Allen Jackson NOW

Allen Jackson: Good evening and welcome to Nashville. I'm Allen Jackson. Tonight, another troubling development in the war in Ukraine is raising broader questions about the direction of global security. Ukraine says Russia is preparing to bring in another 30,000 North Korean troops, adding to the thousands already fighting alongside Russian forces.

North Korea continues supplying missiles while reports suggest that Russia is helping strengthen North Korea's military capabilities in return. On its own, that's a significant story, but it may also point to something much larger: a growing willingness among adversaries to cooperate in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago.

Nowhere is that challenge more evident than in the Middle East. For more than four decades, Iran's ruling regime has built its identity around hostility towards the United States and an unwavering commitment to Israel's destruction. Iranian leaders have repeatedly denied Israel's right to exist while they describe America as the Great Satan. That ideology has shaped nearly every major decision the regime has made.

Recent reports suggest Iran used a temporary ceasefire not to pursue peace but to prepare its terror proxy network for wider attacks. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's Board of Peace for Gaza is generating optimism as a framework for rebuilding the territory. But everything depends on one condition: Hamas, they must disarm.

How do you persuade a terrorist organization that continues to deny Israel's right to exist to surrender the very weapons that maintain its existence? Iran has poured billions of dollars annually into Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. These are terrorist organizations, instruments of destruction, trained and armed to attack Israel and to massacre the Jewish people.

The rockets raining down on Israeli cities that cause families to flee into bombshells were supplied by Iran. Hezbollah's rockets from the north, Iranian. Hamas rockets from the south, Iran helped develop them. When dealing with nations and people groups, you have to negotiate based on ideologies. Every time we think now we can make peace with Iran or Hamas, it's a slippery slope because to have a legitimate peace deal, you have to have people of integrity with which to negotiate. Iran and Hamas, they don't meet that standard.

Islam teaches that anyone outside their belief system is an infidel, someone unworthy of dignity or freedom. This is the worldview driving Iran's Islamic regime and terrorist groups, a belief that non-Muslims must be controlled, silenced, or punished. Iran doesn't hide its ambitions, yet the talking point by many in the media is that Israel should just ignore Iran, that Israel should just get over the evil atrocities that were carried out on Israeli citizens by Hamas on October 7th.

It's hard to ignore somebody that actively says they intend to destroy you. Just imagine if every night you came home, your neighbor knocked on your door and said, "I intend to destroy you and your family," and they told anybody who would listen. Well, that's the current reality in the Middle East. Yet the media likes to single out the Jewish nation unfairly and blame them for much of the world's injustices.

Israel's the only true democracy in its region. It upholds the rule of law and values human life, and for that, it's hated by many. The media has this tendency to over-report the negative and to refuse to report the positive. We've seen that in our nation. During the lead-up to the 2016 election, the FBI claimed that the Trump campaign had ties to Russian collusion. The Russian collusion hoax was then echoed in the evening news every day, even though it ended up being proved a totally false narrative.

The media said President Joe Biden was as cogent and sharp as ever, even though it was plain to see that that wasn't the case. The Biden administration said our border was secure, and the legacy media happily passed along that narrative, which they knew to be false. Now we see how mainstream media for the most part is ignoring the astounding revelations found in Fauci's diaries. They were written in his own words.

The diary portrays a striking disconnect between Fauci's private assessments and the public guidance he was giving on major media networks. He did it during interviews with news anchors who were discovered to be his close friends. Not only are we not getting even a simple apology from Fauci, a man who has immunity through a full and unconditional presidential pardon he received from Biden, but we haven't heard apologies from the media for their role in platforming Fauci as "Mr. Science" and silencing viewpoints that differed from his.

I'd like to say God is moving in the earth. When I do, people come up to me and they say, "How can you say that? I don't see God moving." I don't blame them, but perhaps it's because the media refuses to report on positive developments. So here's a few good news items: Our borders are secure. We haven't been able to say that in more than a decade. Billions of our tax dollars are being spent fraudulently and being stolen. The good news is the stealing is being exposed and being brought out into the light.

The mutilation of our children in pursuit of trans insanity has been slowed. President Trump has taken steps to stop this abuse. DEI, it's been stopped as an official government function. Enormous regulations that were limiting small businesses have been peeled back. I've been to DC many times. It's a city that for years had been steeped in chaos and violence. The Trump administration took action last year. They sent in the National Guard reinforcements to combat lawlessness there.

Homicides have dropped dramatically, robberies fell sharply, carjackings collapsed, all because laws were being enforced. We saw the same outcome closer to home here in Memphis, Tennessee. That's how law and order is supposed to work. When we begin to see the world from God's perspective and then we advocate for that with sincerity and enthusiasm, people will begin to see the value of a biblical worldview and understand that godliness is the best way to live.

So tell the truth about your biblical worldview where you have influence. The way for the truth to re-emerge is for the people of God to decide we're going to be people of the truth. In a moment, we'll be joined by the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Cliff May. I'll be right back.

Guest (Female): This year, we celebrate 250 years of God's faithfulness to our nation. From backyard picnics and ball games to laughter shared with family and friends, we've been given so many blessings to enjoy together.

Guest (Male): In a world that feels increasingly divided, these moments remind us of what matters most: faith, freedom, family, and community. Allen Jackson Ministries wants to help you carry that message with you wherever you may go. This outdoor blanket and canvas tote bag are simple reminders of God's goodness and a way to spark meaningful conversations about faith and the hope we have in Him. Request your limited edition tote bag and outdoor blanket today with your gift of $100 or more at AllenJackson.com or call 800-880-5102.

Allen Jackson: Tonight we're joined by the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Cliff May. Welcome to the show, Cliff.

Cliff May: Great to be with you. Thanks for having me, Allen.

Allen Jackson: Last week President Trump announced that the Board of Peace was unveiling a 15-point plan for Gaza, that as a part of that plan Hamas had agreed to fully disarm. What are your thoughts on that plan?

Cliff May: Well, it's a good plan, but I'm skeptical that Hamas is really prepared to disarm. Hamas is a group dedicated to jihad, openly so. Jihad means waging what they consider to be a holy war against Israel, against America, against the West, against Jews, against Christians, against Hindus, against Bahai, anybody who doesn't abide by Sharia law, anybody who isn't what they call an unbeliever or an infidel.

And they are dead set, and I use the phrase advisedly, on exterminating Israelis. I mean, that's what they intended to do on October 7th. They exterminated more than a thousand of them. Genocide is their mission. It's very interesting that their supporters say, oh no, it's the Israelis who are genocidal, despite the fact that the Palestinian population has only grown, despite the fact that they built tunnels like we've never seen, bigger than the London Underground, but never allowed a single civilian in those tunnels to protect themselves during the war that Hamas instigated. Anyhow, that's a longer version. The short version is I don't believe Hamas is really willing to give up its arms because its mission requires jihad, war, violence.

Allen Jackson: I was a bit surprised that the Israelis would cooperate with a deal that would put other nations in Gaza to providing security for Israel. Do you think they'll really go through with this?

Cliff May: Well, I think the Israeli view is we'll provide our own security. We will do that by having a buffer zone. We will do that because the Israeli Defense Forces will be in place. We will be monitoring what's going on. We don't need to be on the streets of Gaza City necessarily. We would love to see other troops who actually are disarming or actually are policing. They don't want to police the streets of Gazan cities.

And they want to cooperate as closely as they can with whatever President Trump thinks is a good idea and a plan, and they'll go along with it, I think, as absolutely as best they can, suggesting to the president where there may be things they can't do. For example, you see Hamas saying, oh yeah, we'll disarm after the Israelis withdraw. The Israelis say no, they have to disarm, not just say they'll disarm, and then we can back up somewhat. After all, the Israelis, back in 2005, the Israelis left Gaza.

I mean, they pulled out entirely. Not just every soldier, every farmer, every synagogue, every cemetery. They left behind only a multi-million dollar greenhouse that could be used to produce very high-end fruits and vegetables and flowers. It was immediately trashed because it was a Zionist greenhouse, okay? They did that, and that was very difficult. They left Gaza on its own. Hamas ruled after that. Hamas had huge amounts of foreign aid pouring in, had various NGOs and UN groups coming in to provide all the services necessary.

Gaza was not a terrible place before the attacks of October 7th, 2023. You can read or see online what it was like. There were restaurants, there were malls, there were Mercedes dealerships, there were libraries, all of that. But it's very interesting, Hamas was willing to sacrifice that and as many citizens as necessary, using them as human shields, because what they want is not a state of their own, they kind of had it, and Gaza could have been at peace with Israel at any point. What they don't, their grievance is not that they don't have a state, their grievance is that Israel is a state, that it is a state for the Jewish people, and it is by the way, we remind people, it is the only place in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing.

Allen Jackson: Saudi Arabia recently pulled together a coalition in the region to respond to the Houthis' threats of the Red Sea. Think the Iranians imagined that that would happen?

Cliff May: Well, I'm sure they did. They're smart people. Let's see how effective it is. Back in 2015, the Saudis were at war with the Houthis. A lot of people, including a lot of American politicians, said oh, too many civilians, we have to end this war. Let's put an end to it. And so the Saudis stopped. And by the way, the Biden administration removed the terrorist designation from the Houthis, who were a rebel group in Yemen and a proxy of Iran.

That designation was put back into place by the Trump administration. We'll see how effective. The Houthis have been very resilient. They have been getting weapons and missiles as well as know-how from Tehran. It would be nice for that to stop because what the Houthis have done on occasion, they're doing it now to the Saudis, is saying we can control the Bab al-Mandab. What's the Bab al-Mandab? It's a choke point, a strait, a kind of like the Strait of Hormuz, except it's the exit from the Red Sea.

And that's very important for the Saudis. The only other way out is through the Suez Canal, and that means going up through the Mediterranean and past Gibraltar and all the way around Africa. For a long time, the US was trying to protect shipping in the Bab al-Mandab, but not terribly effectively. Why? Because we were using very expensive interceptors to knock down the Houthi missiles.

Well, that's like shooting down arrows. What's more effective? Shooting archers. What's more effective? Shooting those who make the arrows for the archers. So we have to see, but if it's very clear, if the regime in Tehran ends up, I don't think it will, but ends up with control over the Strait of Hormuz, international waterway, the Houthis will say well then we end up with control over the Bab al-Mandab. And pretty soon you have Islamists, Jihadists controlling major checkpoints in the world, choke points, very important to the international economy, violating the most fundamental of international laws, freedom of navigation, based on freedom of the seas. Frankly, if the US doesn't support that international law, that very basic international law, I'm afraid nobody else will. The Europeans should be helping us with that more than they are today, the truth, Allen.

Allen Jackson: Agreed. Well, Cliff, we need to take a short break. Can you stand by for another segment?

Cliff May: Happy to.

Allen Jackson: If you're watching and you have a phone nearby, try logging onto AJNow.com. Send me an email. Your thoughts on this topic, we'd love to hear them. I'll be right back.

Allen Jackson: And we're back now with the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Cliff May. Cliff, President Trump recently made some remarks about Iran and the cessation of those attacks. Listen to what he said, and then I've got a question.

Donald Trump: Well, we're talking at the request of Iran, backed by Saudi Arabia, backed by UAE, and backed by Qatar in particular, but others also. Many countries called, many of the leaders that I'm friendly with, a lot of them, almost all of them, one way or the other, and they all wanted to give this a last chance. This is a last chance.

Allen Jackson: Are you hopeful of this current regime accepting this kind of a peace deal, or do you think there'll have to be a regime change?

Cliff May: It will have to be, if not a regime change, a regime collapse or a regime crippling. In other words, a regime crippling means the regime no longer has the ability to project power, not into the Strait of Hormuz, they can't hit American bases in the Middle East, they can't hit their neighbors. We've destroyed a lot of their arsenal, but they probably had a bigger arsenal than we thought, and even think about it: when you hear announcements that we destroyed 70 or 75 percent of their missiles, that still means they got 25 percent left, and they will use them and probably use them effectively.

This regime is theologically incapable of making a deal with those they call the Great Satan. That's us. I know this regime fairly well. I was there for the revolution as a reporter in 1979. This regime doesn't want to make a deal, doesn't want to get along with us. They are committed to jihad. The phrase they're more likely to use is the Islamic Revolution. It has a kind of a left-wing tint to it, kind of thing you could hear Zoran Mamdani say perhaps.

And it's an interesting thing. What they call, what we call the Supreme Leader is really the dictator. He means to be the Supreme Leader not just of Iranians. This is the Islamic Republic and it's the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, not the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He means to be the Supreme Leader of all Muslims in the world, and he wants Islam to be what it once was in history, the dominant and supreme civilization in the world.

The world is divided into two in their theology: the World of War and the World of Islam, Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam. And Dar al-Islam must over time conquer Dar al-Harb, the World of War, the world of Christians, the world of Jews, the world of unbelievers. It's hard for a lot of Americans to get their brain wrapped around this kind of a theology. They think these people must be more like us and want a good deal and want better lives for their people and a kebab in every pot and a good healthcare plan and maybe vacations in the Caspian Sea and the gasoline to drive up there shouldn't cost too much. That's not who they are.

Again, I'm not talking about most Iranians. At this point, I think most Iranians do want that. I'm talking about the Islamic Revolutionaries who for 47 years have run this regime. They're pretty serious about this stuff. We have to understand who we're dealing with, and it's hard for us. I understand.

Allen Jackson: "A kebab in every pot," that sounds like a Mamdani T-shirt. You recently wrote an op-ed. You mentioned how Iran's rulers are allied with dictatorships in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang. You call it the Axis of Aggressors, which is the title of a new book that your organization has recently published. What makes China and Russia, Iran, North Korea the Axis of Aggressors?

Cliff May: They are collaborating, cooperating, aligned, and they are very different. Xi Jinping, the dictator of China, is a Maoist. Vladimir Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire. Kim Jong Un in North Korea, I think he would like to, as he would say, unify the peninsula under him. He's the third-generation dictator. So these are very different regimes. What do they have in common?

They all want to diminish American power. They all want to have a new world order in which they would call the shots in their region and beyond. Each of them has territorial ambitions. Xi Jinping wants to subjugate the Taiwanese. Kim Jong Un, as I said, would like to subjugate the South Koreans. Tehran would like to subjugate the Arabs and Sunnis of the region and exterminate the Israelis.

And for sure, Vladimir Putin wants to subjugate the Ukrainians. So they have a common mission. The important point, Allen, is that this is much more challenging than the Cold War ever was. In the Cold War, we had one adversary, that was the Soviet Union. Yeah, they had nuclear weapons. Three of these four groups have nuclear weapons. Iran wants nuclear weapons. President Trump says they will never have them. That's a good thing.

I would also specify why. If they have nuclear weapons, this revolutionary regime is likely to use them or threaten to use them, and incredibly threaten to use them, and then issue ultimatums to the US and to others. So that's what they have in common. This is more challenging than the Cold War. The Communist Party of China is the most powerful Communist Party in history, and China is much more powerful technologically, economically than the Soviet Union ever was. And again, they now have these three other aggressors and dictatorships and they're all kind of on the same page.

Allen Jackson: Well, Cliff, I thank you for your time today. We appreciate the insights you bring. Bring some clarity to a confused global issue.

Cliff May: Thank you, Allen. My pleasure.

Allen Jackson: In a moment, we'll be back with your emails.

Guest (Male): I want to give you a personal invitation to join my podcast called Culture and Christianity. You don't compromise the truth, but you say it where the people know that you care about them. We're trying to understand how to take our faith outside the walls of the church and live it out in the marketplace. I just never understood the double standard because they punished me while my peers were allowed to talk about how devastated they were that Roe v. Wade was overturned. I've brought in some friends, people that are trying to do this on a regular basis. They're never going to stop me because the truth is the truth. I'd rather be on God's side than to be a coward. We've been living in a season of unprecedented deception, propaganda, manipulation. Our best option was to run. We were timing ourselves. I was trying to think how can I protect my kids. Well, I want to be a part of seeing culture and Christianity intersect. I hope you'll join the podcast soon.

Allen Jackson: America is turning 250 years old. That's something that should unify us. We have so much to celebrate. There is no place like America. Our freedoms and liberties, they are unmatched in this world. Everything that's good about America, our laws, our opportunities, the prosperity we've enjoyed, they've come to us because of our faith. We've created a series of emails celebrating 250 years of our country. Find out how Christianity has played a role in this nation from its founding until now. You'll receive a new email each week throughout the series. Each one is designed to help you see our blessings and our heritage in a new world. How faith has played a powerful role all the way through. It's one way we're celebrating America's 250th. We hope you'll join us. You can sign up now at AllenJackson.com/250.

Allen Jackson: Thank you for taking the time to send us your emails. Your thoughts and opinions are always a highlight. Judy from California wrote, "Thank you for having Yair Pinto. His on-the-ground reporting is an inside look of what's actually happening. As he advised, I continue to pray for the apple of God's eye." Well, Judy, I agree with you. Yair is a breath of fresh air on the reporting from the Middle East. It is important. The Jewish people are under an unprecedented attack in my lifetime, in this nation. Use your voice and your influence wherever you are to be an advocate for the Jewish people. Everything they do isn't right. Everything we do isn't right. But they deserve our support. Yair and his wife Anna will be here in Murfreesboro in September for our Culture and Christianity conference. Go to the website and get all the details. It'd be a good time to visit Middle Tennessee.

A viewer on the YouTube episode with Susan Crabtree quoted Thomas Sowell. This is great. "Journalists cannot serve two masters to the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda. They're betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession." I wish I'd said that. Folks, God's moving in the earth. Let's join him. God bless and good night.