Clifford May

May frequently writes on threats from so-called Islamic fascists (a term also promoted by Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney, and Daniel Pipes), pushing militaristic strategies to topple them, especially in countries like Iran and Syria. After the New York Times reported in early December 2007 on the release of a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that contradicted earlier intelligence claims (as well as the claims of many hardliners associated with Vice President Dick Cheney) by concluding that Iran had abandoned efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program, May was one of the first to lambaste the report. In the National Review blog "The Corner," May opined succinctly: "The purpose of this NIE is to prevent Bush from using military force during the remainder of his term to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program" ("Re: Iranian Nukes," December 3, 2007).

May was one of several right-wing voices to sign on to a September 2007 declaration sponsored by the Forgotten American Coalition condemning the idea of withdrawal from Iraq. The coalition, spearheaded by Gary Bauer, is a letterhead organization that also hypes the threat from Iran and Syria. In July 2007, May was a panelist at the Washington, DC, summit of Christians United for Israel, which he described as focusing on Israeli security and "Islamic imperialists and supremacists" (Moyers, October 5, 2007).

In November 2006, May was one of the inaugural members of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion (ACPD). His initial appointment was for two years. Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state, is executive director of the committee; other committee members include Carl Gershman and Vin Weber of the National Endowment for Democracy, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Jennifer Windsor of Freedom House (see "Inaugural Meeting," November 3, 2006). In September 2007, Media Matters criticized May for failing to disclose his government ties, and those of the FDD: "[May] has appeared in the media several times to defend the administration's conduct of the Iraq war. ... However, in none of his columns or on-air appearances has May disclosed that FDD has received at least $1.2 million in State Department grants since 2004, or that May himself is a member of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion" (Media Matters, September 10, 2007).

May was also a member of the Iraq Study Group's Military and Security Working Group of Experts, which was formed in March 2006 (see U.S. Institute of Peace, "Iraq Study Group, Expert Working Groups). As the Washington Post reported: " A key recommendation of last week's Iraq Study Group report was that the Bush administration should reach out to Iran and Syria to improve the situation in Iraq. The White House has long rejected the notion, but nearly all of the 44 experts who worked on the report supported it. However, two conservative holdouts—Clifford May, a former Republican National Committee spokesman, and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute—needed some extra convincing. In a series of e-mails, James Dobbins, a former diplomat and the chief architect of Afghan reconciliation (now at Rand Corp.) made his case. In the end, May was won over but Gerecht was not" (Washington Post, December 10, 2006).

In a September 2006 op-ed, May equated Islamic fascists with World War II-era fascists. Citing the work of Michael Ledeen, a scholar at AEI, May argued that "whereas the Nazis waged a war for German domination of Europe, [Ayatollah] Khomeini looked forward to a war that would spread Islamic rule throughout the Middle East and beyond." Quoting a 1942 Khomeini diatribe, in which the Iranian revolutionary claimed that "the sword is the key to paradise" and "Islam wants to conquer the whole world," May argued that "Khomeini's successors may soon have not just swords but also nuclear weapons to help them pursue their vision. Osama bin Laden's ambitions are the same though he dreams of Sunni rather than Shiite sheiks ordering infidels to convert or die." He also approvingly cited the opinions of conservative Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who, according to May, recognized that "Islamic fascism" is the "ideological heir to the enemy America confronted in World War II—and is at least as serious a threat" (September 26, 2006, Scripps News).

The effort to draw parallels between new threats and those from earlier eras has become a familiar trope in neoconservative discourse. In a 2004 lecture at AEI, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer argued: "Today, post-9/11, we find ourselves in a similar existential struggle but with a different enemy: not Soviet communism, but Arab-Islamic totalitarianism, both secular and religious" (Irving Kristol Lecture, AEI, February 10, 2004).

Commenting on this neoconservative tendency, Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote: "Almost every conflict in which the United States has been engaged since the late 1960s—from Vietnam to Central America to Yugoslavia to the 'war on terror' in Iraq and against Al-Qaida—has been portrayed as a new Munich, in which the enemy represents a threat virtually on a par with Hitler" (Inter Press Service, August 12, 2003).

A veteran journalist, May has worked as a correspondent for the New York Times, a senior editor for Geo, and an associate editor for Newsweek. He writes a weekly column that is nationally distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, and he has contributed to the National Review Online, CNN's American Morning, and National Public Radio's Morning Edition, among other outlets. In the late 1990s, May edited Rising Tide, the official magazine of the Republican Party.

May's Foundation for Defense of Democracies was founded two days after the September 11, 2001 attacks by, as the FDD puts it, "a group of visionary philanthropists and policymakers to engage in the worldwide war of ideas and to support the defense of democratic societies under assault by terrorism and militant Islamism." The FDD is best known by its frequent media interviews and news analysis by Clifford May, who before joining FDD was director of communications (1997 to 2001) for the Republican National Committee. May's corporate connections included working as the senior managing director of Weber Shandwick, which describes itself as "one of the world's leading public relations and communications management firms."

May is vice-chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and he was a signatory of various statements published by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). May serves as chairman of the Policy Committee of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), which the FDD describes as a "venerable Cold War group." CPD was revived by the FDD and a plank of hardline Democrats and Republicans in 2004. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) serve as CPD's honorary co-chairmen. George Shultz and James Woolsey are the co-chairs of CPD's six-member board of directors.

May is codirector, with Frank Gaffney, of the Alliance for Research on National Security, a joint project of the Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the FDD. The focus of the research institute is on terrorism and counterterrorism in the Middle East, particularly in Israel. Gaffney, the head of the CSP, sits on the advisory committee of FDD.

Another indicator of May's neoconservative politics is his association with the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative-aligned institute launched in Cambridge, England, in March 2005. The society was founded, in its own words, on the idea that "liberal democracy should be spread across the world; that as the world's most powerful democracies, the United States and the European Union—under British leadership—must shape the world more actively by intervention and example; that such leadership requires political will, a commitment to universal human rights, and the maintenance of a strong military with global expeditionary reach; and that too few of our leaders in Britain and the rest of Europe today are ready to play a role in the world that matches our strength and responsibilities." Included among the think tank's international patrons are May and such other neoconservative luminaries as Bruce Jackson, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Joshua Muravchik, and Woolsey.

On September 29, 2003, May wrote in his National Review Online column that he had known that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA long before right-wing columnist Robert Novak blew her cover. In an apparent attempt to discredit her husband, Amb. Joseph Wilson, who had challenged the Bush administration's claims that Iraq wanted to buy yellowcake from Niger, someone in the administration had shared information about Plame's CIA affiliation with as many as five journalists, including Novak. Writing on the same day that the Washington Post confirmed that the CIA had requested a criminal investigation of the affair, May boasted: "That wasn't news to me. I had been told that—but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government, and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer that it was something that insiders were well aware of" (National Review Online, September 29, 2003).

May's FDD is packed with "insiders" such as Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Woolsey, Gaffney, Kristol, and Perle. An indication of the FDD's emergence as a major player in the think-tank world occurred on March 13, 2006, when President George W. Bush delivered a speech on the "Global War on Terrorism" at an FDD-sponsored event. Bush's choice of the FDD as a forum was regarded by many observers as a sign that the administration remained firmly under the thrall of neoconservative-inspired foreign policy, despite worsening problems in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Bush's FDD speech highlighted not only the new prominence of the FDD, but also of Clifford May. May, who introduced the president, framed the administration's war on terrorism in Cold War terms and also incorporated the FDD's democracy vs. terrorism theme in his opening remarks: "From the moment he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center, President Bush has demonstrated that he understands the nature of the threat facing our country and the entire Free World," said May. "We stand behind the president in his commitment, his determination to defend freedom and defeat the enemies of democratic societies."

The president commended FDD's work during his speech: "The foundation is making a difference across the world, and I appreciate the difference you're making. You have trained Iraqi women and Iranian students in the principles and practice of democracy, you've translated 'democracy readers' into Arabic for distribution across the broader Middle East, you've helped activists across the region organize effective political movements—so they can help bring about democratic change and ensure the survival of liberty in new democracies. By promoting democratic ideals, and training a new generation of democratic leaders in the Middle East, you are helping us to bring victory in the war on terror—and I thank you for your hard work in freedom's cause."

May has frequently lent his support to the Bush administration. In April 2006, when top U.S. military officials called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, May defended the secretary: "I would say the criticism should focus on how the job [in Iraq] could get done better. It shouldn't focus on Rumsfeld the man and calling for his scalp" (Saturday Early Show, April 15, 2006).

Like other neoconservatives, May is strongly for U.S. action against Iran. Calling Iran a "ticking time bomb," May dismissed UN efforts to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program. "The UN will fail at this ... because it's failed at every similar mission it has ever undertaken in its entire history" (CNN, August 31, 2006).

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Private Sector

Education

Clifford May, "The Enemy's Ideology," Scripps News, September 14, 2006.

Charles Krauthammer, "Democratic Realism," 2004 Irving Kristol Lecture, AEI, February 10, 2004.

Jim Lobe, "Who Is a Neoconservative Anyway?" Inter Press Service, August 12, 2003.

Weber Shandwick, About Weber Shandwick, http://www.webershandwick.com/overview/index.cfm.

PNAC Chart of Signatories, Right Web, IRC, http://rightweb.irc-online.org/charts/pnac-chart.php.

Center for Security Policy: Alliance for Research on National Security Issues, http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=ARNSI.

"International Patrons," Henry Jackson Society, www.henryjacksonsociety.org.

Clifford May, "Spy Games," National Review Online, September 29, 2003.

Jim Lobe, "Dear Mr. Prosecutor," AlterNet, February 17, 2004, http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=17874.

Clifford May, "Clifford May Introduces President George W. Bush," FDD, March 13, 2006.

"President Discusses Iraq to FDD," March 13, 2006, http://www.defenddemocracy.org/research_topics/research_topics_show.htm?doc_id=360972.

CBS News Transcript, Saturday Early Show, April 15, 2006.

CNN, Glenn Beck Show, August 31, 2006.

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