FDD's Foreign Podicy

On August 26, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 American service members and roughly 170 Afghans at Abbey Gate, one of the entrances to Kabul airport.

Four days after that, the last U.S. service member left Afghanistan.
 
Then, on Sept. 7, 2021, the Taliban declared the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
 
These anniversaries have not sparked much media interest. One notable exception: A new documentary film from Wall Street Journal Opinion: 

“The Path to Zero: The Withdrawal FromAfghanistan,” looks at President Biden's April 14, 2021 order to draw American troop levels down to zero, and traces what followed.
 
The film's producer and director, Michael Pack, talks with host Cliff May about what happened back then and the lessons we should have learned by now.
 
Documentary Links:
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/opinion-docs/wsj-opinion-the-path-to-zero/2EB4BA30-CF99-462F-BB52-222870D4F002
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wwzv_B9x-k

In late Summer of 2001, the UN hosted what it called the “World Conference on Racism” in Durban, South Africa.
Instead of combating racism, the conference incited it, becoming the worst international manifestation of Jew-hatred since World War II and the Nazi Holocaust.
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro accused Israel of “genocide.” Yes, way back then.
Gerald Steinberg, the founder and president of NGO Monitor, a think tank focused, as its name suggests, on non-governmental organizations, talks to host Cliff May about how and why those poisonous seeds were planted, and what they’ve grown into more than two decades later.

Joby Warrick, a fine storyteller and longtime national security correspondent for the Washington Post, has written a biography of the most infamous terrorist of the second half of the 20th century.

“The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World’s First Super-Terrorist,” relates the life story of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – the Venezuelan-born Communist who enjoyed tailored suits, fine wine, beautiful women, and murdering in support of anti-capitalism, anti-Zionism, and other sundry causes for which he was well-paid.

The seizure of the OPEC ministers in Vienna. Two French intelligence officers shot dead in a Paris apartment. The capture in Khartoum that finally ended his run.
Since 1994, Carlos has been behind bars. In 2003, from his cell, he wrote a manifesto, L'Islam révolutionnaire, praising Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 attack, and urging revolutionaries of every stripe — leftists, atheists, all of them — to accept Islamist leadership.

Today, Carlos sits in Poissy, a prison housed in a former monastery, where Joby interviewed him. In this episode of “Foreign Podicy,” Joby tells host Cliff May that the Jackal is no longer the wild animal he once was.

FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is a travelin’ man. He’s just back from Taiwan and Ukraine.

He joins host Cliff May to debrief what he saw and heard abroad—and offer his analyses. They also discuss North Korea’s role in Russia’s war, cyberattacks—almost certainly by Iran’s rulers—on water utilities in Minnesota and Michigan, the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis and the Bab el-Mandeb, and cognitive warfare.

A week ago, President Trump seemed to have decided to hit the Islamic Republic of Iran hard – to destroy what’s left of its missile arsenals, its military-industrial base, its command-and-control headquarters and perhaps the commanders themselves.
 
Then the President heard that Iran’s rulers were finally ready to make a deal. Soon after, Iran’s rulers announced they were not. President Trump called that “unbelievably duplicitous.”
 
FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht and Behnam Ben Taleblu join host Cliff May to discuss where the conflict stands and what would be the best way forward.