IRmep Think Tank Watch

IRmep closely monitors powerful think tanks active in Middle East policy formulation and lobbying.  Key areas of IRmep concern include think tank funding concentration, funding from military contractors, embedded ties to lobbying organizations, compromised research agendas and behind-the-scenes policy promotion efforts.  The following research notes, analysis, and multi-media presentations dive behind the formidable think tank facade to reveal little known conflicts of interests and realities that jeopardize US policy, credibility, and human lives in the Middle East.   

AIPAC and its associated think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), were instrumental in lobbying the president for the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit early in 2004. The Israel lobby also vetted Stuart Levey who President Bush approved to lead the new unit. TFI claims to be "safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats." However its actions�and more important, inactions�reveal it to be a sharp-edged tool forged principally to serve the Israel lobby.  

TFI has taken no actions to undercut one nexus of money laundering in the Middle East unveiled in 2005 by Israeli prosecutor Talia Sasson and exposed by USA Today. Even mainstream print outlets such as Reuters continue to wonder aloud why US tax exemptions are offered for illegal overseas activities. Although Stuart Levey has made multiple official visits to Jerusalem to liaise with Israeli government officials, when formally asked under a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal how TFI was tackling the reported $50-$60 billion laundered from the US through Israel and into illegal West Bank settlements, TFI politely demurred. (PDF)  TFI claims that Levey's US-taxpayer-funded missions to Israel must be kept secret from the American public in order to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, which ironically is an anti-money-laundering law. This is not to say that TFI is a black box to everyone. Invited guests and members of WINEP have received many intimate briefings from TFI officials and consultants�possibly more than the entire US Congress.   More

"As I've had occasion to note over the past few years, Dubai is home to billions of mullahdollars, and the black market through which all manner of illegal arms shipments and money-being-laundered have passed." Michael Ledeen, AEI

"Critics claim that the UAE recognized the Taliban, and al Qaeda used it in 9/11 preparations. " Peter Brookes Heritage Foundation

"From the very beginning in the 1970s, the UAE has been a key source of financial support for Saudi-controlled organizations like the Islamic Solidarity Fund, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB)" Alex Alexiev, CSP

Among Neoconservatives, the debate is no longer whether to scuttle the sale, it's whether disinformation or bigotry will do the best job.  Oddly enough, DP World's record of investing in underdeveloped ports from Yemen to Romania has played a vital role in kick-starting moribund economies with desperately needed foreign direct investment.  Neocons should hail DP World's role as an example of how to fight terrorism, conflict and desperation through economic development.  Instead, pundits from Michael Ledeen to Alex Alexiev have reached into the mud...more.

Frum, and the American Enterprise Institute where he resides, are losing their edge.  By screeching platitudes and slogans instead of facing up to the numbers, AEI studies and  analysis endlessly recirculated through the mainstream media are losing any veneer of credibility they may have formerly enjoyed.  Real "American Enterprise" is a "by-the- numbers" operation.  If Frum doesn't have the stomach to face reality and crunch the numbers, he should go back to forging clever marketing slogans to tout monumentally bad policy initiatives.  Not that Americans will be listening a second time around.

"The Forum is starting “Islamist Watch” to combat and marginalize non-violent extremists.
It focuses on legal activities by Islamists in the United States and (to a lesser degree) in
Western Europe, Canada, and Australia. Islamist Watch's goal is the delegitimation of
Islamists through exposure of their activities and goals. Our aim is have them shunned
by government, the media, religious institutions, the academy, and the corporate world."
-Daniel Pipes - 6/2/2005

AEI: US should use "Hard Power" to Curb Wahhabi Texts

WASHINGTON, 16 February 2005--The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is troubled by Wahhabi texts distributed to US Mosques that are subsidized by the Saudi government.  An expert panel convened at 4PM in the Wohlstetter Conference Center in downtown Washington DC before a packed crowd of lobbyists, military consultants and interested members of the public. 

The conference title was as provocative as the public persona of Danielle Pletka, the conference chair.  "Saudi Government Propaganda in the United States: Avowed Ally or Secret Enemy" presented findings from the Freedom House study titled "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques".  Short on quantitative and statistical analysis, the study provided rich fodder for panelists to outline a new threat they feel is descending upon America:  "Hate ideology" texts distributed by the Saudi government.

James Woolsey, former CIA director now Head of Freedom House and director of consulting firm Booz Allen in Virginia attempted to describe the impact of Wahhabi Islamic texts in a way pious Christians could understand.  It would be the equivalent of the US government modifying the Lord's Prayer to read "Give us this day, our daily bread, except for Muslims" and distributing printed copies to churches across the globe, stated Woolsey theatrically.  

Nina Shea from the Center for Religious Freedom admitted that the study did not attempt to "assess the impact" of religious texts in American mosques.  She then proceeded to read a laundry list of extracts from Saudi subsidized texts warning Muslims not to take citizenship in the US, to reject the ways of "infidels" and then excoriated the hubris of self-appointed religious Saudi Wahhabi authorities ruling on proper ways of Muslims.

Hedieh Mirahmadi, now an AEI scholar, reclaimed her past Muslim credentials as having raised money for Islamic charities before proceeding.   Her most damning assertion was that the Wahhabi texts distributed to US mosques were a "crude manipulation of text, designed to exert control over otherwise diverse" and peaceful populations.  Her final recommendation was the most hawkish of all the panel: The US should use "hard power" to confront the Saudi ruling family which should then somehow "undo" years of "propagandizing" in the US and around the world.

Some members of the audience posing questions to the panel objected to the "MEMRI" approach of the research.  There was no statistical sample, and no quantitative data.  The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in Washington, DC practically invented the game of selective retrieval, whereby after sifting mountains of data, objectionable texts can be extracted and translated to place their authors in the worst possible light.  Others were perplexed by the lack of any sort of damage assessment.  If the alleged "hate literature" distribution has been going on for decades in America, what were all of the negative consequences?  The panel was unable to provide answers.

One conclusion is perfectly clear to students of religion.  All religions are structured to diminish outsiders and build a spirit of community through exclusivity.   Perhaps the varied groups congealing around AEI's conference weren't really interested in the role of religion, or much offended about content Saudi Arabia distributes to American mosques.  Otherwise they'd have been on the record going after the nefarious "gangsta" rappers plying the US airwaves and audio CDs with lyrical tales of running drugs, prostitution, and shooting police.  That music genre is a hundred million dollar revenue generator in the US and far more prevalent than any groups' religious texts.  

The motives lurking beneath the calm waters at AEI are perhaps more nefarious.  Is Woolsey and the AEI crew now assembling an "Arabian National Congress" to liberate Saudi Arabia of "Weapons of Misleading Deities? (WMD)?"  Only time and American credulity will tell.

Top tier policy think tanks formulating and advocating Middle East policy directly influence US defense spending, future theatres of conflict, and the profits of defense contractors.  As merchandise exports to the Middle East plunge, high technology and other fruits of US industry increasingly enter the market atop precision guided munitions, unwanted by the market, and paid for by US taxpayers.

Key pundits such as Richard Perle wax rhapsodic with specific technical details and defense spending recommendations. Yet the question of how much think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) receive from defense contractors remains a highly classified figure.  It remained elusive even when a key defense industry donor and the President of AEI  were questioned directly by IRmep at an AEI policy event covered live on C-Span.

IRmep: "...In the interest of disclosure, and allaying these fears to the American people now, when defense purchases are so critical, could you give us an idea, and this is as much for the AEI people as you, how much of the policy research telling us who we should shoot at and what we should shoot at them with, particularly produced by Mr. Perle, how much of this AEI policy research is being funded by the defense industry?

Ron Sugar, CEO Northrop Grumman: ...I don't know the specific numbers....." Full Transcript

ON Tuesday, August 19, 2003 at 11:00 AM, Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution participated in an online chat with the Washington Post. IRmep, which has published a great deal lately about American think tanks in general and Middle East think tanks in particular, was not invited, but provides annotated comments to our readers that help explain the crisis of credibility now engulfing Brookings and other formerly vaunted American think tanks.

Exhibit 1 Citations of Think Tanks in Media
(Source: FAIR and IRmep 2003)

Iowa: Any thoughts on the breaking news out of Baghdad? What are your thoughts on the administration's policies in Iraq?

Strobe Talbott: The continuing violence, including today's and the earlier bombing of the pipeline, shows that while Saddam is down (and let's hope out) and Iraqis are vastly freer than they've been for decades, there is a nasty guerrilla war of attrition underway. I refer you to the day-in-and-day-out good work being done by our Saban Center for Middle East Policy, which has really dominated the think tank world's commentary and analysis on Iraq. You'll see in the Center's work some big-picture explanations of why the post-war has been in some ways more difficult than the war itself. A crucial question is whether the Bush administration, having gone into Iraq without the UN, will now be able to bring the UN -- and key regional countries like India -- into the stabilization and reconstruction phase now underway.

IRmep: The Saban Center for Middle East Policy is a microcosm for everything that is wrong with most U.S. Middle East policy think tanks. The Center was created by a $13 million dollar contribution from a single donor, Fox Television executive Haim Saban to "promote effective US policies in the Middle East".  Saban also funded a center for the study of the American political system in Israel.

The Saban Center would not even qualify for non-profit status were it not connected with the larger Brookings Institution. The center is directed by Martin Indyk, a former AIPAC lobbyist who both obtained U.S. citizenship and was later stripped of security clearances under highly questionable circumstances. If the fate of American influence in the Middle East depends on thinking from centers like Saban, we are in very deep trouble.

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Exhibit 1: Funding Concentration: Top Three Donors
(Internal Revenue Service and IRmep 2003)

IRmep has identified three core failures of America's foreign policy think tanks: research funding that is too highly concentrated, lack of peer review by credible, knowledgeable and independent outsiders; and highly reactive, tactically driven research agendas with little strategic focus. Adequately addressing these shortcomings will improve the quality of think tank research and contribute to future US foreign policy success in the region.

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