US "ThinkTanks."Arab news.

[Matthew X]

US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy
By Brian Whitaker

A little-known fact about Richard Perle, the leading advocate of hardline 
policies at the Pentagon, is that he once wrote a political thriller. The 
book, appropriately called Hard Line, is set in the days of the cold war 
with the Soviet Union. Its hero is a male senior official at the Pentagon, 
working late into the night and battling almost single-handedly to rescue 
the US from liberal wimps at the state department who want to sign away 
America's nuclear deterrent in a disarmament deal with the Russians.
Ten years on Mr Perle finds himself cast in the real-life role of his 
fictional hero - except that the Russians are no longer a threat, so he has 
to make do with the Iraqis, the Saudis and terrorism in general.
In real life too, Mr Perle is not fighting his battle single-handed. Around 
him there is a cosy and cleverly-constructed network of Middle East 
"experts" who share his neo-conservative outlook and who pop up as talking 
heads on US television, in newspapers, books, testimonies to congressional 
committees, and at lunchtime gatherings in Washington.
The network centres on research institutes - thinktanks that attempt to 
influence government policy and are funded by tax-deductible gifts from 
unidentified donors.
When he is not too busy at the Pentagon, or too busy running Hollinger 
Digital - part of the group that publishes the Daily Telegraph in Britain - 
or at board meetings of the Jerusalem Post, Mr Perle is "resident fellow" 
at one of the thinktanks - the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Mr Perle's close friend and political ally at AEI is David Wurmser, head of 
its Middle East studies department. Mr Perle helpfully wrote the 
introduction to Mr Wurmser's book, Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to 
Defeat Saddam Hussein.
Mr Wurmser's wife, Meyrav, is co-founder, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, 
formerly of Israeli military intelligence - of the Middle East Media 
Research Institute (Memri), which specialises in translating and 
distributing articles that show Arabs in a bad light.
She also holds strong views on leftwing Israeli intellectuals, whom she 
regards as a threat to Israel (see "Selective Memri", Guardian Unlimited, 
August 12, 2002).
Ms Wurmser currently runs the Middle East section at another thinktank - 
the Hudson Institute, where Mr Perle recently joined the board of trustees. 
In addition, Ms Wurmser belongs to an organisation called the Middle East 
Forum.
Michael Rubin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, who recently 
arrived from yet another thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near East 
Policy, assists Mr Perle and Mr Wurmser at AEI. Mr Rubin also belongs to 
the Middle East Forum.
Another Middle East scholar at AEI is Laurie Mylroie, author of Saddam 
Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, which expounds a rather daft 
theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
When the book was published by the AEI, Mr Perle hailed it as "splendid and 
wholly convincing".
An earlier book on Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf which Ms 
Mylroie co-authored with Judith Miller, a New York Times journalist, became 
the New York Times's No 1 bestseller.
Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller both have connections with the Middle East Forum. 
Mr Perle, Mr Rubin, Ms Wurmser, Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller are all clients of 
Eleana Benador, a Peruvian-born linguist who acts as a sort of theatrical 
agent for experts on the Middle East and terrorism, organising their TV 
appearances and speaking engagements.
Of the 28 clients on Ms Benador's books, at least nine are connected with 
the AEI, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum.
Although these three privately-funded organisations promote views from only 
one end of the political spectrum, the amount of exposure that they get 
with their books, articles and TV appearances is extraordinary.
The Washington Institute, for example, takes the credit for placing up to 
90 articles written by its members - mainly "op-ed" pieces - in newspapers 
during the last year.
Fourteen of those appeared in the Los Angeles Times, nine in New Republic, 
eight in the Wall Street Journal, eight in the Jerusalem Post, seven in the 
National Review Online, six in the Daily Telegraph, six in the Washington 
Post, four in the New York Times and four in the Baltimore Sun. Of the 
total, 50 were written by Michael Rubin.
Anyone who has tried offering op-ed articles to a major newspaper will 
appreciate the scale of this achievement.
The media attention bestowed on these thinktanks is not for want of other 
experts in the field. American universities have about 1,400 full-time 
faculty members specialising in the Middle East.
Of those, an estimated 400-500 are experts on some aspect of contemporary 
politics in the region, but their views are rarely sought or heard, either 
by the media or government.
"I see a parade of people from these institutes coming through as talking 
heads [on cable TV]. I very seldom see a professor from a university on 
those shows," says Juan Cole, professor of history at Michigan University, 
who is a critic of the private institutes.
"Academics [at universities] are involved in analysing what's going on but 
they're not advocates, so they don't have the same impetus," he said.
"The expertise on the Middle East that exists in the universities is not 
being utilised, even for basic information."
Of course, very few academics have agents like Eleana Benador to promote 
their work and very few are based in Washington - which can make arranging 
TV appearances , or rubbing shoulders with state department officials a bit 
difficult.
Those who work for US thinktanks are often given university-style titles 
such as "senior fellow", or "adjunct scholar", but their research is very 
different from that of universities - it is entirely directed towards 
shaping government policy.
What nobody outside the thinktanks knows, however, is who pays for this 
policy-shaping research.
Under US law, large donations given to non-profit, "non-partisan" 
organisations such as thinktanks must be itemised in their annual "form 
990" returns to the tax authorities. But the identity of donors does not 
need to be made public.
The AEI, which deals with many other issues besides the Middle East, had 
assets of $35.8m (£23.2m) and an income of $24.5m in 2000, according to its 
most recent tax return.
It received seven donations of $1m or above in cash or shares, the highest 
being $3.35m.
The Washington Institute, which deals only with Middle East policy, had 
assets of $11.2m and an income of $4.1m in 2000. The institute says its 
donors are identifiable because they are also its trustees, but the list of 
trustees contains 239 names which makes it impossible to distinguish large 
benefactors from small ones.
The smaller Middle East Forum had an income of less than $1.5m in 2000, 
with the largest single donation amounting to $355,000.
In terms of their ability to influence policy, thinktanks have several 
advantages over universities. To begin with they can hire staff without 
committee procedures, which allows them to build up teams of researchers 
that share a similar political orientation.
They can also publish books themselves without going through the academic 
refereeing processes required by university publishers. And they usually 
site themselves in Washington, close to government and the media.
Apart from influencing policy on the Middle East, the Washington Institute 
and the Middle East Forum recently launched a campaign to discredit 
university departments that specialise in the region.
After September 11, when various government agencies realised there was a 
shortage of Americans who could speak Arabic, there were moves to beef up 
the relevant university departments.
But Martin Kramer, of the Washington Institute, Middle East Forum and 
former director of the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv university, had other 
ideas.
He produced a vitriolic book Ivory Towers on Sand, which criticised Middle 
East departments of universities in the US.
His book was published by the Washington Institute and warmly reviewed in 
the Weekly Standard, whose editor, William Kristol, was a member of the 
Middle East Forum along with Mr Kramer.
"Kramer has performed a crucial service by exposing intellectual rot in a 
scholarly field of capital importance to national wellbeing," the review said.
The Washington Institute is considered the most influential of the Middle 
East thinktanks, and the one that the state department takes most 
seriously. Its director is the former US diplomat, Dennis Ross.
Besides publishing books and placing newspaper articles, the institute has 
a number of other activities that for legal purposes do not constitute 
lobbying, since this would change its tax status.
It holds lunches and seminars, typically about three times a week, where 
ideas are exchanged and political networking takes place. It has also given 
testimony to congressional committees nine times in the last five years.
Every four years, it convenes a "bipartisan blue-ribbon commission" known 
as the Presidential study group, which presents a blueprint for Middle East 
policy to the newly-elected president.
The institute makes no secret of its extensive links with Israel, which 
currently include the presence of two scholars from the Israeli armed forces.
Israel is an ally and the connection is so well known that officials and 
politicians take it into account when dealing with the institute. But it 
would surely be a different matter if the ally concerned were a country 
such as Egypt, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
Apart from occasional lapses, such as the publication of Mr Kramer's book, 
the Washington Institute typically represents the considered, sober voice 
of American-Israeli conservatism.
The Middle East Forum is its strident voice - two different tones, but 
mostly the same people.
Three prominent figures from the Washington Institute - Robert Satloff 
(director of policy), Patrick Clawson (director of research) and Mr Rubin 
(prolific writer, currently at AEI) - also belong to the forum.
Daniel Pipes, the bearded $100,000-a-year head of the forum is listed as an 
"associate" at the institute, while Mr Kramer, editor of the forum's 
journal, is a "visiting fellow".
Mr Pipes became the bete noire of US Muslim organisations after writing an 
article for the National Review in 1990 that referred to "massive 
immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly 
maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene".
Since he usually complains vigorously when the words are quoted outside 
their original context, readers are invited to view the full article at 
www.danielpipes.org. He is also noted for his combative performances on the 
Fox News channel, where he has an interesting business relationship. Search 
for his name on the Fox News website and, along with transcripts of his TV 
interviews, an advert appears saying "Daniel Pipes is available thru Barber 
& Associates, America's leading resource for business, international and 
technology speakers since 1977".
The Middle East Forum issues two regular publications, the Middle East 
Quarterly and the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, the latter published 
jointly with the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon.
The Middle East Quarterly describes itself as "a bold, insightful, and 
controversial publication".
Among the insights in its latest issue is an article on weapons of mass 
destruction that says Syria "has more destructive capabilities" than Iraq, 
or Iran.
The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, which is sent out by email free of 
charge - but can never-the-less afford to pay its contributors - 
specialises in covering the seamy side of Lebanese and Syrian politics. The 
ever-active Mr Rubin is on its editorial board.
The Middle East Forum also targets universities through its campus speakers 
Bureau - that in adopting the line of Mr Kramer's book, seeks to correct 
"inaccurate Middle Eastern curricula in American education", by addressing 
"biases" and "basic errors" and providing "better information" than 
students can get from the many "irresponsible" professors that it believes 
lurk in US universities.
At a time when much of the world is confused by what it sees as an 
increasingly bizarre set of policies on the Middle East coming from 
Washington, to understand the neat little network outlined above may make 
such policies a little more explicable.
Of course these people and organisations are not the only ones trying to 
influence US policy on the Middle East. There are others who try to 
influence it too - in different directions.
However, this particular network is operating in a political climate that 
is currently especially receptive to its ideas.
It is also well funded by its anonymous benefactors and is well organised. 
Ideas sown by one element are watered and nurtured by the others.
Whatever outsiders may think about this, worldly-wise Americans see no 
cause for disquiet. It's just a coterie of like-minded chums going about 
their normal business, and an everyday story of political life in Washington.
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