Page 2 of 3
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.