Socialism rises from the grave
A one-time believer examines ‘man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion’
Vladimir Lenin
Iran: The Shi’ite Imperial Power
FDD Research
Memos
The Iran Deal Is Strategically and Morally Absurd
It was surely Barack Obama’s profound aversion to the use of American military power that so enfeebled his nuclear diplomacy and made his atomic accord with Iran the worst arms-control agre...
Op-eds
Russia’s disinformation offensive
Just so there’s no confusion: This column is not about Americans conspiring or colluding or coordinating with Russians. That’s a separate controversy about which I don’t have a...
Op-eds
Came the revolution
My political orientation has evolved slowly over decades. With one exception: I became anti-Soviet and anti-Communist overnight. More quickly than that, actually. The year was 1972. I wa...
Op-eds
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Erdogan?
Houston, we have a problem. A serious problem. Slowly, but inexorably, Turkey is headed off a cliff. The signposts ahead are bleak indeed. Despotism. Terrorism. Civil war. Just over the horizon,...
Op-eds
How the West Can Use the Iran Deal to Foster Regime Change
Since the comprehensive deal on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program was reached, technical aspects of the agreement have been discussed, but a crucially unremarked-upon topic deserves significan...
Op-eds
How to Defeat the Grand Bargain with Iran
I think most of those trying to stop the approval of the Iran Deal are going about it wrong. I don’t believe you can stop this thing by going through the text and pointing out its myr...
Op-eds
Putin’s Rules
Last week, two Russian long-range bombers skirted the southwest coast of England. British Typhoon warplanes scrambled from their base to “escort” the bombers away. Prime Minister Davi...
Op-eds
Iran Rising
In his...
Op-eds
Russian Riddle
“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” is how Winston Churchill famously described Russia in 1939. Churchill less famously added: “But perhaps there is a key. That k...
Op-eds
Negotiating with Ourselves
Analyzing the Islamic Republic isn’t a guessing game—at least it shouldn’t be. Iranian Islamists’ words and deeds are pretty consistent. Memoirs, speeches, and biographies...
Op-eds
Obama’s New World Order: Power to Our Enemies, Death to Our Friends & a Fish in the President’s Face
The anti-Morsi, anti-Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore anti-Obama demonstrations in Egypt are the biggest in human history. It’s quite something, an historic event. Whatever the...
Op-eds
The Mirage of the Arab Spring
We Americans are nice people. We don’t like to see anyone living under tyranny. So when protests broke out against the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, most of us were supportive...
Op-eds
The New War Against America
Last January, President Obama went over to the Pentagon to announce deep cuts in defense. He took the occasion to proclaim: “Even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of...
Op-eds
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...
Op-eds
Qaddafi’s Useful Idiots
Berlin — One overlooked factor in the recent events in Libya has been the malignant neglect shown by Human Rights Watch over the years in failing to call attention to Moammar Qaddafi&...
Op-eds
Trade Unions: The Revolutionary Social Network at Play in Egypt and Tunisia
Co-Authored with Eric Lee Perhaps the most overlooked factor in the demise of the authoritarian Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, and the weakening of Hosni Mubarak's grip on stat...
Op-eds
Is Yemen the New Pakistan?
Is Yemen the new Pakistan, which was the new Afghanistan, which was the new Saudi Arabia, which was the new Egypt for jihadists seeking to strike the West? The recent attempted cargo-plane bombin...
Op-eds
Revolution, Iranian and Otherwise
Tell the truth: you don’t really know what a revolution looks like, do you? Chances are that if anybody asked you, you’d conjure up some picture including the storming of the B...