by Jim Lobe
As some readers may recall, I wrote a long essay shortly after last July’s military coup d’etat against Egypt’s democratically elected Morsi government on differing attitudes within the neoconservative movement toward the coup and democracy itself. Given the complete lack of consensus among leading neocons as to how [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
As some readers may recall, I wrote a long essay shortly after last July’s military coup d’etat against Egypt’s democratically elected Morsi government on differing attitudes within the neoconservative movement toward the coup and democracy itself. Given the complete lack of consensus among leading neocons as to how the U.S. should react to the coup — indeed, the fact that most neocons favored the coup and urged Washington to maintain its military assistance to the coupists — I concluded, contrary to conventional wisdom and the way that neocons have often sought to depict themselves, that “democracy promotion can’t possibly be considered a core principle of neoconservatism.” I followed that up a month later with a short post noting how the two “princelings” of the neoconservative movement and co-founders of both the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and its successor organization, the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol, had themselves split on the issue, with Kristol (citing Israel’s position) expressing doubt about the wisdom of cutting military aid, and Kagan demanding that it be cut.
Kristol hasn’t had much to say about Egypt recently, but Kagan came out in yesterday’s Washington Post with a stunning denunciation (also featured on FPI’s website) not only of continuing U.S. military aid for Egypt, but also of lobbying by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Congress for continuing that assistance AND of Israel’s support for the regime. The op-ed, entitled “A Partnership That Damages the U.S.”, is particularly critical of Israel’s attitude toward both Egypt and democracy in the region, something that the ironically named (and Likudist) Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) may wish to consider. Here are the relevant paragraphs:
Many members of Congress also believe that by backing the Egyptian military they are helping Israel, which, through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has actively lobbied Congress for full restoration of military aid. Even though the Morsi government did not pull out of the Camp David Accords or take actions hostile to Israel, the mere presence of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt frightened the Israeli government.
To Israel, which has never supported democracy anywhere in the Middle East except Israel, the presence of a brutal military dictatorship bent on the extermination of Islamism is not only tolerable but desirable. Perhaps from the standpoint of a besieged state like Israel, this may be understandable. A friendly observer might point out that in the end Israel may get the worst of both worlds: a new Egyptian jihadist movement brought into existence by the military’s crackdown and a military government in Cairo that, playing to public opinion, winds up turning against Israel anyway.
Israel has to be the judge of its own best interests. But so does the United States. In Egypt, U.S. interests and Israel’s perceptions of its own interests sharply diverge. If one believes that any hope for moderation in the Arab world requires finding moderate voices not only among secularists but also among Islamists, America’s current strategy in Egypt is producing the opposite result. If one believes, as President Obama once claimed to, that it is important to seek better understanding between the United States and the Muslim world and to avoid or at least temper any clash of civilizations, then again this policy is producing the opposite result. [Emphasis added.]
It’s really a remarkable column that deserves to be read in full because of its very trenchant critique of Obama’s policy as well. If only it represented a preponderance of neoconservative opinion, which it unfortunately doesn’t.
Kagan is writing in the context of a whole lot of bad human-rights news coming out of Egypt in recent weeks in spite of which the Obama administration approved the delivery of 10 Apache helicopters, the transfer of which was held up by a partial suspension of military aid to the regime last fall. Since then, Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the key Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid appropriations, has called for halting all military aid, including those items, like the helicopters, that are supposedly earmarked for “counter-terrorism.” As noted by Kagan, AIPAC is lobbying on behalf of the Netanyahu government against such a cut-off.
Indeed, for AIPAC’s (and Israel’s) talking points, you need look no further than a policy analysis entitled, “Resuming Military Aid to Egypt: A Strategic Imperative”, published this week by Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank spun off by AIPAC in the 1980s but still very much in the lobby group’s orbit. While Trager predictably deplores the abuses that have taken place, he argues, dubiously, that somehow the military is not accountable for them because of the “severely fractured …competing power centers” that supposedly characterize the Egyptian state at the moment. He goes on:
]]>…[W]ithholding aid could still jeopardize Washington’s ability to ensure Egypt’s longer-term cooperation. For one thing, Russia is trying to expand its influence in the Middle East by selling weapons to Cairo, and various Persian Gulf states — which have sent billions in aid to keep the current Egyptian government afloat — are strongly supporting Moscow’s efforts. Moreover, after years of refusing to do so, the Egyptian military has been actively fighting Sinai-based jihadists since September, so withholding aid now would send a very confusing message about Washington’s strategic priorities. The United States also stands to lose other strategic benefits if the aid is withheld, including overflight rights and preferred access to the Suez Canal.
That appears to be the strong consensus of the foreign-policy elite which, with only a few exceptions, believes that the administration of President George W. Bush badly “over-reacted” to the attacks and that that over-reaction continues to this day.
That over-reaction was driven in major part by a close-knit group of neo-conservatives and other hawks who seized control of Bush’s foreign policy even before the dust had settled over Lower Manhattan and set it on a radical course designed to consolidate Washington’s dominance of the Greater Middle East and “shock and awe” any aspiring global or regional rival powers into acquiescing to a “unipolar” world.
Led within the administration by Vice President Dick Cheney, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and their mostly neo-conservative aides and supporters, the hawks had four years before joined the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The letter-head organisation was co-founded by neo-conservative ideologues William Kristol and Robert Kagan, who, in an important 1996 article, called for the U.S. to preserve its post-Cold War “hegemony as far into the future as possible.”
In a series of subsequent letters and publications, they urged ever more military spending; pre-emptive, and if necessary, unilateral military action against possible threats; and “regime change” for rogue states, beginning with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
Read more here.
]]>The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation serves as a legacy for brothers Lynde and Harry, co-founders of the Allen-Bradley Company, and contributed $5.37 million to the Islamophobia network tracked in our new report, Fear Inc.
The Bradley Foundation has a reputation as a supporter [...]]]>
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation serves as a legacy for brothers Lynde and Harry, co-founders of the Allen-Bradley Company, and contributed $5.37 million to the Islamophobia network tracked in our new report, Fear Inc.
The Bradley Foundation has a reputation as a supporter of right-wing causes and its philanthropy is intended to “support limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutes,” according to the foundation’s website.
But the Bradley Foundation’s idea of defending “American ideas and institutes” has meant funding Islamophobes within the U.S. and promoting the militant foreign policy which left the U.S. military overextended in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a key funder in the Islamophobia network, the Bradley Foundation contributed $4.25 million to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, $815,000 to Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and $305,000 to Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum.
When not funding some of the key groups responsible for propagating misinformation about Muslim-Americans, the Bradley Foundation uses its financial resources to promote a militarist foreign policy, most notably through their $1.2 million in support for the Project for the New American Century, a highly influential group which helped promote a neoconservative foreign policy during the Bush administration.
Indeed, the Bradley Foundation has played an instrumental role in bringing neoconservatives into the halls of power in Washington. Irving Kristol, one of the movement’s key intellectuals, commented that AEI’s efforts to recruit neoconservatives in the 1970s and 1980s was “facilitated by the appearance on the scene of a rejuvenated Bradley Foundation and John M. Olin Foundation.”
The foundation also generously supports various right-wing institutions such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, the Hoover Institution, the Institute for American Values and the Hudson Institute.
While both Lynde and Harry Bradley are deceased, the foundation is run by a board comprising an influential list of American conservatives.
Board members include: columnist George Will; Terry Considine, Chief executive of AIMCO Apartment Homes, who serves as the foundation’s chairman; David V. Uihlein, president of Uihlein-Wilson Architects; Michael W. Grebe, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer; Princeton University Professor Robert P. George, whom the New York Times describes as “his country’s most influential Christian thinker; Marshall & Ilsey Corporation Chairman Dennis J. Kuester; Wasau-Mosinee Paper Corporation Chairman San W. Orr Jr.; attorney Thomas L. Smallwood; and the president of Milwaukee’s Messmer Catholic Schools, Brother Bob Smith.
With a staggering $622,913,819 in assets at the end of the 2009 tax year, it’s safe to assume the Bradley Foundation will have a lasting impact on the American political debate for years, if not decades, in the future.
]]>In terms of leaping to Islamophobic conclusions, this must rank right up there with the smug certainty with which The Investigative Project’s Steven Emerson claimed on CBS News the afternoon of the 1995 Oklahoma [...]]]>
In terms of leaping to Islamophobic conclusions, this must rank right up there with the smug certainty with which The Investigative Project’s Steven Emerson claimed on CBS News the afternoon of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that the act showed “a Middle Eastern trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible” — a memorable moment for me, if only because we at the IPS Washington bureau, as subsequently noted by the Washington Post and The Guardian of London, were the first news organization to publish that the bombing’s source likely would be found closer to the Midwest than the Middle East. (Sorry I don’t have a link; it’s too old.) In this case, it appears that Norway has found its Timothy McVeigh. Mondoweiss did an excellent profile on the alleged bomber/mass killer.
Of course, the Journal’s editorial writers were hardly alone as a quick scan at the blogs of the usual suspects — Commentary’s ‘Contentions’ (John Podhoretz), The Weekly Standard (Tom Joscelyn), the American Enterprise Institute’s blog, etc. — shows.
But special attention should be paid to Jennifer Rubin, whose “Right Turn” blog on the Post’s website has, in its relatively short and controversial life, become kind of one-stop shopping site for all the hard-line neo-conservative memes and rages of the day. Yesterday’s blog on the Norwegian outrage was no exception, and she hasn’t yet bothered to amend it in light of new details about the alleged perpetrator, as the Journal felt compelled to do. The Atlantic’s James Fallows and Steve Clemons have already taken her on, and I’m sure many more will follow.
Perhaps the most objectionable part of Rubin’s comments was actually voiced by American Enterprise Institute’s resident intelligence expert, Gary Schmitt, who, unlike most his AEI foreign-policy colleagues, tends to keep a low media profile. Nonetheless, she quotes him as telling her:
Now we don’t know whether Rubin had taken this quote out of context or whether the certainty with which he expressed the view that Al Qaeda was behind the Oslo killings in this excerpt had been preceded by the caveat “if” or “assuming” that Al Qaeda was responsible or similar cautions against leaping to conclusions. If so, then this statement wouldn’t be nearly as objectionable.
Nonetheless, it’s significant that Rubin turned to Schmitt, the former executive director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), as an expert on this question. Here are some relevant excerpts about Schmitt’s experience and expertise in intelligence from his Right Web profile, particularly with respect to the Iraq War and long-time association with Abram Shulsky of the notorious Office of Special Plans (with my emphasis):
In a subsequent article published in the Los Angeles Times after the invasion, Schmitt wrote: “Why can’t the coalition teams find stocks of weapons today? Probably because Hussein destroyed them either before the UN inspectors returned to Iraq last December or just before the war began. The credibility of both President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will remain in question until coalition investigators have not only gotten to the bottom of the missing weapons but also, and more important, the weapons programs themselves. Here, patience is required. Intelligence products are not gospel, and they should not be treated as such. Failure to find [WMDs] would complicate a president’s ability to rally support for taking action in similar situations in the future” (June 28, 2003).
Schmitt is the author of a number of works, including with Shulsky Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (2002), in which the authors argue that “truth is not the goal” of intelligence operations, but “victory” (p. 176). He also co-authored with Shulsky The Future of U.S. Intelligence, a report published by the hardline National Strategy Information Center that seemed to foreshadow the work of the Office of Special Plans. The report concluded that intelligence should not be centralized in the CIA, and that the intelligence community should adopt new methodology aimed at “obtaining information others try to keep secret and penetrating below the ‘surface’ impression created by publicly available information to determine whether an adversary is deceiving us or denying us key information.” It recommended creating “competing analytic centers” with “different points of view” that could “provide policymakers better protection against new ‘Pearl Harbors,’ i.e., against being surprised.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations led many pundits to describe him as the most hawkish, if not neoconservative, candidate in the GOP primary field. But discussion of his foreign policy stance would not be complete without a [...]]]>
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations led many pundits to describe him as the most hawkish, if not neoconservative, candidate in the GOP primary field. But discussion of his foreign policy stance would not be complete without a close examination of the lucrative lobbying, for both domestic and foreign clients, undertaken by his campaign co-chair and senior foreign policy adviser Vin Weber.
Weber, who supported the campaigns of the neoconservative Project For the New American Century and served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, is the CEO and managing partner of Clark & Weinstock, a “strategic advice and consulting” firm whose client list includes, or has included Hyundai Motor Co., Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, American International Group, Gazprom, and JP Morgan Chase & Co.
But Vin Weber’s lobbying expertise isn’t limited to private companies. Clark & Weinstock also represented the interests of Morocco, Greece, the Iraqi Governing Council, Panama, and the United Arab Emirates.
In his January 18, 2005 “Proposal For Representation of United Arab Emirates” (PDF), Weber promised to:
Weber advocated portraying the UAE as a U.S. ally in combating terrorism and an observer of human rights, and boasts of his close relationship with DC think tanks. In a section titled “C&W’s Approach,” he writes:
And he advises the UAE to “avoid the costly and impactless advertising purchased by other nations” and establish direct relationships with members of the media. Weber suggests holding “message-delivering” meetings with editorial boards, columnists, producers, and news people. Weber said his services would run the UAE $65,000 per month. (His representation of the UAE appears have been terminated on March 30, 2007.)
Weber’s understanding of Washington’s foreign policy circles and the importance of influencing editorial boards is a reflection of his Washington insider status, which, no doubt, played no small role in arranging Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (Weber sits on the Council’s board). While Weber and Pawlenty’s foreign policy positions are often in line with the more militarist, neoconservative, wing of the GOP, Weber clearly knows that in Washington you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. In 2010, his campaign contributions showed a long list of Republican congressional candidates including Tim Pawlenty’s GOP primary opponent, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
]]>Today, the right-wing Heritage Foundation announced that it would be hosting a special screening of Clarion’s latest film, “Iranium,” on February 1. The event will include an appearance and comments by none other than arch-neoconservative Richard Perle. Perle, whose nickname is “The Prince of Darkness,” is widely seen as playing an important role in shaping post-9/11 Bush administration foreign policy from his perch at the Defense Policy Board.
Perle’s institutional affiliations are a useful guide for anyone seeking to understand the intellectual underpinnings of the Bush administration’s (first term) foreign policy or diagram the web of neoconservative institutions in Washington, D.C. Perle is currently a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute; a letter signatory for the Project for the New American Century; a member of the National Security Advisory Council at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy; a member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and Committee on the Present Danger; and a board member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the Hudson Institute.
Perle’s role in the Clarion Fund’s film screening would indicate that the organization is deeply embedded in the neoconservative movement. Given Perle’s track record for pushing the U.S. into aggressive wars of choice, this affiliation should be looked at closely as the Fund rolls out its latest documentary, which claims to document the “threat to international stability” presented by Iran’s nuclear program.
When not teaming up with one of the chief boosters of the Iraq war, Clarion has been adding Center for Security Policy founder Frank Gaffney to its board. Gaffney was recently deemed too hot to touch by the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Sarah Posner spoke with Suhail Khan, a Muslim member of the American Conservative Union Board, the group which sponsors CPAC. Khan told Posner:
“Frank has been frozen out of CPAC by his own hand, because of his antics. We need people who are credible on national security . . . but because of Frank’s just completely irresponsible assertions over the years, the organizers have decided to keep him out.” That, Khan added, is similar reaction to current and former members of Congress, including Bobby Jindal, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and the late Henry Hyde, who distanced themselves from Gaffney.
The conservative shunning of Gaffney, said Khan, is not “because of any pressure from Muslim activists but because they didn’t want to be associated with a crazy bigot.”
CPAC is a major event for Republicans—a veritable Woodstock, of sorts, for conservatives, and, as I wrote last year, an event with no shortage of Islamophobic rhetoric. Gaffney being “frozen out” is a major blow for his credentials within the conservative movement.
But for Clarion, linking up with the arch-neoconservative Richard Perle, and a counter-Jihadi so extreme that his Islamophobia was too much for CPAC, shows that the organization and its films are well outside of the mainstream. In the past, Clarion has succeeded in getting its projects promoted in mainstream media venues such as CNN and Fox News. It will interesting to watch and see if an organization that has now publicly acknowledged its extreme neoconservative and Islamophobic leanings can get the same type of traction with “Iranium.”
While Clarion remains a fairly small organization (despite its $18 million distribution of “Obsession” DVDs before the 2008 presidential election), the links between ultra-orthodox Aish HaTorah, neoconservative extraordinaire Richard Perle and Islamophobe Frank Gaffney should raise questions. Perhaps most importantly, are these new connections for neoconservatives like Richard Perle? Or is this simply a rare public acknowledgment of the relationship between ultra-orthodox Israelis, Islamophobes, and neoconservatives?
]]>Starting in 2008, we began writing about the films produced and distributed by the mysterious Clarion Fund, as well as questioning the money trail. [...]]]>
Starting in 2008, we began writing about the films produced and distributed by the mysterious Clarion Fund, as well as questioning the money trail. A new page on their RadicalIslam.org website offers a revealing insight into the organization’s web of connections in the Islamophobia and neoconservative echo chamber.
The Clarion’s website “About Page” lists the organization’s Advisory Board, composed of some of the most high-profile and established propagators of Islamophobic rhetoric.
It includes:
The Clarion Fund’s advisory board represents a whose-who of the Islamophobia industry and the neoconservative far-right.
Clarion writes that their latest film, Iranium, will:
…[T]target influential U.S. interest groups and policy makers while remaining both straightforward and down-to-earth. After viewing the film, the general public will be able to understand the critical nature of the threats and encourage a movement aimed at preventing the further advancement of the Iranian regime and its nuclear arsenal.
Given its list of advisers with their long history of propagating Islamophobic rhetoric and advocating for a militant U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, it remains to be seen how the Clarion Fund can present a balanced viewpoint on the complexities of U.S.-Iran relations.
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