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Richard Perle's posse
Right-wing 'think' tanks dominate discourse
By Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange
If you've wondered how the folks
associated with right-wing think tanks have come to dominate
the public discourse on so many issues - most recently Middle
East policy - check out a recent investigative report by The
Guardian's Brian Whitaker.
Whitaker, ably connecting the
dots, discovers that a coterie of right-wing policy "experts"
have established a beachhead in our living rooms through an unending
series of appearances on talking-head television programs, an
onslaught on the op-ed pages of our newspapers, a series of "scholarly"
books on the Middle East and regular appearances on Capitol Hill
where they testify at Congressional hearings.
Whitaker focuses in on Richard
Perle's network, calling Perle "the leading advocate of
hardline policies at the Pentagon." Whitaker reveals a little-known
factoid about one of America's leading neoconservatives. Perle,
like several other well-connected beltway boys, has written a
"political thriller" called "Hard Line."
The book says Whitaker "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."
Perle currently plays a critical
advisory role to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by serving
as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which Time magazine
calls "the Secretary's private think tank in a building
where helmets often trump thinking caps."
Perle also runs Hollinger Digital,
described by Whitaker as "part of the group that publishes
the Daily Telegraph in Britain." Perle also attends board
meetings of the Jerusalem Post and is a resident fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Perle's Middle East crew
In what reads like a series of
biblical begets, Whitaker traces the lineage of Perle's pro-Israel/attack
Iraq network of Middle East "experts." The operation
appears to be run out of Perle's well-endowed offices at the
American Enterprise Institute:
"Mr Perle's close friend
and political ally at AEI is David Wurmser, head of its Middle
East studies department. Perle wrote the introduction to Mr.
Wurmser's book, '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 specialises in translating and distributing articles
that show Arabs in a bad light. She regards [leftwing Israeli
intellectuals] as a threat to Israel.
"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 [claims] that Iraq was behind the
1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
"Mr Perle hailed [the AEI-published
book] 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.
Think tanks in action
The stats are impressive. Since
the beginning of 2002, representatives from the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy have placed more than 65 articles - more
than two a week - covering a broad swath of Middle East issues
in dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites ranging from
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post,
and Los Angeles Times, to National Review Online, the Weekly
Standard and The New Republic. As Whitaker wryly notes, "Anyone
who has tried offering op-ed articles to a major newspaper will
appreciate the scale of this achievement."
At its website, the Middle East
Media Research Institute puts forward a list of articles citing
its research. Since mid-April, there are more than 100 such citations
in pieces written by folks like Frontpage Magazine's David Horowitz,
conservative columnists Jeff Jacoby and David Limbaugh, the Wall
Street Journal's James Taranto, and the Guardian's Brian Whitaker.
In mid-June, a heady David Tell of the Weekly Standard wrote:
"IF THERE WERE JUSTICE [Tell's caps] in the universe, the
Middle East Media Research Institute would already have been
awarded some kind of special-achievement Pulitzer Prize."
How do the opinions of ideologues
at these think tanks outweigh the more than 1,400 full-time faculty
members at American Universities that specialize in the Middle
East - 400-500 of which are experts on some aspect of contemporary
politics in the region? Juan Cole, professor of history at Michigan
University, who is a critic of the private institutes, told Whitaker:
"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. Academics [at universities]
are involved in analyzing what's going on but they're not advocates,
so they don't have the same impetus," he said. Cole was
kind enough not to add that many academics are not particularly
quick with the quip, nor are they especially adept at handling
the sharp rhetorical jabs of talk show hosts like Bill O'Reilly
or Chris Matthews.
'Money makes the world go
round'
Frequently, the power of these
influential conservative institutions turns on its ability to
raise money and attract large donors. And as Whitaker points
out, although "large donations given to non-profit, 'non-partisan'
organizations must be itemized" in their annual tax returns,
"the identity of donors does not need to be made public."
The American Enterprise Institute,
which deals with a number of issues other than the Middle East,
reported assets of $35.8 million and an income of $24.5 million
in its 2000 tax statement. (It received seven donations of $1
million or above in cash or shares, the highest being $3.35 million.)
The Middle East focused Washington
Institute had assets of $11.2 million and an income of $4.1 million
in 2000. Whitaker reports that "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." He also
points out that the Middle East Forum had an income of less than
$1.5 million in 2000, with the largest single donation amounting
to $355,000.
Finally, not satisfied with dominating
the political debate and relegating academics to the sidelines,
Whitaker reports that a post-September 11 campaign to discredit
Middle East academics is beginning to bear fruit. Martin Kramer,
of the Washington Institute, Middle East Forum and former director
of the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University wrote a book
called "Ivory Towers on Sand," which "criticized
Middle East departments of universities in the US."
And to lead us back to where
we started, Kramer's book was published by the Washington Institute.
The book was "warmly reviewed" in the Weekly Standard,
whose editor, William Kristol, was -need I say it - a member
of the Middle East Forum along with Kramer.
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Featured Publications Richard Perle's posse Right-wing 'think' tanks dominate discourse By Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange If you've wondered how the folks associated with right-wing think tanks have come to dominate the public discourse on so many issues - most recently Middle East policy - check out a recent investigative report by The Guardian's Brian Whitaker. Whitaker, ably connecting the dots, discovers that a coterie of right-wing policy "experts" have established a beachhead in our living rooms through an unending series of appearances on talking-head television programs, an onslaught on the op-ed pages of our newspapers, a series of "scholarly" books on the Middle East and regular appearances on Capitol Hill where they testify at Congressional hearings. Whitaker focuses in on Richard Perle's network, calling Perle "the leading advocate of hardline policies at the Pentagon." Whitaker reveals a little-known factoid about one of America's leading neoconservatives. Perle, like several other well-connected beltway boys, has written a "political thriller" called "Hard Line." The book says Whitaker "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." Perle currently plays a critical advisory role to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by serving as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which Time magazine calls "the Secretary's private think tank in a building where helmets often trump thinking caps." Perle also runs Hollinger Digital, described by Whitaker as "part of the group that publishes the Daily Telegraph in Britain." Perle also attends board meetings of the Jerusalem Post and is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Perle's Middle East crew In what reads like a series of biblical begets, Whitaker traces the lineage of Perle's pro-Israel/attack Iraq network of Middle East "experts." The operation appears to be run out of Perle's well-endowed offices at the American Enterprise Institute: "Mr Perle's close friend and political ally at AEI is David Wurmser, head of its Middle East studies department. Perle wrote the introduction to Mr. Wurmser's book, '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 specialises in translating and distributing articles that show Arabs in a bad light. She regards [leftwing Israeli intellectuals] as a threat to Israel. "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 [claims] that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. "Mr Perle hailed [the AEI-published book] 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. Think tanks in action The stats are impressive. Since the beginning of 2002, representatives from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have placed more than 65 articles - more than two a week - covering a broad swath of Middle East issues in dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites ranging from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, to National Review Online, the Weekly Standard and The New Republic. As Whitaker wryly notes, "Anyone who has tried offering op-ed articles to a major newspaper will appreciate the scale of this achievement." At its website, the Middle East Media Research Institute puts forward a list of articles citing its research. Since mid-April, there are more than 100 such citations in pieces written by folks like Frontpage Magazine's David Horowitz, conservative columnists Jeff Jacoby and David Limbaugh, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, and the Guardian's Brian Whitaker. In mid-June, a heady David Tell of the Weekly Standard wrote: "IF THERE WERE JUSTICE [Tell's caps] in the universe, the Middle East Media Research Institute would already have been awarded some kind of special-achievement Pulitzer Prize." How do the opinions of ideologues at these think tanks outweigh the more than 1,400 full-time faculty members at American Universities that specialize in the Middle East - 400-500 of which are experts on some aspect of contemporary politics in the region? Juan Cole, professor of history at Michigan University, who is a critic of the private institutes, told Whitaker: "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. Academics [at universities] are involved in analyzing what's going on but they're not advocates, so they don't have the same impetus," he said. Cole was kind enough not to add that many academics are not particularly quick with the quip, nor are they especially adept at handling the sharp rhetorical jabs of talk show hosts like Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews. 'Money makes the world go round' Frequently, the power of these influential conservative institutions turns on its ability to raise money and attract large donors. And as Whitaker points out, although "large donations given to non-profit, 'non-partisan' organizations must be itemized" in their annual tax returns, "the identity of donors does not need to be made public." The American Enterprise Institute, which deals with a number of issues other than the Middle East, reported assets of $35.8 million and an income of $24.5 million in its 2000 tax statement. (It received seven donations of $1 million or above in cash or shares, the highest being $3.35 million.) The Middle East focused Washington Institute had assets of $11.2 million and an income of $4.1 million in 2000. Whitaker reports that "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." He also points out that the Middle East Forum had an income of less than $1.5 million in 2000, with the largest single donation amounting to $355,000. Finally, not satisfied with dominating the political debate and relegating academics to the sidelines, Whitaker reports that a post-September 11 campaign to discredit Middle East academics is beginning to bear fruit. Martin Kramer, of the Washington Institute, Middle East Forum and former director of the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University wrote a book called "Ivory Towers on Sand," which "criticized Middle East departments of universities in the US." And to lead us back to where we started, Kramer's book was published by the Washington Institute. The book was "warmly reviewed" in the Weekly Standard, whose editor, William Kristol, was -need I say it - a member of the Middle East Forum along with Kramer. Home Page | Building the Global Village | Events Latest News | Featured Publications | Join Today | Fundraising |