Leading members of this neo-con umbrella organization joined the Bush administration at the beginning: Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Moreover, less well-known neo-con personalities were linked in an advisory role to the right-wing Likud party in Israel, now led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Not nearly enough attention has been given to the letter from the neo-cons to President Bush on September 20, 2001, urging that Iraq be a target in America's response to 9/11, even though, as the President himself recently reaffirmed, there was no connection between the events of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's government -- and even though only the slimmest of ties has been established between al Qaeda and Baghdad.
Here is a portion of the text:
Dear Mr. President,
We write to endorse your admirable commitment to "lead the world to victory" in the war against terrorism. We fully support your call for "a broad and sustained campaign" against the "terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them." . . . We agree with the Secretary of State that US policy must aim not only at finding the people responsible for this incident, but must also target those "other groups out there that mean us no good" and "that have conducted attacks previously against US personnel, US interests and our allies." In order to carry out this "first war of the 21st century" successfully, and in order, as you have said, to do future "generations a favor by coming together and whipping terrorism," we believe the following steps are necessary parts of a comprehensive strategy. . . .We agree with Secretary of State Powell's recent statement that Saddam Hussein "is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth...." It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition [led by Ahmed Chalabi]. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means. . . .We believe the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism. . . .Israel has been and remains America's staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. . . . Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight.
SIGNED(by among others): William Kristol, Richard Allen, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Eliot Cohen, Midge Decter, Thomas Donnelly, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, John Lehman, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, William Schneider, Jr., Leon Wieseltier.
Flash forward to the present, two years later. Richard Perle is the deposed chairman, due to egregious conflicts of business and government interests, but still a member of the Defense Policy Board that is privy to the most sensitive national security secrets of the government. He was a consistent advocate of the pre-emptive American attack upon Iraq and subsequent occupation, and is one of the most outfront spokesmen for the administration's Iraqi policies. He was also one of the prime sponsors of the Iraqi National Congress leader, Chalabi, helping to insure that he become the Pentagon's favorite candidate to rule Iraq; and Perle constantly touted the tainted information supplied by defectors through the INC. As The Guardian's Brian Whitaker has reported, Perle is surrounded by a coterie of like-minded individuals in a network of Middle East experts who share his neo-conservative outlook and who show up as "talking heads" on US television, in newspapers, books, testimony before congressional committees, and at lunchtime gatherings in Washington. The network centers on research institutes -- "think tanks" -- 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 -- Perle is "resident fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the forum of choice for Vice President Cheney's closed "public" appearances at which he delivers unchallenged, blatantly false assessments of the campaign in Iraq.
Perle's close friend at AEI is David Wurmser, head of the Middle East studies department, and author of Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein. 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 specializes 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. Ms. Wurmser also runs the Middle East section at another think tank, the Hudson Institute.
Another Middle East scholar at AEI is Laurie Mylroie, author of Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, which expounds the unsubstantiated theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. An earlier book on Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, was co-authored by Mylroie with Judith Miller, a New York Times journalist who has become a regular conduit of disinformation on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on the front pages of her newspaper, often sourced by Chalabi's defectors.
Perle, Wurmser, Mylroie and Miller are all clients of Eleana Benador, who acts as a sort of theatrical agent for experts on the Middle East and terrorism, organizing their TV appearances and paid speaking engagements. Of the 28 clients on Benador's books, at least nine are connected with the AEI, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum.
Although these three privately funded organizations promote views from only one end of the political spectrum, the amount of exposure they get with their books, articles and TV appearances is extraordinary. This media attention is not for want of other experts in the field, as American universities have about 1,400 full-time faculty members specializing in the Middle East.
However, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum, apart from influencing policy on the Middle East, recently launched a campaign to discredit university departments that specialize in the region. After September 11, when various government agencies realized 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 Middle East Forum had other ideas. He produced a vitriolic book Ivory Towers on Sand, which criticized Middle East departments of American universities.
The Washington Institute makes no secret of its extensive links with Israel, often including the presence of scholars from the Israeli armed forces. The connection is so well known that officials and politicians take it into account when dealing with the institute. The Washington Institute typically represents the voice of American-Israeli conservatism. The Middle East Forum is the more strident voice, especially in dishing out anti-Muslim diatribes. The leader of the latter, Daniel Pipes, is noted for his combative performances on the Fox News channel.
The Middle East Forum issues the Middle East Quarterly, which describes itself as "a bold, insightful, and controversial publication." Among the "insights" in a recent issue is an article on weapons of mass destruction that says Syria "has more destructive capabilities" than Iraq or Iran. Guess from which corner the loudest calls for a US strike on Syria are coming?
At a time when much of the world is confused by what it sees as an increasingly bizarre set of Middle East policies coming out of Washington -- the "road map," for instance, was and is a ruse -- to understand the cozy network outlined above helps to make such policies more explicable. It is well funded by its anonymous benefactors and is well organized. Ideas sown by one element are nurtured by the others.
Of course these people and organizations aren't the only ones trying to influence American Middle East policy; there are others who try to influence it in different directions. However, this particular neo-con network is operating in a political climate that is especially receptive to its ideas. No American administration, Democrat or Republican, has ever deferred to any Israeli government, of whatever party, to the extent that the Bush White House has pledged its troth to the Likud government. Sharon has become a master at feeding Bush's own lines on terrorism back to him as justification for a most brutal form of Israeli colonialism.
This neo-conservative cabal has now become a staple of everyday political life in George Bush's Washington. One well-earned satirical description of a "neo-con" reads as follows: "I bought this fantastic-looking timeshare in the Middle East. The brochure said it had 24-hour hot and cold running water, a state-of-the-art security system, effective local government, and warm and welcoming locals. Of course, it turned out to be a neo-con and now I'm stuck with it."
William E. Jackson is former Executive Director of President Jimmy Carter's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control; chief legislative assistant to the US Senate Democratic Whip; guest scholar at the Brookings Institution; and senior fellow at the Fulbright Institute of International Relations.