Valley in 1805,...

August 28, 2008 |

What Do You Mean Obama’s An Empty Suit? Had Napoleon Written Memoirs At This Age?

Classic Krauthammer, on Obama’s coronation on Mount Olympus: What’s the finish? Maybe Obama’s got Zhang Yimou to do the hidden-rope trick, and...

May 29, 2008 |

You Must Remember This


The Siege of Constantinople
The Siege of Constantinople
There’s an anniversary this week we might do well to recall. On May 29, 1453 – just 555 short years ago -- troops led by Mehmed II broke through the walls of the ancient Christian capital of Constantinople.
 
Mehmed the Conqueror – as he would be known from that day forward -- rode triumphantly into the city on a white horse. Soon, churches would be converted into mosques. Constantinople would become Istanbul.
 
“For the West this was a dark moment,” writes historian Efraim Karsh in his masterful book, Islamic Imperialism. “For Islam it was a cause for celebration. For nearly a millennium Constantinople had been the foremost barrier – physically and ideologically – to Islam’s sustained drive for world conquest and the object of desire of numerous Muslim rulers.”
 
Mehmed cast himself as not just as a master builder of the Ottoman Empire, but also as the caliph – the supreme spiritual and temporal ruler of all the world’s Muslims, chosen to “act as Allah’s Sword ‘blazing forth the way of Islam from the East to West.’” He would go on to conquer Greece, Serbia, the Balkans south of the Danube and the Crimean peninsula.  His grandson and great grandson would extend the caliphate to include the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Hijaz including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Iraq, North Africa, and most of Hungary.
 
The desire to conquer the world – or even just one’s neighbors -- is hardly an Islamic invention. Genghis Khan is not a name: It’s a title. It means “universal ruler.” The man history knows as Genghis Khan believed it was his divinely ordained mission to lead the Mongols to global domination.
 
And he loved his work. “Man's highest joy is victory: to conquer his enemies,” he said, “to pursue them; to deprive them of their possessions; to make their beloved weep; to ride on their horses; and to embrace their wives and daughters.”