by Jim Lobe

Just as this week marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as noted Wednesday by Amb. Hunter, it also marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the “Great War” that, among other things, began the long (and often bloody) process of dismantling the imperial [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

Just as this week marks the 50^th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as noted Wednesday by Amb. Hunter, it also marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the “Great War” that, among other things, began the long (and often bloody) process of dismantling the imperial system that had dominated the pre-war international system. The war had many causes, but historians have generally ranked excessive nationalism — and the militarism that went along with it — pretty high on the list. While reactionary and conservative forces in each country were clearly bullish on the war from the outset, the speed and enthusiasm with which liberals and socialists throughout Europe rallied to the cause, in spite of the universalist principles that they had long espoused, offered testimony to the extraordinary magnetism of the nationalist impulse.

As I have argued previously, most neoconservatives, despite their mainly opportunistic avowals of democracy and universal rights, are exceedingly nationalistic, not to say downright chauvinist, with regard both to the United States — whose moral “exceptionalism” they believe should exempt it from the constraints of international institutions (like the UN) and international law — and to Israel, which they routinely depict as a lonely island of “democracy” and “civilization” surrounded by a raging sea of barbarism and extremism, struggling against all odds simply to survive. Virtually any means the latter’s leaders deem necessary, including violations of the laws of war as documented by independent human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (as we have seen over the past several weeks in the third Israeli war in Gaza in six years), to defeat its enemies are not only defensible, but, in the words of neocon princeling Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel, “just,” as well.

Coinciding with the Great War’s centenary, the expression of this kind of militaristic nationalism — and the mantras about “civilization” versus the ”barbarism” or “terror” of the enemy — vividly recalls the rhetoric used by both the western imperialist powers whenever they encountered violent resistance by the “natives” as they conquered most of what is now referred to as the “Global South” from the “Age of Discovery” onwards, as well as the propaganda offices of the main combatants during the war itself (just check out the war posters) would seem potentially embarrassing to the core neocon messages about the exceptional nature of the United States and Israel.

And thus it was particularly notable when, in the very first issue of the Weekly Standard of 2014, Kristol carried out what might be called a pre-emptive strike against what he thought might prove to be a major theme — the futility and stupidity of nationalism and war — in this year’s commemoration of the Great War.  In the lead editorial entitled “Pro Patria,” he rued the impact of the war on the West’s morale, blaming it for what he called “civilizational decline” and quoting with approval the ode by Horace, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”), which had been bitterly denounced in a famous poem by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier-poet, as an “old lie.” Kristol warned:

This year, a century later, the commemorations of 1914 will tend to take that [Owen’s] rejection of piety and patriotism for granted. Or could this year mark a moment of questioning, even of reversal?

Today, after all, we see the full consequences of that rejection in a way Owen and his contemporaries could not. Can’t we acknowledge the meaning, recognize the power, and learn the lessons of 1914 without succumbing to an apparently inexorable gravitational pull toward a posture of ironic passivity or fatalistic regret in the face of civilizational decline. No sensitive person can fail to be moved by Owen’s powerful lament, and no intelligent person can ignore his chastening rebuke. But perhaps a century of increasingly unthinking bitter disgust with our heritage is enough.

Kristol goes on to contrast Owen’s denunciation of war and nationalism to the concluding stanza of the “Star-Spangled Banner” penned 200 years ago by Francis Scott Key in celebration of the Battle of Fort McHenry — “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just/ And this be our motto: “In God is our trust” — and asks:

A century after World War I, two centuries after Fort McHenry, do we dare take our bearings not from Owen’s bitter despair but from Francis Scott Key’s bold hope?

The essay, of course, raises not a few questions about what exactly Kristol — the quintessential chicken hawk – has in mind. No doubt he sees the “full consequences” of Owen’s attitude as including the reigning anti-war sentiment that facilitated the rise of Fascism and German Nazism in Europe in the 1930s, which, in turn, eventually resulted in an even greater war. But the “full consequences” also included the beginning of the end of European imperialism — a very oppressive system for the vast majority of the world’s population. Of course, true to his neoconservative worldview — and the fact that the State of Israel was made possible by that same system (the Balfour Declaration and all that) — Kristol clearly sees the decline of western imperialism (“civilizational decline”) as a great tragedy.

Similarly, Kristol’s celebration of the theo-nationalist spirit expressed in what became the US national anthem as an unreservedly healthy tonic for today’s popular disillusionment with wars, especially those in Afghanistan and Iraq, and over Libya, all of which he so ardently championed, is subject to different understandings. While he no doubt sees Key’s exhortation to “conquer” as applying solely today to the US, Israel, and “the West” more generally, there is no reason to think that the sentiment expressed therein is not shared by Palestinians, including Hamas militants, Arab nationalists, or, frankly, any jihadis who claim that God, or Allah, and justice are on their side. “Dulce et decorum est pro patria [and deus] mori” was not only a Roman proverb frequently invoked by denizens of the British Empire many centuries later; it’s been an inspiration to ardent nationalists and believers of all nations, creeds and religious persuasions, especially those, one might observe, who face tremendous odds in overcoming a far more powerful foreign oppressor. Indeed, is Horace’s (and Kristol’s) affirmation, conceptually at least, so very different from that line in the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (a/k/a Hamas) charter that asserts: “Death for the sake of Allah is its most coveted desire,” as was noted most disapprovingly just this week by Kristol’s fellow-Likudist, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, in one of a flood of neocon and Israeli efforts to justify Israel’s hugely destructive campaign in Gaza?

For those who are more interested in Kristol’s notions of nationalism and its importance, it’s worth noting that he will be offering an intensive course entitled “The Case for Nationalism” on the subject from Dec. 8-12 for just $3,000 for non-Israelis. The course, which is co-sponsored by the Hertog Foundation — Roger Hertog is a board member of both the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Commentary magazine, among other neoconservative associations — and the Tikvah Fund, whose faculty and speakers constitute a veritable who’s who of the Jewish neoconservative world, will take place at (and given his nostalgia for the British Empire, Kristol will love this) King George Street 44 in (West) Jerusalem.

Here’s the rather bewildering, not to mention historically and intellectually dubious (but rhetorically very Straussian), course description, which I necessarily quote at length:

Led by Dr. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and one of the leading public intellectuals in America, this institute will examine the political and moral questions surrounding nationalism and nation-states. The course will begin by examining the case for and against nationalism, drawing upon some of the major works of modern political theory. It will then look in detail at three “regimes”—Europe, America, and modern Israel—drawing upon a mix of classic texts, speeches, and case studies.

In Europe, we see the dominant moral and political idea of our age—“human rights”—in its most advanced form. All persons everywhere are entitled to equal dignity and equal protections. The most dangerous threats to human rights—terror and empire, religious extremism, natural catastrophe, market dysfunction—all transcend national borders. Human rights cannot be secured by nations, and excessive national pride is a threat to the new ideal of the free, sovereign, cosmopolitan individual. The nation must be overcome and replaced by a centralized governing body that is large enough to protect global citizens from global threats.

In America, we see the ideals of universal liberty and natural rights combined with a belief in the exceptional character and special responsibilities of the American nation. Does American power serve the interests of world order? Do Americans believe in their own exceptionalism, or do they seek to become a nation among the nations?

The question of nationalism takes on special significance for citizens of Israel, the world’s only Jewish State. Zionism is a form of nationalism, and the founding of Israel represents the culmination of ancient longings for the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland. But it was also founded in partial response to World War II and the Shoah it perpetrated on European Jewry. If the intellectual architects of the European Union believe that the national form causes violence and stands in the way of a more harmonious world, the intellectual architects of the State of Israel believed the opposite—that only a state dedicated to the protection of the Jewish people will ensure their welfare and prosperity.

Taken together, these urgent questions invite us to think about the deepest meaning and true character of political life, returning us yet again to the great texts and thinkers who illuminated the problems of politics with greatest clarity and force.

Of course, the belief by the architects of the European Union that nationalism can contribute to violence and “stands in the way of a more harmonious world” is based in large part on the lessons drawn from both the Great War and its successor. And doesn’t a state “dedicated to the protection” of one people foster violence and stand in the way of a more harmonious world if that “protection” translates into actively defeating the legitimate national aspirations of another people, denying their own self-determination, and occupying them militarily and colonizing their territory in violation of international law? Isn’t that the kind of question we should be pondering in this centenary year?

If you can’t get to the seminar, Kristol’s latest editorial offers what I suppose is his much-abbreviated lesson in the form of an extended quotation by Douglas Murray, the associate director of the London-based Henry Jackson Society of which Kristol, among many other prominent US neoconservatives, is an “International Patron:”

Israel is surrounded by enemies, as we have been for much of our history. But today we like to think that enemies are a thing of the past. There are no enemies, just phobias we haven’t been cured of yet.

A gap may well be emerging. But not because Israel has drifted away from the West. Rather because today in much of the West, as we bask in the afterglow of our achievements​—​eager to enjoy our rights, but unwilling to defend them​—​it is the West that is, slowly but surely, drifting away from itself.

Today Israel is also distinguished by a deep sense of its values and ethics as well as a profound awareness of their source​—​things we also used to have. Deep questions of survival, the tragedy and triumph of the past, present and future remain the stuff of every Israeli house I have ever been to. .  .  .

[I]t is Israel that remains the truly western country. It is Israel which takes its history seriously, thinks deeply about where it is going and what it exists for. It is Israel which takes western values seriously and fights for the survival of those values. .  .  . [I]t is Israel that is still truly a western country. Far more than many parts of western Europe now are.

Wow. Today’s Israel apparently would have felt right at home in August 1914.

Photo: Willy Werner’s depiction of “Flanders Fields.” Credit: Mary Evans Picture Library/Canadian Press

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by Jim Lobe

A week after the now-notorious “Adelson Primary” at the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) convention in Las Vegas, the Washington Post ran the first of what it called a series of profiles of a “handful of wealthy donors” who are likely to give a ton of money — many [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

A week after the now-notorious “Adelson Primary” at the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) convention in Las Vegas, the Washington Post ran the first of what it called a series of profiles of a “handful of wealthy donors” who are likely to give a ton of money — many tons, now that the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates of campaign cash in the McCutcheon v. FEC case — to political candidates in the current and 2016 election cycles. It chose hedge fund supremo Paul Singer as its first subject, a major GOP funder.

Actually, the Post ran two versions of the profile — one longer piece on its blog and a second, somewhat shorter piece printed in the newspaper. The blog post is more comprehensive. While it focuses primarily on Singer’s support — and substantial contributions to campaigns — for gay marriage around the country, it also mentions other causes that have benefited from his largesse, including his opposition to any form of financial regulation and Israel about which it notes only:

Like fellow Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, Singer is staunchly pro-Israel. He is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which held its spring meeting last weekend. He was a member of a large American delegation that went to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008.

The print version of the profile, in contrast, focused almost exclusively on Singer’s LGBT rights advocacy; indeed, neither the word “Israel,” nor the phrase “Republican Jewish Coalition,” nor the name “Sheldon Adelson” appear in the more than 1,000-word piece. The only hint in the article — which is likely to be more influential in forming opinions about Singer’s philanthropy within the Beltway than the blog post — that he has any interest in Israel at all is found in the last paragraph in which it is noted that Singer sits on the board of the “conservative” [!!??] Commentary magazine. But then you’d have to know that Commentary is a hard-line neoconservative journal obsessed with Israel to figure out that Singer takes an interest in matters Middle Eastern.

In a blog post published Monday by The Nation, LobeLog co-founder and contributor Eli Clifton (who now lives in New York and thus doesn’t have ready access to the Washington Post print edition) noted appropriately that the Post’s blog profile had skimped over Singer’s Israel-related philanthropy, notably his generosity to the Likudist Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), to which he contributed $3.6 million between 2008 and 2011 and may have provided yet more since, albeit not through his family’s foundation. According to tax forms compiled by Eli, between 2009 and 2012, Singer also contributed about $2.3 million to the American Enterprise Institute which, of course, led the charge to war in Iraq and remains highly hawkish on Iran, although those contributions may have had as much or more to do with AEI’s laissez-faire economic theology as with its Israel advocacy. It’s safe to say that his current memberships on the board of both the RJC and Commentary – both staunchly Likudist in orientation — belie some substantial financial support, as does his previous service on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) whose executive director, Mike Makovsky, yesterday co-authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal urging the Obama administration to transfer some B-52s and bunker-busting Massive Ordnance Penetrators to Israel ASAP for possible use against Iran. In the past, Singer’s family foundation has also contributed to Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — organizations which he may still be supporting, albeit not through his foundation, which is required by the IRS to publicly disclose its giving.

In other words, there is reason to believe that Singer’s Israel-related giving — it seems most, if not all of which, has been provided to hard-line neoconservative, even Islamophobic organizations — he told the New York Times in 2007 that “America finds itself at an early stage of a drawn-out existential struggle with radical strains of pan-national Islamists” — certainly rivals, if not exceeds, his entirely laudable campaign on behalf of gay rights.

One thing Eli left out of his Nation post was Singer’s role as kind of the ultimate “vulture capitalist.” As noted in this Right Web profile quoting Greg Palast:

Singer’s modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation. …He waits for the United States and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations’ debts, then waits a bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces, legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze, and an entire economy is effectively held hostage. Singer then demands aid-giving nations to pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume.

In one case he demanded $400 million from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a debt he had acquired for less than $10 million; in another he secured $58 million from the Peruvian government in exchange for letting President Alberto Fujimori flee the country in a private plane Singer had seized against payment of the debt.

More recently, his efforts to capitalize on Argentina’s debt (see here and here for IPS’ coverage) — which was touched on very briefly by the Post’s blog profile — have included the creation of an organization, the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), that has taken out full-page ads in Capitol Hill newspapers linking the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to Iran and an alleged cover-up of the highly questionable Iranian role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, as well as the enlistment of FDD, AEI, and staunchly pro-Israel lawmakers, such as Sen. Mark Kirk and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who have benefited from his campaign contributions, in his cause. Singer’s case has been opposed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and a host of humanitarian and charitable organizations concerned that, if he succeeds at the U.S. Supreme Court, efforts to relieve poor countries of unsustainable debt may be set back by a more than a decade.

So, while Singer’s support for LGBT rights is certainly an interesting and newsworthy topic for the Post’s profile of this major Republican donor — after all, it is a kind of man-bites-dog story — it seems pretty irresponsible to completely ignore, as the Post did in its print version, these other dimensions of Singer’s political philanthropy, particularly given the chronological proximity to the “Adelson Primary.”

by Jim Lobe

In my 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service, only one institution has denied me admission to their press or public event. That was the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shortly after the broadcast in 2003 of a BBC Panorama (its equivalent, more or [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

In my 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service, only one institution has denied me admission to their press or public event. That was the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shortly after the broadcast in 2003 of a BBC Panorama (its equivalent, more or less, of our “60 Minutes”) program on neoconservatives and their promotion of the Iraq war entitled “The War Party” in which I was interviewed at several intervals. In that case, I was told forthrightly (and somewhat apologetically) by the think tank’s then-communications chief, Veronique Rodman, that “someone from above” had objected strongly to the show (I had my own reservations about it) and my role in it and had demanded that I be banned from attending AEI events. My status as persona non grata was reaffirmed about five years later when Lobe Log alumnus Eli Clifton went there for an event and was taken aside by an unidentified staffer and told that he could attend, but that he should remind me that I was still unwelcome.

Now it seems I’ve been blackballed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), although, unlike AEI, it has so far declined to give me a reason for denying me accreditation to its annual policy conference, which runs Sunday through Tuesday. All I’ve received thus far is this email that arrived in my inbox Thursday morning from someone named Emily Helpern from Scott Circle, a public relations firm here in DC.

Thank you for your interest in attending this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference as a member of the press. However, press credentials for the conference will not be issued to you. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

I emailed Emily back as soon as I received it to ask for an explanation and point out that this is the first time in a decade that I’ve been denied credentials to cover the AIPAC conference. When no reply was forthcoming, I sent a second email to her and to Marshall Wittmann, AIPAC’s communications director, seeking an explanation, but, alas, it seems I’ve become a non-person.

Now, it bears mentioning that I am not the first to be blackballed by AIPAC, apparently for political reasons. As the JTA’s Ron Kampeas reported in 2012, three journalists were denied credentials to the policy conference that year:

Journalists turned away include Mitchell Plitnick, a liberal blogger who has sparred with right-wing pro-Israel groups as well as anti-Zionists, and who was going to provide coverage for Inter Press Service, which emphasizes developing nations coverage as well as what it calls marginalized groups; Adele Stan of AlterNet, a news site that says it encourages advocacy in a number of areas, including human rights and social justice; and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss, an anti-Zionist site.

Plitnick had been cleared for coverage, only to be told that it was rescinded, and Weiss has covered AIPAC policy conferences at least three times without incident.

Barring coverage in Washington is rare; Government institutions in Washington are known for accommodating a broad range of journalists, including those adamantly hostile to the government of the day.

Actually, at least four journalists were barred from the 2012 conference. Alex Kane, who writes for both Mondoweiss and Alternet, was also denied credentials. Mitchell’s exclusion was particularly bizarre, given the sudden turnabout and the fact that he is a “non-Zionist” — as opposed to an “anti-Zionist” like Phil (barred again this year) — who also believes there should be a state where Jews should be able to gain refuge in the event that they ever face a threat like Nazism again. Of course, his past associations with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and with Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) may have been too much for AIPAC to bear. I have no such organizational affiliations and probably fall somewhere between Mitchell’s idea (my parents were German Jewish refugees) and liberal Zionism to the diminishing extent that it remains a realistically viable option.

Now, however, it seems I’ve been added to AIPAC’s blacklist.

This raises a lot of questions, not the least of which is how thin has AIPAC’s skin become in light of its recent defeats on Capitol Hill. Another is whether it’s also barring its right-wing critics like Adam Kredo who, like me, has written a lot recently about the group’s travails in trying to maintain its bipartisanship while also doing the bidding of Bibi Netanyahu and his Republican and neoconservative allies here. But, of course, AIPAC’s right-wing critics, like Sheldon Adelson and Bill Kristol, have serious money — or access to it — while people like Mitchell, Phil and I don’t have quite as much to offer (although this is an encouraging development).

While I am under no illusions about my very marginal impact on the fate of the Israel lobby’s premier institution, I do think the fact that AIPAC would actually take the trouble to exclude me from its conference this year testifies — at least a tiny bit — to the organization’s current weakness, or, more precisely, its loss of self-confidence. Aside from AEI, I’ve never been excluded from any organization, no matter how politically or otherwise obnoxious it was to me or I to it. I have attended briefings and events by the the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Hudson Institute, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, for example, and have always been treated with civility, if not cordiality. It’s hard to believe that AIPAC, which is far bigger and more powerful than any of these others alone or in combination, would think that my presence at a conference attended by 14,000 devoted followers might pose some kind of threat to — or, constitute an unacceptable blight on — its proceedings.

Meanwhile, read John Judis’s excellent analysis of AIPAC’s current plight. Maybe now that he’s written an increasingly revisionist history of Harry Truman and Israel AND critically assessed AIPAC’s problems, he’ll be blackballed, too. I’ll have to ask him.

by Jim Lobe

The neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the successor organization of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), has just published another open letter (reproduced below) to Congressional leaders that implicitly endorses what I have called the “Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013,” known officially [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

The neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the successor organization of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), has just published another open letter (reproduced below) to Congressional leaders that implicitly endorses what I have called the “Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013,” known officially as the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 (S. 1881). I say implicitly, because it doesn’t come right out and urge support for the specific bill, which AIPAC and the Israel lobby, for which AIPAC is the vanguard, are flogging as hard as they possibly can. But the intention is pretty clear.

This letter — like PNAC, FPI is essentially a “letterhead organization” that issues manifestos, rather than a real think tank or grassroots membership organization — was signed by 72 “former U.S. government officials and foreign policy experts,” the vast majority of whom are easily identified as neoconservatives, as opposed to “conservatives,” the highly questionable term used by the Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin, who reported on the letter even before it was published on the FPI website to describe the signatories. (One wonders whether Rogin was given the letter on the condition that the authors be described as “conservatives” rather than “neoconservatives,” which really has become something of a dirty word over the past decade due to its association with the Iraq war and their enthusiasm over other ill-advised military adventures.)

Of the 72, I counted at least 25 who signed PNAC letters — most of them dealing with Iraq and the Middle East — dating back to its 1997 founding by Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol to its unceremonious demise in 2005. (Kagan and Kristol also co-founded the FPI with Dan Senor two years later during Bush’s second term when most of the neocons who championed the Iraq War had either left the administration or been successfully marginalized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pentagon chief Bob Gates.) Among them are stalwarts from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), such as Danielle Pletka, Michael Rubin, Fred Kagan, and Gary Schmitt (and now Joe Lieberman!), which acted as a kind of annex to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Pentagon in the run-up to and the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion.

Other signatories include AEI alumni Joshua Muravchik and Reuel Marc Gerecht, who also championed the Iraq debacle, but who, like Michael Ledeen, has since moved to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) — a seemingly Likudist front that has increasingly partnered events, letters and policy papers with FPI. FDD signatories include Clifford May (who also signed PNAC letters); Mark Dubowitz, the Canadian citizen who has played a key role in crafting U.S. sanctions legislation and waging what he has repeatedly called “economic warfare” against Iran; John Hannah, who served as Dick Cheney’s national security adviser during Bush’s second term after the departure of Scooter Libby; as well as Gerecht. Then there’s a group from the Hudson Institute, which also beat the drums of war in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, including its president, Ken Weinstein, Seth Cropsey, Jack David, Lee Smith, and Doug Feith himself.

As for former Bush officials, there are plenty: Elliot Abrams and his deputy on the NSC, Michael Doran; Feith and his successor as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Eric Edelman (and an FPI director along with Kagan, Kristol, and Senor); Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) czar Jerry Bremer (and his then-spokesman, Senor); Cheney’s deputy, the aforementioned Hannah; former head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Jeffrey Gedmin; former Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim; former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph and his deputy, Stephen Rademaker (Pletka’s spouse); former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehnher; former Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky; and then a couple of people who worked in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon or with the CPA, including AEI’s Dan Blumenthal and Rubin, and Michael Makovsky, the current head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, whose motto is “Securing America, Strengthening Israel”.

What I found particularly curious about the list of signers was the absence of some of the most visible (aside from Kristol) neoconservative champions of the Iraq war; in particular, AEI’s Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, and James Woolsey (as well as John Bolton, who is more of an aggressive nationalist than a neocon, but who also has pooh-poohed any diplomatic process with Iran from the get-go.) I don’t think this is an indication that they disagree with the contents of the letter; rather, I believe they have decided (or been advised by their friends at AIPAC) that their public involvement in the debate could prove counter-productive precisely because they were so outspoken — and so disastrously wrong — about Iraq.

But, of course, anyone even remotely acquainted with the run-up to the Iraq war knows the roles played by PNAC, AEI, FDD, the Hudson Institute, as well as by many of the individuals — as noted above, almost all of whom are neoconservatives — who have signed the letter. Which is why I think it actually proves counter-productive to their purposes, even without the endorsement of Wolfowitz, Perle, and Woolsey. And while there are a few token Democratic signatories, such as former Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (for years, the biggest beneficiary of “pro-Israel PAC” money in the House behind Kirk himself, according to the Center for Responsive Politics) and Lieberman (if he can be considered a Democrat), the overwhelming majority are identified with the Republican Party and/or the Bush administration. We’ll soon see if this letter backfires by further portraying the Iran sanctions bill as a GOP/conservative-backed issue.

Indeed, while AIPAC has just about doubled the number of co-sponsors for the “Wag the Dog” Act since it was first introduced by Kirk and Menendez on Dec. 19 from 26 senators — equally divided between Republicans and Democrats — to 53 today, all but two of the new co-sponsors are Republicans. In other words, with each day, the bill is looking increasingly partisan in nature — a very worrisome trend for AIPAC and the lobby, which have long considered bipartisanship as key to their success, especially in Congress.

The more Republican the bill appears to be, the less inclined Democrats will be to desert their president. The fact that a strong majority of Senate Democrats is still resisting pressure from AIPAC and its donors to co-sponsors is highly significant, as, I think, is the statement issued today by the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) that “We encourage Congress to support the President’s foreign policy initiative by making stronger measures available should they be required.” (Emphasis added.) A cleverly worded non-endorsement of the bill from an organization that routinely toes the AIPAC line.

Here’s the full text of the FPI/PNAC letter:

January 9, 2014

Dear Speaker Boehner, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and Representative Pelosi:

We write in support of efforts to enforce Iranian compliance with the Joint Plan of Action that Iran agreed to on November 24, 2013, and in support of the ultimate goal of denying Iran nuclear weapons-making capability. Congress has a chance to play an important role in making clear the consequences of Iranian violations of the interim nuclear deal, in clarifying expectations with respect to future nuclear talks with Tehran, and in creating incentives for Iran to conclude a comprehensive nuclear agreement that protects the national security interests of the United States and its allies.

We support the use of diplomacy and non-military pressure, backed up by the military option, to persuade Iran to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council Resolutions and verifiably abandon its efforts to attain nuclear weapons-making capability.  Congressional leadership has been indispensable in creating the framework of U.S.-led international sanctions that brought Iran back to the negotiating table.  However, given Tehran’s long history of violating its international nuclear obligations—and the lack of any explicit enforcement mechanisms in the Joint Plan of Action’s text—congressional leadership is once again required to set clear standards for enforcing Iranian compliance with the interim nuclear deal.

As talks go forward, it is critical that Iran not use diplomatic talks as subterfuge for continued development of various aspects of its nuclear program.  It is worth recalling Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s claim that, when he served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator a decade ago, he used diplomatic talks to buy time for Iran to advance its nuclear program.  Congressional leadership can help prevent Iran from using future negotiations as cover to further the growth of its nuclear weapons-making capability.

Congress should also use this opportunity to describe its expectations for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.  Such an agreement would irreversibly close off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon through uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing, bring Iran into compliance with its international obligations for full transparency and cooperation regarding its nuclear program, and permit extraordinary inspection measures to safeguard against any undeclared Iranian nuclear activities.

Commenting on the likelihood of getting Iran to agree to a comprehensive nuclear agreement, President Obama recently commented, “I wouldn’t say that it’s more than 50/50.”  We can do better than a coin-toss.  Congress now has the opportunity to make clear the consequences for Iran if it violates the interim nuclear deal or fails to conclude a comprehensive nuclear agreement. Congressional action can thus substantially improve the prospect that Iran’s growing nuclear threat will be verifiably and irreversibly halted without the use of force.  We urge Congress to seize this opportunity.

Sincerely,

by Jim Lobe

If one thing has become clear in the wake of last week’s military coup d’etat against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, it’s that democracy promotion is not a core principle of neoconservatism. Unlike protecting Israeli security and preserving its military superiority over any and all possible regional challenges (which is [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

If one thing has become clear in the wake of last week’s military coup d’etat against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, it’s that democracy promotion is not a core principle of neoconservatism. Unlike protecting Israeli security and preserving its military superiority over any and all possible regional challenges (which is a core neoconservative tenet), democracy promotion is something that neoconservatives disagree among themselves about — a conclusion that is quite inescapable after reviewing the reactions of prominent neoconservatives to last week’s coup in Cairo. Some, most notably Robert Kagan, are clearly committed to democratic governance and see it pretty much as a universal aspiration, just as many liberal internationalists do. An apparent preponderance of neocons, such as Daniel Pipes, the contributors to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and Commentary’s ’Contentions’ blog, on the other hand, are much clearer in their view that democracy may be a universal aspiration, but it can be a disaster in practice, especially when the wrong people get elected, in which case authoritarian rulers and military coups are much to be preferred.

The latter group harkens back to the tradition established by Jeane Kirkpatrick and Elliott Abrams, among others, in the late 1970’s when anti-communist “friendly authoritarians” — no matter their human rights records — were much preferred to left-wingers who claimed to be democrats but whose anti-imperialist, anti-American or pro-Palestinian sympathies were deemed too risky to indulge. These leftists have now been replaced by Islamists as the group we need “friendly authoritarians” (or “friendly militaries”) to keep under control, if not crush altogether.

Many neoconservatives have claimed that they’ve been big democracy advocates since the mid-1980’s when they allegedly persuaded Ronald Reagan to shift his support from Ferdinand Marcos to the “people power” movement in the Philippines (even as they tacitly, if not actively, supported apartheid South Africa and considered Nelson Mandela’s ANC a terrorist group). They were also behind the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-governmental organization headed by one of Kirkpatrick’s deputies, Carl Gershman, and designed to provide the kind of political and technical support to sympathetic groups abroad that the CIA used to supply covertly. (Indeed, the NED has not been wholly transparent, and some of its beneficiaries have been involved in highly undemocratic practices, such as agitating for military coups against democratically elected leftist governments, most recently in Haiti and Venezuela. I was at a dinner a few years ago when, in answer to my question about how he perceived neoconservative support for democracies, Zbigniew Brzezinski quipped that when neoconservatives talk about democratization, they really mean destabilization.) In a 2004 op-ed published in Beirut’s Daily Star, I wrote about how neoconservatives have used democracy promotion over the past quarter century as a means to rally public and Congressional support behind specific (often pro-Israel, in their minds at least) policies and strategic objectives, such as the invasion of Iraq.

The notion that neoconservatives really do promote democracy has now, however, become conventional wisdom, even among some foreign-policy realists and paleoconservatives who should know better. In his 2010 book, NeoConservatism: The Biography of a Movement, Justin Vaisse, then at the Brookings Institution and now head of policy planning at the French foreign ministry, included democracy promotion among five principles — along with international engagement, military supremacy, “benevolent empire” and unilateralism — that are found at the core of what he called “third-age neoconservatism,” which he dates from 1995 to the present. (In a rather shocking omission, he didn’t put Israel in the same core category, although he noted, among other things, that neoconservatives’ “uncompromising defense of Israel” has been consistent throughout the movement’s history. In a review of the book in the Washington Post, National Review editor Rich Lowry included “the staunch defense of Israel” as among the “main themes” of neoconservatism from the outset.)

In his own recent summary of the basics of neoconservatism (and its zombie-like — his word — persistence), Abrams himself praised Vaisse’s analysis, insisting that, in addition to “patriotism, American exceptionalism, (and) a belief in the goodness of America and in the benefits of American power and of its use,”…a conviction that democracy is the best system of government and should be spread whenever that is practical” was indeed a core element of neoconservatism. (True to form, he omits any mention of Israel.)

It seems to me that the coup in Egypt is a good test of whether or not Vaisse’s and Abrams’ thesis that democracy is indeed a core element of neoconservatism because no one (except Pipes) seriously contests the fact that Morsi was the first democratically elected president of Egypt in that country’s history. I will stipulate that elections by themselves do not a democracy make and that liberal values embedded in key institutions are critical elements of democratic governance. And I’ll concede that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were not as inclusive and liberal as we in the West may have wished them to be.

But it’s also worth pointing out that their opposition — be it among Mubarak holdovers in the judiciary and the security forces or among the liberals and secularists who played catalytic roles in the 2011 uprising against Mubarak and now again against Morsi — did not exactly extend much in the way of cooperation with Morsi’s government either. (Indeed, Thursday’s New York Times article on the degree to which Mubarak’s cronies and his so-called “deep state” set out to deliberately sabotage Morsi’s rule recalls nothing more than what happened prior to the 1973 coup in Chile.) And we shouldn’t forget that Morsi not only won popular elections outright, but that that Islamists, led by the Brotherhood, gained a majority in elections for parliament (that was subsequently dissolved by the Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court). Morsi and his allies were also able to muster 64 percent of the vote in a referendum to ratify a constitution, however flawed we may consider that (now-suspended) document to have been. In any event, the democratic election of a president is not a minor matter in any democratic transition, and ousting him in a military coup, especially in a country where the military has effectively ruled without interruption for more than half a century, does not exactly make a democratic transition any easier.

Now, if Vaisse and Abrams are right that democracy is a core principle of neoconservativism, one would expect neoconservatives to be unanimous in condemning the coup and possibly also in calling for the Obama administration to cut off aid, as required under U.S. law whenever a military coup ousts an elected leader. (After all, the “rule of law” is an essential element of a healthy democracy, and ignoring a law or deliberately failing to enforce it does not offer a good example of democratic governance — a point Abrams himself makes below. Indeed, the fact that the administration appears to have ruled out cutting aid for the time being will no doubt persuade the Egyptian military and other authoritarian institutions in the region that, when push comes to shove, Washington will opt for stability over democracy every time.)

So how have neoconservatives — particularly those individuals, organizations, and publications that Vaisse listed as “third-age” neoconservatives in the appendix of his book — come down on recent events in Egypt? (Vaisse listed four publications — “The Weekly Standard, Commentary, The New Republic (to some extent) [and] Wall Street Journal (editorial pages) — as the most important in third-age neoconservatism. Almost all of the following citations are from three of those four, as The New Republic, which was still under the control of Martin Peretz when Vaisse published his book, has moved away from neoconservative views since.)

Well, contrary to the Vaisse-Abrams thesis, it seems third-age neoconservatives are deeply divided on the question of democracy in Egypt, suggesting that democracy promotion is, in fact, not a core principle or pillar of neoconservative ideology. If anything, it’s a pretty low priority, just as it was back in the Kirkpatrick days.

Let’s take the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page as a starter.

Here’s Bret Stephens, the Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Global View” columnist even before the coup:

[T]he lesson from Egypt is that democracy may be a blessing for people capable of self-government, but it’s a curse for those who are not. There is a reason that Egypt has been governed by pharaohs, caliphs, pashas and strongmen for 6,000 years.

The best outcome for Egypt would be early elections, leading to the Brotherhood’s defeat at the hands of a reformist, technocratic government with military support. The second-best outcome would be a bloodless military coup, followed by the installment of a reformist government.

And here’s the Journal’s editorial board the day after the coup:

Mr. Obama also requested a review of U.S. aid to Egypt, but cutting that off now would be a mistake. Unpopular as America is in Egypt, $1.3 billion in annual military aid buys access with the generals. U.S. support for Cairo is written into the Camp David peace accords with Israel. Washington can also do more to help Egypt gain access to markets, international loans and investment capital. The U.S. now has a second chance to use its leverage to shape a better outcome.

Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.

Now, consider the New York Times’ David Brooks (included by Vaisse as a third-age neocon in his Appendix) writing a column entitled “Defending the Coup”, just two days after the it took place:

It has become clear – in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Gaza and elsewhere – that radical Islamists are incapable of running a modern government. Many have absolutist apocalyptic mind-sets. They have a strange fascination with a culture of death.

…Promoting elections is generally a good thing even when they produce victories for democratic forces we disagree with. But elections are not a good thing when they lead to the elevation of people whose substantive beliefs fall outside the democratic orbit.

…It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients.

And Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute writing on July 7:

Now is not the time to punish Egypt… If democracy is the goal, then the United States should celebrate Egypt’s coup.

…Rather than punish the perpetrators, Obama should offer two cheers for Egypt’s generals and help Egyptians write a more democratic constitution to provide a sounder foundation for true democracy.

And Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy (in Vaisse’s Appendix), July 4:

On the eve of our nation’s founding, Egypt’s military has given their countrymen a chance for what Abraham Lincoln once called ‘a new birth of freedom.’

…Whether anything approaching real freedom can ever take hold in a place like Egypt, however, will depend on its people’s rejection (sic) the liberty-crushing Islamic doctrine of shariah. Unfortunately, many Egyptians believe shariah is divinely mandated and may wage a civil war to impose it.

…If so, we should stand with those who oppose our common enemy – the Islamists who seek to destroy freedom worldwide. And that will require rooting out the Muslim Brothers in our government and civil institutions, as well.

Or the AEI’s Thomas Donnelly (also in Vaisse’s Appendex) writing in The Weekly Standard  blog on July 3:

In some quarters, the prospects for progress and liberalization are renewed; the Egyptian army may not be a champion of democracy, but its intervention probably prevented a darker future there.  Egyptians at least have another chance.

Commentary magazine, of course, has really been the bible of neoconservatism since its inception in the late 1960’s and has since served as its literary guardian, along with, more recently, Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard, ever since. So what have its ‘Contentions’ bloggers said about the coup and democracy?

Here’s Jonathan Tobin on July 7:

The massive demonstrations protesting Morsi’s misrule that led to a military coup have given the president a chance to reboot American policy toward Egypt in a manner that could make it clear the U.S. priority is ensuring stability and stopping the Islamists. The question is, will he take advantage of this chance or will he, by pressuring the military and demonstrating ambivalence toward the possibility of a Brotherhood comeback, squander another opportunity to help nudge Egypt in the right direction?

…The problem with so much of what has been said in the past few days about Egypt is the misperception that what was going on in Cairo before the coup was somehow more democratic than what happened after it. It cannot be repeated too often that there is more to democracy than merely holding an election that enabled the most organized faction to seize power even if it is fundamentally opposed to democracy. That was exactly what occurred in Egypt in the last year as the Brotherhood won a series of votes that put it in a position to start a process by which it could ensure that its power would never be challenged again. Understood in that context, the coup wasn’t so much a putsch as it was a last ditch effort to save the country from drifting into a Brotherhood dictatorship that could not be undone by democratic means.

And here’s Tobin again, a day later and just after the apparent massacre by the military of some 51 or more peaceful Brotherhood demonstrators:

But it would be a terrible mistake if Washington policymakers allowed today’s event to endorse the idea that what is at stake in Egypt now is democracy or that the Brotherhood is a collection of innocent victims. Even if we concede that the killings are a crime that should be investigated and punished, the conflict there is not about the right of peaceful dissent or even the rule of law, as the Brotherhood’s apologists continue to insist. While our Max Boot is right to worry that the army’s behavior may signal an incapacity to run the country that could lead to a collapse that would benefit extremists, I think the more imminent danger is that American pressure on the new government could undermine its ability to assert control over the situation and lead the Brotherhood and other Islamists to think they can return to power. But however deplorable today’s violence might be, that should not serve as an excuse for media coverage or policies that are rooted in the idea that the Brotherhood is a peaceful movement or that it’s [sic] goal is democracy. The whole point of the massive protests that shook Egypt last week and forced the military to intervene to prevent civil war was that the Brotherhood government was well on its way to establishing itself as an unchallengeable authoritarian regime that could impose Islamist law on the country with impunity. The Brotherhood may have used the tactics of democracy in winning elections in which they used their superior organizational structure to trounce opponents, but, as with other dictatorial movements, these were merely tactics employed to promote an anti-democratic aim. But such a cutoff or threats to that effect would be a terrible mistake.

Despite the idealistic posture that America should push at all costs for a swift return to democratic rule in Egypt, it needs to be remembered that genuine democracy is not an option there right now. The only way for democracy to thrive is to create a consensus in favor of that form of government. So long as the Islamists of the Brotherhood and other groups that are even more extreme are major players in Egypt, that can’t happen. The Brotherhood remains the main threat to freedom in Egypt, not a victim. While we should encourage the military to eventually put a civilian government in place, America’s priority should be that of the Egyptian people: stopping the Brotherhood. Anything that undermines that struggle won’t help Egypt or the United States. [My emphasis]

So far, the picture is pretty clear: I’m not hearing a lot of denunciations of a coup d’etat (let alone a massacre of unarmed civilians) by the military against a democratically elected president from these “third-generation” neocons and their publications. Au contraire. By their own admission, they’re pretty pleased that this democratically elected president was just overthrown.

But, in fairness, that’s not the whole picture.

On the pro-democracy side, Kagan really stands out. In a Sunday Washington Post op-ed where he attacked Obama for not exerting serious pressure on Morsi to govern more inclusively, he took on Stephens’ and Brooks’ racism, albeit without mentioning their names:

It has …become fashionable once again to argue that Muslim Arabs are incapable of democracy – this after so many millions of them came out to vote in Egypt, only to see Western democracies do little or nothing when the product of their votes was overthrown. Had the United States showed similar indifference in the Philippines and South Korea, I suppose wise heads would still be telling us that Asians, too, have no vocation for democracy.

As to what Washington should do, Kagan was unequivocal:

Egypt is not starting over. It has taken a large step backward.

…Any answer must begin with a complete suspension of all aid to Egypt, especially military aid, until there is a new democratic government freely elected with the full participation of all parties and groups in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kagan clearly played a leadership role in gathering support for his position from several other neoconservatives who comprise, along with a few liberal internationalists and human rights activists, part of the informal, three-year-old “Working Group on Egypt.” Thus, in a statement released by the Group Monday, Abrams, Ellen Bork from the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative (successor to the Project for the New American Century), and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies joined Kagan in complaining that “the reliance on military intervention rather than a political process to resolve crises severely threatens Egypt’s progression to a stable democracy.”

As to the aid question, the group argued that:

The Obama administration should apply the law that requires suspending $1.5 billion in military and economic aid to Egypt following the removal of a democratically-elected leader by coup or military decree. Not only is this clearly required under U.S. law, but is the best way to make clear immediately to Egypt’s military that an expedient return to a legitimate, elected civilian government—avoiding the repression, widespread rights abuses, and political exclusion that characterized the 18 months of military rule after Mubarak’s fall—is Egypt’s only hope. It is the only way to achieve the stability and economic progress that Egyptians desperately want.Performing semantic or bureaucratic tricks to avoid applying the law would harm U. S. credibility to promote peaceful democratic change not only in Egypt but around the world, and would give a green light to other U.S.-backed militaries contemplating such interventions.

The Egyptian military has already shown its eagerness to secure U.S. and international acceptance of its action; Washington should not provide this cost-free. The military helped sow the seeds of the current crisis by failing to foster consensus on the political transition, and its promise to midwife a democratic transition now is just as uncertain. Suspending aid offers an incentive for the army to return to democratic governance as soon as possible, and a means to hold it accountable. Cajoling on democracy while keeping aid flowing did not work when the military ruled Egypt in the 18 months after Mubarak’s fall, and it did not work to move President Morsi either.

Remarkably, in an apparent break with its past practice regarding the Group’s statements, this one was not posted by the Weekly Standard. That may have been a simple oversight, but it may also indicate a disagreement between the two deans of third-age neoconservatives — Kagan and Bill Kristol — who also co-founded both PNAC and FPI. The Standard has pretty consistently taken a significantly harder line against U.S. engagement with political Islam than Kagan. Curiously, FDD, whose political orientation has bordered at times on Islamophobia, also did not post the statement on its website despite Gerecht’s endorsement. (Indeed, FDD’s president, Clifford May, wrote in the National Review Thursday that he agreed with both Brooks’ conclusion that “radical Islamists are incapable of running a modern government [and] …have absolutist, apocalyptic mind-sets…” and with the Journal’s recommendation that Washington should continue providing aid to the generals unless and until it becomes clear that they aren’t engaged in economic reform or guaranteeing “human rights for Christians and other minorities…”)

Abrams’ position has also been remarkable (particularly in light of his efforts to isolate and punish Hamas after it swept Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and his backing of the aborted putsch against the Hamas-led government in Gaza the following year). On Wednesday this week, he argued in the Standard that U.S. aid must be cut precisely for the reasons I cited at the beginning of this post.

Look back at all those things we want for Egypt, and the answer should be obvious: We will do our friends in Egypt no good by teaching the lesson that for us as for them law is meaningless. To use lexicographical stunts to say this was not really a coup, or to change the law because it seems inconvenient this week, would tell the Egyptians that our view and practice when it comes to law is the same as theirs: enforce the law when you like, ignore the law when you don’t. But this is precisely the wrong model to give Egypt; the converse is what we should be showing them as an ideal to which to aspire.

When the coup took place last week, Abrams took the same position, noting that “coups are a bad thing and in principle we should oppose them.” He then noted, however, that

…[M]ost of our aid to Egypt is already obligated, so the real damage to the Egyptian economy and to military ties should be slight – if the army really does move forward to new elections. …An interruption of aid for several months is no tragedy, so long as during those months we give good advice, stay close to the generals, continue counter-terrorism cooperation, and avoid further actions that create the impression we were on Morsi’s side.

In other words, follow the law because we, the U.S., are a nation of laws, but, at the same time, reassure the coupists and their supporters that we’re basically on their side. This is a somewhat more ambiguous message than that conveyed by Kagan, to say the least.

Indeed, despite the fact that coups are a “bad thing,” Abrams went on, “[t]he failure of the MB in Egypt is a very good thing” [in part, he continues, because it will weaken and further isolate Hamas]. Washington, he wrote, should draw lessons from the Egyptian experience, the most important of which is:

[W]e should always remember who our friends are and should support them: those who truly believe in liberty as we conceive it, minorities such as the Copts who are truly threatened and who look to us, allies such as the Israelis who are with us through thick and thin. No more resets, no more desperate efforts at engagement with places like Russia and Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. A policy based on the simple principle of supporting our friends and opposing our enemies will do far more to advance the principles and interests of the United States.

Despite his call for Washington to stand faithfully by Israel, Abrams and the call to suspend aid were harshly criticized by Evelyn Gordon, writing in Commentary’s Contentions blog Wednesday, in which she argued that Israel’s security could be adversely affected by any such move:

The Republican foreign policy establishment, headed by luminaries such as Senator John McCain and former White House official Elliott Abrams, is urging an immediate cutoff of U.S. military aid to Egypt in response to the country’s revolution-cum-coup. The Obama administration has demurred, saying “it would not be wise to abruptly change our assistance program,” and vowed to take its time in deciding whether what happened legally mandates an aid cutoff, given the “significant consequences that go along with this determination.”

For once, official Israel is wholeheartedly on Obama’s side. Senior Israeli officials from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down spent hours on the phone with their American counterparts this weekend to argue against an aid cutoff, and Israeli diplomats in Washington have been ordered to make this case to Congress as well. Israel’s reasoning is simple: An aid cutoff will make the volatile situation on its southern border even worse–and that is bad not only for Israel, but for one of America’s major interests in the region: upholding the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

Indeed,the implications of the coup on Israel and its security have been an explicit preoccupation for some neoconservatives. In her first jottings in the coup’s immediate aftermath, Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative blogger at the Washington Post, praised the coup, called for massive economic assistance to stabilize the situation, and worried about Israel.

…Egypt may have escaped complete ruin by a skillfully timed military intervention, and there is no use denying that.

The primary and immediate crisis there is an economic one. As one Middle East observer put it: “They are broke. They can’t buy diesel. Without diesel they can’t feed their people.” This is precisely why the army was hesitant to again take over. Directly ruling the country would mean the economic meltdown becomes the army’s problem.

The United States and our Gulf allies should consider some emergency relief and beyond that provide considerable assistance in rebuilding an Egyptian economy, devastated by constant unrest and the evaporation of tourism.

Beyond that immediate concern, it will be critical to see whether the army-backed judge will adhere to the peace treaty with Israel and undertake its security operations in the Sinai. Things are looking more hopeful in that department if only because the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent, is now gone and disgraced. Egypt’s military has had good relations with both the United States and Israel so the issue may be more one of limited capability to police the Sinai (the army has to be fed, too) than lack of will.

Now, in fairness, none of this means that many — maybe even most — neoconservatives wouldn’t prefer a democratic Egypt as a general principle. Indeed, much of the advice offered by them over the past week has urged the administration and Congress to use aid and the threat of its withdrawal to coax the military into returning to the barracks, respect human rights, transfer power to civilians and eventually hold new elections in which Islamists should be permitted to participate in some fashion — if, for no other reason, than a failure to maintain some sense of a “democratic transition” (however cosmetic) could indeed force a cut-off in military aid. Such a move could present serious challenges to general U.S. security interests in the region and, as Gordon stressed, raise major questions about the durability of Camp David. But a democratic Egypt in which Islamists win presidential and parliamentary elections, draft a constitution ratified by a clear majority of the electorate and exercise real control over the army and the security forces? Judging from the past week’s commentary, most neoconservatives would much prefer Mubarak or a younger version of the same.

So, what can we conclude from this review about the importance of democracy promotion among the most prominent “third-era” neoconservative commentators, publications, and institutions? At best, there’s no consensus on the issue. And if there’s no consensus on the issue, democracy promotion can’t possibly be considered a core principle of neoconservatism, no matter how much Abrams and Vaisse would like, or appear to like it to be.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad

by Jim Lobe

For Taiwan that is. Our alumnus, Eli Clifton, makes a pretty good case below in his piece this week for The Nation, which we reprint with permission of the magazine.

Two quick points about the article:

1) For lack of space, Eli wasn’t able to expand [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

For Taiwan that is. Our alumnus, Eli Clifton, makes a pretty good case below in his piece this week for The Nation, which we reprint with permission of the magazine.

Two quick points about the article:

1) For lack of space, Eli wasn’t able to expand on Paul Wolfowitz’s status as both a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and as the chairman of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council since 2008. The Business Council, like AEI, has, of course, been a major proponent of F-16 sales to Taiwan. At the time when I first noted Wolfowitz’s chairmanship of the group, the Council’s president, Rupert Hammond-Chambers, assured me that the Wolfowitz was not receiving any compensation from the Council in his new post. While I have no reason to doubt him, Eli’s investigation suggests that the government of Taiwan may be expressing its appreciation for Wolfowitz’s work in other ways or through other channels. In any event, neither AEI nor Wolfowitz is currently registered under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

2) AEI’s advocacy of F-16 sales to Taiwan and the substantial financial support it has received from Taiwan’s unofficial/official embassy here, TECRO, is perhaps a particularly crass example of lobbying activity by a think tank, but AEI is by no means alone among think tanks in accepting funds from foreign governments, as well as, for that matter, U.S.-based corporations that then expect the “scholars” or “fellows” at these institutions to speak out or write in ways that may be favorable to their interests. Indeed, in one recent New Republic article, entitled “Meet the Think Tank Scholars Who Are Also Beltway Lobbyists,” Brooke Williams and the venerable Ken Silverstein offered several notable examples. Read also Ken’s Nation article from last month entitled “The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks.” Not that some valuable research isn’t done at these institutions. But consumers of their work need always to be asking who’s paying the fiddler. And those think tanks that accept funding from foreign interests and then pursue policy work that could be seen as promoting those interests really should be required to register under FARA, just to keep things transparent, a concept which Wolfowitz was, rhetorically at least, promoted heavily during his aborted presidency of the World Bank.

In any event, here’s Eli’s article which was first published by The Nation.

The Secret Foreign Donor Behind the American Enterprise Institute

Eli Clifton | June 25, 2013

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has emerged as one of the Beltway’s most consistent advocates for the sale of advanced fighter jets to Taiwan. Previously undisclosed tax filings reveal that while issuing research reports and publishing articles on US-Taiwan relations, AEI received a $550,000 contribution from the government of Taiwan, a source of funding the think tank has never publicly acknowledged.

In 2009, AEI, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, received the contribution from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwan’s equivalent to an embassy.

The think tank couches its hard-nosed advocacy of arms sales and trade agreements with Taiwan as a strategic necessity for the United States. “Withholding needed arms from Taiwan in the present makes a future conflict—and US intervention therein—more likely,” wrote AEI senior research associate Michael Mazza in an October 2011 article [1] in The Diplomat.

But AEI’s undisclosed source of foreign funding raises ethical and legal questions about AEI’s Taiwan-policy work.

“Any organization that’s trying to influence public policy should disclose its donors so the public can know who the money behind these institutions is,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based organization that advocates for increased transparency and accountability in government. “It’s critical for the public to know this.”

AEI’s “schedule of contributors [2],” a form typically not intended for public disclosure but acquired through a filing error, names TECRO as the organization’s fourth-largest contributor during the 2009 tax year, following Donors Capital Fund ($2,000,000), Paul Singer ($1,100,000) and the Kern Family Foundation ($1,071,912). The US Chamber of Commerce contributed $473,000, making it AEI’s seventh-largest donor.

When asked about the contribution, TECRO spokesperson Lishan Chang acknowledged the transaction and explained that TECRO was helping to facilitate a Taiwanese university’s donation to AEI.

“The contribution was given by the Institute of International Relations of the National Chengchi University to AEI’s Asian Studies Program,” said Chang. “It was therefore an act of scholarly cooperation between the two research organizations with the goal of promoting academic exchanges and research on issues concerning Asia.”

The Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, a top public university in Taiwan, did not respond to a request for comment.

What “scholarly cooperation” was undertaken by AEI remains unexplained by either AEI or the university, but Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, made no secret of his government’s warm relationship with AEI during a February 2009 meeting with AEI president Arthur Brooks and former AEI president Christopher DeMuth.

“[Ma] noted that the AEI has deep ties with the ROC [Republic of China] and has long supported the various policy stances of the ROC government,” said a TECRO press release [3].

“AEI President Brooks expressed his appreciation to President Ma for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with him and his predecessor,” the release noted. “He added that the AEI is delighted to maintain relations with Taiwan given the values of democracy, peace and freedom that are shared by the two. He said he looks forward to continuing the friendship in the future and engaging in further cooperation.”

In 2009, the same year in which Ma hosted the delegation from AEI and the think tank reported the $550,000 contribution from TECRO, AEI employees issued a number of written products praising Taiwan’s government and urging the White House to approve arms sales to the island state.

In a November 3, 2009, article [4] for ForeignPolicy.com, AEI resident fellow Daniel Blumenthal, the current director of the think tank’s Asian Studies group, slammed the Obama administration’s Asia policy for “the absence of any agenda on Taiwan.”

Blumenthal accused the White House of failing to uphold an “implicit bargain” in which Ma would “ease tensions with the Mainland” in exchange for Washington’s “strengthen[ing] Ma’s hand by strengthening our ties to Taiwan.”

“The Obama team is not helping Ma,” wrote Blumenthal. “We have not sold any arms to Taiwan even as China has continued its arms buildup across the Strait. And Obama has no plans of yet to deepen economic ties as Taiwan goes forward with a China [free trade agreement].”

In a November 18, 2009, article [5] for ForeignPolicy.com, Blumenthal continued his push for arms sales. “China has built a military capable of destroying the island if America does not assist Taiwan. Though obligated by law, the Obama administration has not sold a single weapon system to Taiwan,” a reference to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act [6], which requires the United States “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”

And Gary Schmitt, an AEI resident fellow, warned about the consequences of the Obama administration’s diplomacy with China (“an approach in which China is seen as a strategic interlocutor with the United States with something approaching equal status”) in an October 2009 AEI “National Security Outlook” paper [7].

“This of course will have an impact on U.S.-Taiwan relations. At a minimum, it will make the diplomatic hurdle of supplying needed, high-quality military systems and supplies—such as F-16s—even more difficult. (Remember, by this time in the Bush administration, the decision had already been made to make available $30 billion worth of arms and services to Taiwan.),” wrote Schmitt.

Even in 2011, after the White House agreed to upgrade the avionics systems of Taiwan’s aging F-16 fleet, the AEI’s Mazza accused the administration of making a “split the baby” decision by refusing to “sell Taiwan the 66 new F-16 C/D aircraft that Taipei has been requesting,” in an October 2011 article [1] in The Diplomat.

When contacted for comment, AEI declined to address questions about the independence of its Taiwan policy analysis or its funding from the Taiwanese government. “We do not discuss details of contributions beyond what is publicly available through our Form 990 and our Annual Report. AEI is an educational, non-partisan, non-profit, and operates in good standing and in compliance to the fullest letter of the law,” wrote Judy Mayka, AEI’s director of media relations.

While AEI insists its actions were lawful, legal and ethical questions still remain about the TECRO funding.

The Foreign Agent Registration Act is a 1938 federal law requiring the agents representing the interests of a foreign country in a “political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal.”

“Maybe this money [from TECRO] goes solely toward academic research and none of [the TECRO-funded research] is ever presented to a member of Congress, but for a Washington think tank that would be shocking,” said Allison. “Clearly AEI should disclose the contribution and probably should register under FARA.”

Most FARA registrants are law firms, public relations agencies and lobbyists representing foreign countries. When asked if a nonprofit think tank could have an obligation to register under FARA, Justice Department spokesperson Andrew Ames responded that “it is possible.”

“As with any organization or individual, we would look at the specific elements and facts to determine whether organizations are required to file,” said Ames. “Without all the facts, it is impossible to determine. The department has no record of [AEI] filing with the FARA unit.”

AEI has a track record of providing an institutional base for individuals who are supportive of Taiwan.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz joined AEI as a “visiting scholar” in 2007 and, in 2008, was named chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.

James Lilley, the US Ambassador to China from 1989 to 1991, received a fellowship at AEI after his retirement in 1991.

Lilley, who served as director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial US diplomatic mission in Taiwan, from 1981 to 1984, famously clashed with the State Department when US diplomats attempted to set a cutoff date for arms sales to Taiwan. He died on November 12, 2009.

“[President Ma Ying-jeou] said Ambassador Lilley was a strong supporter of freedom, democracy, prosperity and security throughout his life, and in his diplomatic and scholarly work he was extremely friendly to Taiwan,” said a press release [9] from the Taiwanese president’s office, following a January 2010 meeting with an AEI delegation.

Joseph Sandler, a FARA expert and former Democratic National Committee staff counsel, explained that the legality of AEI’s FARA compliance hinges on whether the think tank’s staff took direction from the government of Taiwan.

“Presumably AEI has been supportive of Taiwan. The question is: To what extent have they consulted with the Taiwanese government?”

Sandler added, “If they in fact were taking some sort of direction or honoring requests in any way on behalf of the Taiwanese government, it would not only raise FARA questions but also questions about the academic integrity of their work.”

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/174980/secret-foreign-donor-behind-american-enterprise-institute

Links:
[1] http://thediplomat.com/china-power/dangerous-imbalance-on-taiwan/
[2] http://thenation.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/AEI_2009_schedule.pdf
[3] http://www.taiwanembassy.org/US/MKC/fp.asp?xItem=79576&ctNode=2761&mp=47
[4] http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/03/the_one_year_review_obamas_asia_policies
[5] http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/18/obamas_asia_trip_a_series_of_unfortunate_events
[6] http://www.taiwandocuments.org/tra01.htm
[7] http://www.aei.org/outlook/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/asia/the-obama-administrations-approach-to-asia-early-signals/
[9] http://english.president.gov.tw/Default.aspx?tabid=491&itemid=20047

by Jasmin Ramsey and Jim Lobe

The election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president surprised many here, even though at least one expert perceptively argued, more than once, that it was a distinct possibility. What were the all-knowing basing their predictions on? Certainly not polls, which never showed Dennis Ross’ [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey and Jim Lobe

The election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president surprised many here, even though at least one expert perceptively argued, more than once, that it was a distinct possibility. What were the all-knowing basing their predictions on? Certainly not polls, which never showed Dennis Ross’ declared frontrunner, Saeed Jalili, in the lead. It seems that people like Ross (who, remember, was Obama’s top Iran adviser for most of the President’s first term) fell for Jalili’s own campaign strategy aimed at making it appear that he was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s preferred candidate and, as such, certain to win. To be sure, Iranian public opinion polls are often considered unreliable, but they aren’t necessarily entirely insignificant either, especially those conducted by well-known Iranian pollsters who’ve been arrested for releasing data that’s angered the authorities.

In any case, while serious analysts had already pointed out the importance of Iran’s swing vote and a potential centrist/reformist rallying behind one candidate (which is exactly what happened), the Washington Post declared with seemingly absolute confidence two days before the official vote began that, “Mr. Rouhani, who has emerged as the default candidate of Iran’s reformists, will not be allowed to win.”

Of course, the Post’s editorial writers, whose certainty on so many things Middle Eastern has become a hallmark of their page, were absolutely wrong. Rouhani did win, and by quite a large margin in a field of six. Iran reported that the 64-year-old cleric, known as the “diplomatic sheik“, garnered more than 50-percent of the vote — that’s 18.6 million votes of the 36,704,156 votes cast. But neither those high numbers nor the still-flowing images of Iranians celebrating throughout the country were enough to sway some Iran-focused analysts here, including the Post’s unchastened editorial writers, to withhold or at least restrain their dismissive reactions — not even this once. LobeLog alumnus Ali Gharib has examined some of this commentary, including from the influential sanctions-advocate, Mark Dubowitz (of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies), a long-time promoter of, among other things, “economic warfare” on Iran.

Dubowitz does not work alone. His FDD colleague Reuel Marc Gerecht, who co-authored an op-ed with Dubowitz in 2012 declaring that the real goal of the crippling sanctions and threats of war they have promoted (all the while insisting that they care deeply about the human rights of Iran) should be “regime change” (regardless of how violent it may be), is another go-to expert on Iran. He is the same man who argued from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) before and immediately after the invasion of Iraq that the liberation of the Shi’a majority there would constitute “a threat worse than Saddam Hussein” to the “ruling mullahs” in Tehran. The mullahs may still be laughing.

Gerecht, a former officer in the CIA’s clandestine service, prides himself on his purported expertise on Shia Islam and the various schools, hierarchies, and personalities that animate it — from Qom to Najaf and beyond. Which makes it even more surprising that this week he publicly mocked reports that Rouhani, a Shia cleric, had received a doctor of philosophy at a Scottish University. Of course, Rouhani actually does have a Scottish PhD. No matter.

And while we’re exposing some of these blatantly wrong assertions, someone may want to alert the Wall Street Journal that its profile of Rouhani by its assistant books editor, Sohrab Ahmari, actually leads with an highly tendentious — not to say false — accusation by Ahmari’s major source, Reza Mohajerinejad; to wit: “Hassan Rohani unleashed attacks on pro-democracy student protesters in 1999.” According to journalist Bahman Kalbasi:

The [Sohrab Amari] piece in the WSJ says:

Mr. Mohajerinejad recalled how after Mr. Rohani’s statement in 1999 security forces “poured into the dorm rooms and murdered students right in front of our eyes.”

As I recall, Rouhani’s speech came on the 23rd of the month of Tir in the Government-sponsored rally. The attack on the dorms came on the 18th of Tir and most of the protests happened in the 5 days in-between. I have confirmed this with a few Tahkim (main student body of the time) leaders. While there were arrests made after Rouhani’s speech (myself included) no one could recall any attack on the dorms after the 23rd of Tir. And certainly this is the first time I hear any of those being arrested were killed in front of anyone’s eyes. Again he may be talking about 18th of Tir, but that was 5 days before the speech by Rouhani not “after”.

This same article is being quoted all over the place by the neoconservative echo chamber as the must-read profile on Rouhani. The AEI’s Michael Rubin calls it the “best summary of Rouhani’s rise and record”. In an interview with the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, Rubin, an erstwhile champion of confidence man supremo and possible Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi, also declared that describing Rouhani as “a moderate would be like calling Attila the Hun a moderate because he reduced prison overcrowding and was, relatively speaking, to the left of Genghis Khan.” This is what passes for Iran expertise in Washington, D.C.

The question all this raises is whether being proven totally wrong about your facts, predictions, and assessments of character (such as the Post’s editorial board on Rouhani’s election chances; Gerecht on the impact of Iraqi Shi’a liberation on Iran and on advanced degrees of key Iranian leaders; Rubin on Chalabi and historical similes) might inspire even a little humility? Or at least a willingness to reexamine your own guiding assumptions and prejudices before spouting off yet again?

Evidently not for Gerecht, Congress, or the Washington Post editorial writers, who followed up their utterly embarrassing prediction with the excuse that they simply hadn’t anticipated just how cunning those Iranian mullahs really are! In Rouhani (“a reliable follower of the supreme leader”), according to the Post, Khamenei has a “moderate face” that will be used to lull the West into making dangerous compromises on Iran’s nuclear program. Everything now makes sense. Khamenei continues to be in complete control. There’s no need to revise our assessment. We understand Iranian politics — and what’s best for its people — perfectly.

by Jasmin Ramsey and Jim Lobe

The election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president surprised many here, even though at least one expert perceptively argued, more than once, that it was a distinct possibility. What were the naysayers basing their predictions on? Certainly not polls, which never showed Dennis [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey and Jim Lobe

The election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president surprised many here, even though at least one expert perceptively argued, more than once, that it was a distinct possibility. What were the naysayers basing their predictions on? Certainly not polls, which never showed Dennis Ross’ declared frontrunner, Saeed Jalili, in the lead. It seems that people like Ross (who, remember, was Obama’s top Iran adviser for most of the President’s first term) fell for Jalili’s own campaign strategy aimed at making it appear that he was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s preferred candidate and, as such, certain to win. To be sure, Iranian public opinion polls are often considered unreliable, but they aren’t necessarily entirely insignificant either, especially those conducted by well-known Iranian pollsters who’ve been arrested for releasing data that’s angered the authorities…

Indeed, though polling from the US-based IPOS, run by Hossein Ghazian, showed Rouhani gaining on the then-frontrunner, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a week before the vote, and leading by a few percentage points on June 12 (though a large number of voters were still undecided), the Washington Post declared with seemingly absolute confidence on that same day — two days before the official vote began – that Rouhani “will not be allowed to win.”

Of course, the Post’s editorial writers, whose certainty on so many things Middle Eastern has become a hallmark of their page, were absolutely wrong. Rouhani did win, and by quite a large margin in a field of six. Iran reported that the 64-year-old cleric, known as the “diplomatic sheik“, garnered more than 50-percent of the vote — that’s 18.6 million votes of the 36,704,156 votes cast. But neither those high numbers nor the still-flowing images of Iranians celebrating throughout the country were enough to sway some Iran-focused analysts here, including the Post’s unchastened editorial writers, to withhold or at least restrain their dismissive reactions — not even this once. LobeLog alumnus Ali Gharib has examined some of this commentary, including from the influential sanctions-advocate, Mark Dubowitz (of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies), a long-time promoter of, among other things, “economic warfare” on Iran.

Dubowitz does not work alone. His FDD colleague Reuel Marc Gerecht, who co-authored an op-ed with Dubowitz in 2012 declaring that the real goal of the crippling sanctions and threats of war they have promoted (all the while insisting that they care deeply about the human rights of Iran) should be “regime change” (regardless of how violent it may be), is another go-to expert on Iran. He is the same man who argued from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) before and immediately after the invasion of Iraq that the liberation of the Shi’a majority there would constitute “a threat worse than Saddam Hussein” to the “ruling mullahs” in Tehran. The mullahs may still be laughing.

Gerecht, a former officer in the CIA’s clandestine service, prides himself on his purported expertise on Shia Islam and the various schools, hierarchies, and personalities that animate it — from Qom to Najaf and beyond. Which makes it even more surprising that this week he publicly mocked reports that Rouhani, a Shia cleric, had received a doctor of philosophy at a Scottish University. Of course, Rouhani actually does have a Scottish PhD. No matter.

And while we’re exposing some of these blatantly wrong assertions, someone may want to alert the Wall Street Journal that its profile of Rouhani by its assistant books editor, Sohrab Ahmari, actually leads with an highly tendentious — not to say false — accusation by Ahmari’s major source, Reza Mohajerinejad; to wit: “Hassan Rohani unleashed attacks on pro-democracy student protesters in 1999.” According to journalist Bahman Kalbasi:

The [Sohrab Amari] piece in the WSJ says:

Mr. Mohajerinejad recalled how after Mr. Rohani’s statement in 1999 security forces “poured into the dorm rooms and murdered students right in front of our eyes.”

As I recall, Rouhani’s speech came on the 23rd of the month of Tir in the Government-sponsored rally. The attack on the dorms came on the 18th of Tir and most of the protests happened in the 5 days in-between. I have confirmed this with a few Tahkim (main student body of the time) leaders. While there were arrests made after Rouhani’s speech (myself included) no one could recall any attack on the dorms after the 23rd of Tir. And certainly this is the first time I hear any of those being arrested were killed in front of anyone’s eyes. Again he may be talking about 18th of Tir, but that was 5 days before the speech by Rouhani not “after”.

This same article is being quoted all over the place by the neoconservative echo chamber as the must-read profile on Rouhani. The AEI’s Michael Rubin calls it the “best summary of Rouhani’s rise and record”. In an interview with the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, Rubin, an erstwhile champion of confidence man supremo and possible Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi, also declared that describing Rouhani as “a moderate would be like calling Attila the Hun a moderate because he reduced prison overcrowding and was, relatively speaking, to the left of Genghis Khan.” This is what passes for Iran expertise in Washington, D.C.

The question all this raises is whether being proven totally wrong about your facts, predictions, and assessments of character (such as the Post’s editorial board on Rouhani’s election chances; Gerecht on the impact of Iraqi Shi’a liberation on Iran and on advanced degrees of key Iranian leaders; Rubin on Chalabi and historical similes) might inspire even a little humility? Or at least a willingness to reexamine your own guiding assumptions and prejudices before spouting off yet again?

Evidently not for Gerecht, Congress, or the Washington Post editorial writers, who followed up their utterly embarrassing prediction with the excuse that they simply hadn’t anticipated just how cunning those Iranian mullahs really are! In Rouhani (“a reliable follower of the supreme leader”), according to the Post, Khamenei has a “moderate face” that will be used to lull the West into making dangerous compromises on Iran’s nuclear program. Everything now makes sense. Khamenei continues to be in complete control. There’s no need to revise our assessment. We understand Iranian politics — and what’s best for its people — perfectly.

That Iran is deeply concerned with the civil war in Syria and is currently providing important assistance to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not in question. What remains to be determined, however, is the form that its intervention — which has grown significantly over the past decade — is taking, its extent, [...]]]> by Aurelie Daher

That Iran is deeply concerned with the civil war in Syria and is currently providing important assistance to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not in question. What remains to be determined, however, is the form that its intervention — which has grown significantly over the past decade — is taking, its extent, impact, and, ultimately, its prospects for shaping developments in the Levant.

In its 43-page report released this month, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and its close collaborator, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), try to come up with some answers to these questions, arguing, predictably, that Tehran’s ability to project its power in the region – based on its strategic alliance with Syria, as well as those with its Iraqi and Lebanese proteges – would be sharply diminished in the event of Assad’s defeat. And while the authors of “Iranian Strategy in Syria” agree that Tehran is already pursuing a “hedging strategy” designed to maintain its Alawite and Shi’a allies in control of key parts of the country for as long as possible if indeed Assad should fall, they conclude that “over the long term, Iranian influence in the Levant is likely to continue waning as ground is lost.”

Iran is certainly well aware that the loss of Syria will significantly degrade its ability to project power in the Levant and will plan for such a contingency. In order to compensate for this loss and continue to present an effective deterrent, Iran may look to expand its activities in other countries and regions.

While a priori a reasonable conclusion, close scrutiny of the premises and evidence on which the study is based suggests a number of problems with its analysis.

First, while densely footnoted, the report depends far too heavily on uncertain data, unconfirmed facts, and interpretations of events that conveniently fit certain narratives that are based more on speculation than on reliable information. Though reliable information is indeed very difficult to come by under current circumstances, the authors could have strengthened their analysis by conducting more thorough research of local and regional media that have provided much serious and credible material on the subject. As it is, the authors’ over-reliance on U.S. Treasury reports and briefings, combined with the fact that the relatively few local sources cited in the study suffer either from well-known political bias or serious inaccuracies, stands out, as does the dearth of references to credible Iranian and Arab – particularly Lebanese, Iraqi, and Syrian – sources. Indeed, the relatively narrow range from which the study’s main sources are drawn, as well as the uncertainty of the “facts” on which it relies, effectively undercuts the rather sweeping conclusions it reaches and prevents the authors from considering alternative scenarios beyond those they assert with great confidence.

In some cases, the authors make assertions that cry out for rectification. For example, the report states that the Lebanese Hezbollah, at Tehran’s behest, is directly assisting the Syrian regime in different areas of the country. A battalion of al-Muqawama al-Islamiya fi Lubnan, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (Hezbollah’s mother military organization) did indeed lend a hand in defending the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in February 2012 when the IRGC’s base at Zabadani came under attack by rebel forces. But this incident should be seen as a local, precise, and reactive intervention by Hezbollah that was limited to the purpose of protecting a strategic Iranian camp in distress and had nothing to do with supporting the Syrian regular army or the regime, as argued by the report.

Similarly, the report’s description of the situation at Maqam al-Sayyida Zeinab, the Shi’a holy shrine, in Damascus – specifically, that it is under the protection of an Iranian-led mixed battalion of Syrian Alawi fighters, Hezbollah members, and militants of Iraq’s ‘Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq – conflicts with numerous local reports. The presence of the Abou al-Fadl al-Abbas brigade proves that Tehran is fighting with the regime in the Syrian capital, according to the report which cites the brigade’s Facebook page as its source for this “fact.” But it appears that the authors never examined the brigade’s FB page on their own, relying on the claims of a secondary source. Had they themselves studied the page, they would know that the purported Hezbollah members of the brigade in fact belong to AMAL, another Lebanese Shiite party which the United States has long considered a more moderate representative of the Lebanese Shi’a community with which Washington can do and has done business over the years.

Moreover, a review of the page’s content strongly suggests that the constitution of the brigade was more probably the result of personal initiatives by concerned Shiites around the region than it was a centrally organised recruitment effort by Iran. Indeed, the FB page offers no evidence of an Iranian hand at all. It does not appear to have occurred to the report’s authors that Arab Shiites would spontaneously volunteer to defend a holy shrine without any prompting from Tehran. Yet such a scenario is quite possible in light of the repeated threats by jihadist Sunni groups in the Syrian opposition to demolish it.

The report’s treatment of Hezbollah’s presence in northeastern Syria similarly fails to tell the whole story, accepting, as it appears to do, without providing critical context the opposition narrative that it amounts to a “military intervention [by Hezbollah] …in full coordination with the Assad regime.”

As noted by the report itself, the border in the region of al-Qusayr, the focus of the most recent fighting, has never been officially demarcated. As a result, about three dozen villages inhabited by some 30,000 mainly Shia Lebanese are located in Syrian territory. As early as last fall, both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra began issuing threats — amply covered in Arab media — against these predominantly Shia villages for their alleged support of Hezbollah, which, in the increasingly sectarian language that has come to dominate the civil war, they referred to Hizb al-Shaytan, or the Party of the Devil. Skirmishes subsequently broke out within Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and Syrian rebel forces, including the FSA whose redoubts in Lebanese territory were also shelled occasionally by Syrian forces from the Syrian side of the border.

When the inhabitants of al-Qusayr – that is, Lebanese Shia living in Syria – came under repeated attack by groups of Sunni rebels, however, neither the Syrian nor the Lebanese armies came to their defense. As a result, they organized their own self-defense forces, called al-Lijan al-shaabiyya, or Popular Committees. Thus, the first Hezbollah fighters who died there did not belong to battalions sent by the central Hezbollah organization in Beirut to defend Assad’s regime as alleged in the report. They were members of local militias that had mobilized to defend their communities that had come under attack by the FSA and Sunni jihadist groups for being Shia and hence, presumably, pro-Assad.

In the wake of an intensification of attacks by the jihadist groups (including the now-infamous al-Farouq Brigade one of whose commanders was more recently video-taped cutting out the heart and lung of a dead regime soldier), the situation in the area has changed rather dramatically over the last few weeks, as Hezbollah in Lebanon decided to dispatch volunteers to fight alongside their Lebanese Shiite brothers in al-Qusayr. The Syrian army also joined the fight this month to help create a common secure area for both Shia and the regime’s Syrian supporters in the northwest. In any event, however, the creation of the Shiite self-defense forces in the area had nothing to do with the defense of Assad or, for that matter, the protection of Iranian strategic interests.

Of course, it is true, as the report claims, that controlling al-Qusayr and Homs now serves the strategic interests of both Iran and Hezbollah in securing a key arms-supply route from Iran through Syrian territory and thus helping maintain Tehran’s influence in the Levant, even if that was not original impetus for the fighting there.

But controlling that area is not the only way that Iran can achieve its stategic aims in the region, a key point that the report’s authors — who express great confidence that “the Syrian conflict has already constrained Iran’s influence in the Levant, and the fall of the Assad regime would further reduce Tehran’s ability to project power” — appear to miss entirely. Indeed, there are a variety of scenarios that would permit Iran to adjust to any new distribution of power in Syria in ways that could perpetuate its influence.

For example, the authors implicitly dismiss any possibility that Tehran could reach an understanding with future leaders of Syria. Likewise, they assume that any territory freed from the regime’s control will become subject to the authority of a strong, centralized state – one presumably capable of controlling air and land routes between Iran and Lebanon — rather than what appears increasingly likely at this point: that Bilad al-Sham will become a “(Dis-)United States of Syria” on the model of Iraq or Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Indeed, will the future local “Islamic caliphates” or “free Syrian micro-Republics” have the means to prevent Iranian aircraft from using their skies? And, even more significantly, will it be in their interest to do so?

An implosion of Syria, its division into multiple power centers, and the probable competition for external support between them offer Iran – like other major regional players, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and perhaps even Israel – opportunities to recruit new local clients. And while Iran is generously hated by Syrian opposition groups for “having Syrian blood on its hands” and, as importantly, for being Shiite, it can still build useful relationships with at least some of the future masters of Syria, as it has done in Iraq in defiance of strong and persistent pressure from the U.S. Paradoxical understandings they may be, but that would not be the first time strategic pragmatism would triumph over ideology. History is full of such examples, even among radical jihadis.

Aurelie Daher is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton
University. She has earned a PhD in political science from
Sciences-Po, Paris, and has held a postdoctoral position at the
University of Oxford. Her research focuses on Hezbollah, Lebanese and Syrian politics, and Middle-Eastern Shiism.

No sooner had it been announced that the Senate was preparing to vote for cloture on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense than the Washington Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo unleashed yet another attack on the former Nebraska senator. After spending two and a half months battering Hagel with specious accusations that [...]]]> by Marsha B. Cohen

No sooner had it been announced that the Senate was preparing to vote for cloture on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense than the Washington Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo unleashed yet another attack on the former Nebraska senator. After spending two and a half months battering Hagel with specious accusations that he was “anti-Israel” and harbored negative views about Jews, Kredo’s new credo is that Hagel has “an Indian problem.”

According to Kredo’s latest anti-Hagel screed:

The U.S. has long viewed India as a key ally in its fight against terrorism in the porous border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tensions have arisen between India and Pakistan over the latter’s failure to stymie terrorist activities.

Hagel appears to accuse India of fueling tensions with Pakistan, claiming it is using Afghanistan “as a second front” against Pakistan.

“India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front, and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border,” Hagel says in the speech. “And you can carry that into many dimensions, the point being [that] the tense, fragmented relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been there for many, many years.”

The controversial comments mark a departure from established United States policy in the region and could increase tensions between the Obama administration and India should the Senate confirm Hagel on Tuesday, according to experts.

Well, actually just one “expert”, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Dhume uses his AEI perch to bemoan that two thirds of the nearly three million Indian-Americans who vote Democrat (84% voted for Barak Obama in 2008) and the fact that only one in five identifies with the Republican party, which they should regard as their “natural home.” Dhume claims that the view Hagel expressed (at least as presented to him by Kredo) is “both over-the-top and a sharp departure from a U.S. position that has seen democratic India as a stabilizing influence in Afghanistan and Asia more broadly.”

As with nearly all of the Free Beacon’s “revelations,” there is more to the story, and far less cause for outrage…

For one thing, the setting for Hagel’s talk from which the quote about India was ripped was a triennial Academic Festival at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, “a dynamic, privately funded, year-long symposium which explores a topic worthy of in-depth study.”  The topic of the 2011-2012 Academic Festival was “Afghanistan: Its Complexities and Relevance.” Guest speakers, campus-wide activities, seminars, special events and cross-curricular events during the academic year were strategically planned to support the study of the Festival’s topic, and to provide “numerous opportunities for Cameron students and the public to gain an understanding of this central Asian country” at no charge. Hagel was one of five guest speakers who came to Cameron’s campus between August 2011 and March 2012.

Hagel is a Distinguished Professor of National Governance at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service as well as a Distinguished Centennial Visiting Professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s College of Public Affairs and Community Service. He is the author of “America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers” in which he examines foreign policy problems, including China’s growing economy, India and Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, and Iran’s aggressive political, ideological and nuclear stances. During his two terms in the U.S. Senate, Hagel was a member of the Committee for Foreign Relations and the Select Committee on Intelligence, among other appointments.

The other guest speakers during the Academic Festival were Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner; Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winner and the president of the New America Foundation; journalist and foreign policy analyst Robin Wright; and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the chief of staff of military operations in Afghanistan 2002 who assumed command of all international forces in Afghanistan in June 2009.

Hagel’s main focus during his talk was Afghanistan, not India. It follows that his comments were intended to explain how the involvement of various regional state and nonstate actors in Afghanistan complicates the situation there. Pakistan’s involvement is well known to American viewers of the nightly news, India’s much less so.

A 2008 report by the Council on Foreign Relations – which the Free Beacon‘s Bill Gertz points to as “one of the most elite foreign policy organizations in the United States with a membership of some 4,700 officials, former officials, journalists, and others” — makes it quite clear that claims about Indian involvement in Afghanistan are neither new nor unfounded:

India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has long faced allegations of meddling in its neighbors’ affairs. Founded in 1968, primarily to counter China’s influence, over time it has shifted its focus to India’s other traditional rival, Pakistan. RAW and Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have been engaged in covert operations against one other for over three decades. The ongoing dispute in Kashmir continues to fuel these clashes, but experts say Afghanistan may be emerging as the new battleground.

Citing a former RAW official by the name of B. Raman, the CFR report, written by Jayshree Bajoria, also notes that Indian concern about Pakistan was a key aspect of this involvement:

Since its inception in 1968, RAW has had a close liaison relationship with KHAD, the Afghan intelligence agency, due to the intelligence it has provided RAW on Pakistan. This relationship was further strengthened in the early 1980s when the foundation was laid for a trilateral cooperation involving the RAW, KHAD, and the Soviet KGB. Raman says RAW valued KHAD’s cooperation for monitoring the activities of Sikh militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab were demanding an independent state of Khalistan. According to Raman, Pakistan’s ISI set up clandestine camps for training and arming Khalistani recruits in Pakistan’s Punjab Province and North West Frontier Province. During this time, the ISI received large sums from Saudi Arabia and the CIA for arming the Afghan mujahadeen against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. “The ISI diverted part of these funds and arms and ammunition to the Khalistani terrorists,” alleges Raman.

In retaliation, in the mid-1980s, RAW set up two covert groups of its own, Counter Intelligence Team-X (CIT-X) and Counter Intelligence Team-J (CIT-J), the first targeting Pakistan in general and the second directed at Khalistani groups. The two groups were responsible for carrying out terrorist operations inside Pakistan (Newsline), writes Pakistani military expert Ayesha Siddiqa. Indian journalist and associate editor of Frontline magazine, Praveen Swami, writes that a “low-grade but steady campaign of bombings in major Pakistani cities, notably Karachi and Lahore” was carried out. This forced the head of ISI to meet his counterpart in RAW and agree on the rules of engagement as far as Punjab was concerned, writes Siddiqa. The negotiation was brokered by then-Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan bin-Talal, whose wife, Princess Sarvath, is of Pakistani origin. “It was agreed that Pakistan would not carry out activities in the Punjab as long as RAW refrained from creating mayhem and violence inside Pakistan,” Siddiqa writes.

In the past, Pakistan also accused RAW of supporting Sindhi nationalists demanding a separate state, as well as Seraikis calling for a partition of Pakistan’s Punjab to create a separate Seraiki state. India denies these charges. However, experts point out that India has supported insurgents in Pakistan’s Balochistan, as well as anti-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan. But some experts say India no longer does this. As this Backgrounder explains, Pakistan is suspicious of India’s influence in Afghanistan, which it views as a threat to its own interests in the region. Experts say although it is very likely that India has active intelligence gathering in Afghanistan, it is difficult to say whether it is also involved in covert operations.

Hagel’s analysis in his lecture at Cameron University was substantively supported by the CFR report three years earlier, although he did not take it that far. As the You Tube clip indicates, contrary to Kredo’s claim, Hagel never used the phrase “sponsored terrorist activities”. Furthermore, in posting the 54-second excerpt from Hagel’s speech online, great care was apparently taken to avoid providing the context of Hagel’s India remarks, which no doubt would make them even less “controversial” than they already are.

After being contacted by Kredo for comment, a spokesperson at the Indian Embassy seems to have been rather skeptical of his take on Hagel’s expressed views. “Such comments attributed to Sen. Hagel, who has been a long-standing friend of India and a prominent votary of close India-U.S. relations, are contrary to the reality of India’s unbounded dedication to the welfare of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson reportedly told Kredo in an email. Her statement clearly leaves room for the possibility that the attributed remarks were not quite what Kredo interpreted them as.

Chuck Hagel doesn’t have an Indian problem. The Washington Free Beacon has a Chuck Hagel problem.