Should American policy in the Middle East be shaped by a panel of accommodationists appointed by the State Department? Strange as it is, that's the question at the heart of the controversy over President Bush's nomination of Daniel Pipes to the United States Institute of Peace. To answer the question, one need only observe the pathos of the expert members of the State Department's Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, now traveling in the region, nodding their heads in appreciation as the dictator at Damascus, Bashar Al-Assad, complains that Middle Easterners "began to realize that the United States' policy in the Middle East doesn't embody freedom, equality or human rights which it calls for," as The New York Sun reported on Tuesday.
The panel reflects the State Department view on how to woo the Arab Middle East into a more positive relationship to all things American. To accuse its membership of bias misses the point.Of course they are biased.It is the nature of the beast. In this regard, the Bush administration is truly blessed. Not only does it have Steven P.Cohen of the Israel Policy Forum advising Foggy Bottom, it now has Mr. Pipes, a long-time critic of militant Islam, helping to shape the work of the Institute of Peace. I'd love to be a fly on the Oval Office wall when Mr. Bush weighs contradictory proposals from these sources, so thoroughly at loggerheads.
Mr. Pipes' nomination to the Institute has survived the attempts to deny him Senate confirmation, but his tenure will be shorter than had he received full confirmation. The real blow here, however, is to the Democrats, who appear to be pandering to the worst form of political correctness — with the pressure this time having been exerted by groups some of which support, or refuse to oppose, Islamic terrorism. These groups now boast of the limited success of their effort, which, they argue, forced the White House to retreat from the battle on Capitol Hill. Along the way, they maintain, they forged a wide array of coalitions and alliances with groups and political leaders across the spectrum.
The major argument against Mr. Pipes was that his allegedly anti-Islamic views rendered him unfit to serve in the pacific environs of the Institute of Peace.Mr.Pipes has defended himself and his record, but what is even more striking than the inaccuracy of the attacks on him is the assumption that controversial views are antithetical to the Institute's work. At the July 23 hearing in the Senate committee, Senator Kennedy said Mr. Pipes' record did not "reflect a commitment to bridging differences and preventing conflict," while Senator Harkin said the controversy could "overshadow" the institute's work. One wonders how the institute, little known until this controversy, could be more overshadowed than it already is.
The Harkin theme surfaced earlier, in, of all places, the Washington Jewish Week, in an editorial titled "Too controversial to resolve conflict." The Jewish newspaper "regretfully conclude[d]" that "While we appreciate Pipes' candor in speaking and writing against Muslim extremism — you see his column on our commentary pages from time to time — we fear that his confirmation will be detrimental to the Peace Institute.Such a controversial figure will become a lightning rod for criticism of any work the institute may do, detracting from what the institute is trying to accomplish."
This raises the question: What is the institute trying to accomplish?
According to its Web site, the United States Institute of Peace was created by Congress in 1984 "to promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts." Further: "The Institute meets its congressional mandate through an array of programs, including research grants, fellowships, professional training, education programs from high school through graduate school, conferences and workshops, library services, and publications."
The assumption that Mr. Pipes' orientation will undermine the credibility or effectiveness of the Institute's work relies on the notion that its work is conflict resolution at all costs, rather than on achieving the understanding that must precede any attempt to end conflict.It hardly seems likely that the will of Congress when it created the institute was to pack it with pacifists.
In fact, a recent Institute publication, "Islamist Politics in Iraq after Saddam Hussein," by a former intelligence operative, Graham Fuller, argues that Iran and Saudi Arabia are meddling in Iraqi affairs. From the perspective of Mr. Pipes's critics, Mr. Fuller could be seen not as attempting to resolve conflict but rather to whip up more anti-Islamic "hysteria."
Many of his critics, like the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, have attacked Mr. Pipes for allegedly "bashing ethnic and religious groups, and spreading fear and hatred." Why, wasn't it Mr. Pipes, or another war-mongering writer unfit for the Peace Institute, writing in the Los Angeles Times last week, blaming the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Iraq and the bus in Jerusalem on "paranoiac Islamism," which is also "behind the fact that out of 28 violent conflicts raging right now all over the globe — from Indonesia to Kashmir, from Sudan to Chechnya, from the Middle East to North Africa — 25 involve an Islamist faction"?
Paranoid Islamists are responsible for almost every violent conflict in the world today. Dr. Strangelove, I presume?
Actually, those lines were penned by the leading Israeli dove, Amos Oz. So put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.
