Flirting with Fascism
Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right
Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,
Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.
This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for "the democratic revolution" and "creative destruction." In 1996, he gave an extended account of his theory of revolution in his book, Freedom Betrayed — the title, one assumes, is a deliberate reference to Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed. Ledeen explains that "America is a revolutionary force" because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, "[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up. … We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. … We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues." Denouncing Bill Clinton as a "counter-revolutionary" (!), Ledeen is especially eager to make one point: "Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition."
Ledeen's conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because "De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement." What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans "solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists." "It seems more plausible," Ledeen argued, "to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people." For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was "the Revolution of the 20th century."
Although many Americans had not heard of Michael Ledeen, a May 9, 2003, Pacific News Service article reported that Ledeen is one of President George W. Bush's "most agressive foreign policymakers."
Ledeen is "a former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. As a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane, he was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair -- an adventure that he documented in the book Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair. His most influential book is last year's [2002] The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win.
"Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld and Paul Dundes Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that existed before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq."
Ledeen also has called for "regime change beyond Iraq" and believes that it is also "time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon.'
"With a group of other conservatives, Ledeen recently [2003] set up the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran.
"Quotes from Ledeen's works reveal a peculiar set of beliefs about American attitudes toward violence. 'Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history,' he proclaims in his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. In an influential essay in the National Review Online [4] he asserts, 'Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution.'
"Ledeen has become the driving philosophical force behind the neoconservative movement and the military actions it has spawned. His 1996 book, Freedom Betrayed; How the United States Led a Global Domocratic Revolution, Won the Cold War, and Walked Away, reveals the basic neoconservative obsession: the United States never 'won' the Cold War; the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight without a shot being fired. Had the United States truly won, democratic institutions would be sprouting everywhere the threat of Communism had been rife.
"Consequently, Ledeen has excoriated both the State Department and the United Nations for their preference for diplomatic solutions to conflict; and the CIA for equivocating on evidence that would condemn 'America's enemies' and justify militant action.
"'No one I know wants to wage war on Iran and Syria, but I believe there is now a clear recognition that we must defend ourselves against them,' Ledeen wrote on May 6 in the Toronto Globe and Mail.
"Though he appears on conservative outlets like the Fox television network, Ledeen has not been singled out for much media attention by the Bush administration, despite his extensive influence in Washington. His views may be perceived as too extreme for most Americans, who prefer to think of the United States as pursuing violence only when attacked and manifesting primarily altruistic goals toward other nations."
Who is Michael Ledeen?
Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq. In an address entitled "Time to Focus on Iran -- The Mother of Modern Terrorism," for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, "the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."
With a group of other conservatives, Ledeen recently set up the Center for Democracy in Iran (CDI), an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran.
Quotes from Ledeen's works reveal a peculiar set of beliefs about American attitudes toward violence. "Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history," he proclaims in his book, "Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago." In an influential essay in the National Review Online he asserts, "Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution."
Ledeen has become the driving philosophical force behind the neoconservative movement and the military actions it has spawned. His 1996 book, "Freedom Betrayed; How the United States Led a Global Democratic Revolution, Won the Cold War, and Walked Away," reveals the basic neoconservative obsession: the United States never "won" the Cold War; the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight without a shot being fired. Had the United States truly won, democratic institutions would be sprouting everywhere the threat of Communism had been rife.
Iraq, Iran and Syria are the first and foremost nations where this should happen, according to Ledeen. The process by which this should be achieved is a violent one, termed "total war," a concept pioneered by the 19th century Prussian general, Karl von Clausewitz in his classic book "On War."
Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen
Ian Masters, host of Background Briefing, in Los Angeles, interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of Counterterrorism operations at the CIA. Cannistraro came close to naming the man who forged the Niger documents. When Masters asked, "If I said 'Michael Ledeen'?" Vincent Cannistraro replied, "You'd be very close."
Who is Michael Ledeen? Or perhaps more importantly, what does he believe? Here are just a few quotes from his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. (Truman Talley Books (St. Martin's Press), 1999.) Ledeen wrote:
"When Jimmy Carter was president, he was so appalled by the assassinations that had been carried out by American officers and agents that he issued a stern executive order forbidding the practice. This had the unanticipated consequence of favoring the forces of evil, because we could not go after individual terrorists….In his moralistic attempt to make murder less likely, Carter made it more likely, by both our enemies and ourselves." (pp. 94-95)
"There are several circumstances in which good leaders are likely to have to enter into evil: whenever the very existence of the nation is threatened; when the state is first created or revolutionary change is to be accomplished; when removing an evil tyrant; and when the society becomes corrupt and must be restored to virtue…Saving a state that has sunk into corruption is Machiavelli's most passionate concern…" (pp. 101-102)
"Moses created a new state and a new religion, which makes him one of the most revolutionary leaders of all time…The execution of the sinners was necessary to confirm Moses' authority." (pp. 102-103)
"The winning formula is threefold: good laws, good arms, good religion. We are back to Moses." (p. 111)
"Good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God. Like Moses, Machiavelli wants the law of his state to be seen, and therefore obeyed, as divinely ordered. The combination of fear of God and fear of punishment—duly carried out with good arms—provides the necessary discipline for good government."(pp. 117-118)
"American evangelical Christianity is the sort of 'good religion' Machiavelli calls for. The evangelicals do not quietly accept their destiny, believing instead they are called upon to fight corruption and reestablish virtue." (p. 159)
"Once corruption has taken hold of a free nation, it is headed toward tyranny." (p. 172)
Notice that in the next quote, Ledeen's presupposition is that only liberals are "corrupt." He criticized Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996 for refusing to attack Bill Clinton's character during the campaign.
"Refusing to hold public officials accountable for their corrupt practices reinforces the people's perception that turpitude and power are inextricably linked, and undermines even the best laws and institutions. Inevitably, with the passage of time, liberty itself is crushed." (p. 173)
"Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader—a dictator—willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures, which few know how, or are willing, to employ.' (p. 173)
"Machiavelli…has not lost his democratic faith. His call for a brief period of iron rule is a choice of the lesser of two evils: if the corruption continued, a real tyranny would be just a matter of time (making it even harder to restore free institutions), whereas freedom can be preserved if a good man can be found to put the state back in order. Just as it is sometimes necessary temporarily to resort to evil actions to achieve worthy objectives, so a period of dictatorship is sometimes the only hope for freedom." (p. 174)
"Machiavelli's favorite hero…Moses exercised dictatorial power, but that awesome power was used to create freedom." (p. 174)
"We should not be outraged by Machiavelli's call for a temporary dictatorship as an effective means to either revivify or restore freedom." (p. 174)
Speaking of Germany following W.W. II, Ledeen wrote:
"We 'denazified' the country, hung many of the major leaders of the Third Reich, and forced all adults to answer detailed questionnaires about their activities and associations during Hitler's rule." We barred from positions of power and civic influence those who had actively participated in the Nazi regime." (p. 175)
It would be foolish for America's political strategists and congressional leaders to ignore Michael Ledeen and his interpretation of Machiavelli. Mr. Ledeen speaks from the cutting edge of a group of men and women who desire nothing more than to reconstruct America in their own image. This nation is in grave danger. Ledeen belongs to a group of men, including Harry Jaffa, Pat Robertson, Willmoore Kendall to Allan Bloom, who, according to Shadia Drury, scholar and author of Leo Strauss and the American Right, share "the view that America is too liberal and pluralistic and that what it needs is a single orthodoxy that governs the public and private lives of its citizens."[1]
The belief in a single voice that governs the public should cause all Americans to understand these men want to convert this nation to a permanent dictatorship. Their inspirer was Leo Strauss, a professor who taught Machiavellian methods to many of them at the University of Chicago. In fact, Paul Wolfovitz earned his doctorate under Strauss and many of the neo-cons in the White House studied under him. Strauss believed every society needs a "single public orthodoxy." As Drury put it, "a set of ideas that defines what is true and false, right and wrong, noble and base." Strauss believed that the role of religion was indispensable to the political success of a nation. For a political society had to hold together and act as a unit in lock step with the leader. Strauss believed that religion was the means to inculcate the desired ideas into the minds of the masses. He didn't care what religion—just as long as it was a religion that could link itself to the political order.
An outspoken proponent of taking military action against Iran, which he calls "the mother of modern terrorism," Ledeen has made a career of popularizing alarmist and often misleading charges about terrorism threats dating back to the late 1970s, when he served as a consultant to the Italian military intelligence. He went onto become a consultant and special adviser for the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan. From this perch, Ledeen championed the idea, initially promoted in Claire Sterling's 1981 best-selling book The Terror Network, that Moscow was behind worldwide terrorism acts, including the discredited allegation that the KGB helped orchestrate the 1981 assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II (Inter Press Service, June 26, 2003).
Ledeen's views at the time, however, conflicted with those of the CIA, which contended that Moscow had little or nothing to do with the global "terror network." Said Ledeen in an interview for the 2005 BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares: "The CIA denied it. They tried to convince people that we were really crazy. I mean, they never believed that the Soviet Union was a driving force in the international terror network. They always wanted to believe that terrorist organizations were just what they said they were: local groups trying to avenge terrible evils done to them, or trying to rectify terrible social conditions, and things like that."
Responding to Ledeen's claims in the BBC documentary, Melvin Goodman, an intelligence scholar who served as head of Soviet affairs at the CIA at that time, said: "When we looked through the book [The Terror Network], we found very clear episodes where CIA black propaganda—clandestine information that was designed under a covert action plan to be planted in European newspapers—were picked up and put in this book. A lot of it was made up. It was made up out of whole cloth."
Since 9/11, Ledeen has focused his ideas on global terrorism on the Middle East, arguing that "Islamofascists" in countries like Iran are heading a new terror network. In his 2002 book The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen writes: "The main part of the [war on terrorism]—the campaign against terror masters who rule countries hostile to us—is a very old kind of war. It is a revolutionary war, right out of the 18th century, the very kind of war that gave our national identity. While we will have to act against secret terrorist organizations and kamikaze fighters, our ultimate targets are tyrannical regimes. We will require different strategies in each case. We will need one method and set of tools to bring down Saddam Hussein, another strategy to break the Assad family dictatorship in Syria, a very different approach to end the religious tyranny in Iran, and yet another to deal with Saudi Arabia's active support for fundamentalist Islam and the terror network. But the mission is the same in each case: Bring down the terror masters" (p. xxii).
Ledeen repeated this motif in a March 2003 BBC interview, during which he claimed: "As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network. Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are the big four, and then there's Libya." He added: "You can't solve all problems, I grant that. I mean, I wrote a book about Machiavelli, and I know the struggle against evil is going to go forever" (quoted in Inter Press Service, June 26, 2003).
To promote his vision of the war on terror, Ledeen has supported a passel of letterhead groups that, since 9/11, have emerged to promote toppling various regimes in the Middle East. Together with Morris Amitay, a former lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Ledeen created in 2003 the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), which until it disbanded in 2005 supported regime-change efforts in Iran and pushed a number of legislative proposals aimed at isolating it. Among CDI's influential members and supporters were Frank Gaffney, head of the hardline Center for Security Policy; Joshua Muravchik, a Ledeen colleague at AEI who has been an important shaper of the neoconservative agenda; and former CIA director James Woolsey, a promoter of the notion that the war on terror is really World War IV.
Ledeen has been a supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, an organization created by U.S.-based Lebanese banker Ziad Abdelnour that has pushed a hardline stance on Syria. He has also served on the board of advisers of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which promotes a Likud Party-line on Middle East peace issues, in part by building contacts between military officers in Israel and the United States.
Ledeen has often been invited to share his views with Congress. In March 2006, Ledeen testified before the House Committee on International Relations, recommending a policy of regime change and revolution in Iran. He argued that the U.S. government has "yet to fight back" against the so-called terror masters there, who he argued "have waged unholy war against us" since 1979. "They created Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, and they support most all the others, from Hamas and al-Qaida to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command. Iran's proxies range from Shiites to Sunnis to Marxists, all cannon fodder for the overriding objective to dominate or destroy us. ... I am opposed to sanctions; I am generally opposed to military strikes, and I fully endorse support for revolution." He added: "The first step in crafting a suitable policy toward Iran is to abandon the pretense that we can arrive at a negotiated settlement."
[ ... ]
He has also repeatedly been accused of having double standards. At the same time he was a consultant to Italian military intelligence on terrorism issues in the late 1970s, Ledeen was allegedly tied to the Italian P2 Masonic Lodge, a violent right-wing group involved in terrorist attacks in Italy in the 1970s and 80s. As a consultant to the National Security Council in the 1980s, Ledeen acted as a go-between for Oliver North in the early stages of the Iran-Contra affair, working with the Israeli spy David Kimche to gain the release of U.S. hostages in Beirut through an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar. According to congressional testimony by then-National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Ledeen introduced the original Israeli proposal to trade arms for hostages that led to the scandal. (For more on Ledeen's track record, see Jim Lobe, "Veteran Neocon Adviser Moves on Iran," Asia Times, June 26, 2003; and Anthony Gancarski, "Michael Ledeen on the Run," Antiwar.com, August 22, 2003.)
According to press reports, Ledeen allegedly tried to revive the Ghorbanifar connection in support of the war on terror. The Sydney Morning Herald reported (August 9, 2003) that Ledeen worked with Pentagon staffers to redevelop the channel to arms dealer Ghorbanifar in support of resistance efforts in Iran. Reported the Herald: "[Harold] Rhode recently acted as a liaison between [Douglas] Feith's office, which drafted much of the administration's post-Iraq planning, and Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile groomed for leadership by the Pentagon. Mr. Rhode is a protégé of Michael Ledeen, who was a National Security Council consultant in the mid-1980s when he introduced Mr. Ghorbanifar to Oliver North, a NSC aide, and others in the opening stages of the Iran-Contra affair. It is understood Mr. Ledeen reopened the Ghorbanifar channel with Mr. Feith's staff."
Faster, Please! The weblog of Michael Ledeen
The Continuing Iran-American War
Iran, then, is the common denominator of recent events in Iraq: the mullahs organized the rocket attacks in Baghdad, they have supported al Qaeda in Iraq from the beginning, and they have a major role in the activities of the Shi'ite militias. It is going to be very difficult, indeed virtually impossible, to achieve durable security in Iraq without forcing an end to Iran's many murderous activities there. That is the bottom line of the events of the past two weeks, and it is very good news that the Iranians were soundly defeated in several cities, from Basra to Baghdad. It is also good news to see that, once it was clear that their proxies were being decimated, they quickly cut and ran. That was evident from Moqtadah's constant flip-flops in his propaganda on behalf of the mullahs. One day, he was proclaiming an extention of the cease-fire. A few days later, he was calling for armed "resistance." Barely twenty-four hours afterwards, he was suing for peace. It was also evident from the Iranian regime's urgent talks with the Iraqi government; Khamenei wanted to pose as a peacemaker, in his usual mafia method of first attacking, then offering security.
The current "peace agreement" is worthless; it will last only until the next time the mullahs feel strong enough to launch another assault. General Petraeus knows that, and he dramatically underlined his conviction that the mullahs will violate any agreement that would prevent new terrorist attacks. He is surely right; the survival of the Tehran regime is threatened by progress in Iraq towards greater tranquility and government accountability to its electorate. The mullahs know that the Iranian people want a free choice, and, if permitted to make that choice, would throw out the current regime in favor of a more tolerant government that would end its support for terrorism throughout the region. No offers from Secretary of State Rice, and no negotiations from this or any future president, can change those realities, and the mullahs are unlikely to honor any agreement that would constitute an admission of defeat in Iraq and threaten their hegemony in Iran.
I think General Petraeus is trying to force the Bush Administration to recognize these hard facts and act accordingly. He is saying that we cannot accomplish our objectives in Iraq without challenging the regime in Tehran. This does not necessarily entail an expansion of the war. I know of no high-ranking military officer or civilian official who favors a military assault on Iran (or on its strategic ally, Syria), and there are many things we can do to make the mullahs and their friends pay a steep price for attacking our people in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well. These range from operations against the terrorist training facilities and assembly plants for rockets and mines in Iran and Syria (acts of legitimate self defense) to active support for the broad-based Iranian democratic movement, which is supported by a big majority of the citizens.
Micael Ledeen - Wikipedia
Academic and political career
Ledeen holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he specialized in Modern Europe. At Washington University, Ledeen was denied tenure, according to history department faculty interviewed by the Washington Post, because of questions regarding the "quality of his scholarship" and about whether Ledeen had "used the work of somebody else without proper credit". One faculty member said "the 'quasi-irregularity' at issue didn't warrant the negative vote on tenure for Ledeen".[1]
Ledeen was subsequently named Visiting Professor at the University of Rome. One of Ledeen's principal mentors was the Jewish German-born historian George Mosse, for whom he was research assistant at the time. Mosse wrote two famous books on National Socialism. Another major influence on Ledeen was the Italian historian Renzo De Felice. Ledeen held political views which stress "the urgency of combating centralized state power and the centrality of human freedom"[2] that are said to have influenced or inspired the Bush administration.
Earlier in his career, Ledeen authored Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928-1936, published in 1972 and now out of print. The book, which was his doctoral dissertation, was the first work to explore Mussolini's efforts to create a Fascist international in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Ledeen follows Italian historian Renzo de Felice in drawing a distinction between "fascism-regime" and "fascism-movement", and seems to approve of at least one aspect of the latter, saying "fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country", and describing the fascist state as "a generator of energy and creativity".[3] Ledeen continued his studies in Italian Fascism with a biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio, who Ledeen argued was the proto-type for Benito Mussolini.
Ledeen is a strong admirer of Niccolò Machiavelli, whom he regards as one of the greatest political thinkers. In Ledeen's view, Machiavelli combined democratic idealism and the necessary political realism to secure and defend idealism in perfect measure. It should be noted that the Machiavelli that Ledeen admires is the more the author of the Discourses on Livy than the author of The Prince[cite this quote].
In 1980, in the period leading up to the U.S. presidential elections, Ledeen, along with Arnaud de Borchgrave, wrote a series of articles published in The New Republic[4] and elsewhere about Billy Carter's contacts with the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime in Libya.
Italy
Ledeen has been accused of associations with shady organizations. For example, Jim Lobe has stated that "Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections — including alleged ties to the P2 masonic lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s — have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as 'anti-terrorism' advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig."[5] While he acknowledges being paid by the SISMI in 1980 for "risk assessment",[1] Ledeen denies any connections with Licio Gelli's masonic lodge. Ledeen told Vanity Fair that he had been paid $10,000 by the SISMI in 1979 or 1980 for advising them on extradition matters between Italy and the US.[6] He denied having worked with [Francesco] Pazienza or Propaganda Due as part of a disinformation scheme. "I knew Pazienza," he explained. "I didn't think P-2 existed. I thought it was all nonsense — typical Italian fantasy."[6] Pazienza, while at SISMI, did help Ledeen obtaining a tape confirming information on "Billygate."[7]
It was during this time in Italy that Ledeen supported the "Bulgarian connection" conspiracy theory concerning Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca's 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II. The theory has since been attacked by various authors and journalists, including Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who initially believed the story. The theory was adopted in 2005 by the Italian Mitrokhin Commission. A competing theory points toward Gladio, a NATO network believed to have supported the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves and the strategy of tension in Italy, which had been supported by Gladio and SISMI agents. Gladio stay-behind networks directly responded to SACEUR. According to Craig Unger, "With Ronald Reagan newly installed in the White House, the so-called Bulgarian Connection made perfect Cold War propaganda. Michael Ledeen was one of its most vocal proponents, promoting it on TV and in newspapers all over the world."[6]
Consultant on terrorism
In the early 1980s, Ledeen appeared before the newly established Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, alongside former CIA director William Colby, author Claire Sterling and former Newsweek editor Arnaud de Borchgrave. Both Ledeen and de Borchgrave worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University at the time.[8] All four testified that they believed the Soviet Union had provided for material support, training and inspiration for various terrorist groupings.[9]
Michael Ledeen was a strong proponent of the theories in the book The Terror Network written by Claire Sterling that held that the USSR was the source of much of the international terrorism in the world.
Several CIA officials such as former head of Soviet affairs Melvin Goodman dismissed Sterling's book, claiming that she based her allegations from items planted in European newspapers as part of a CIA black propaganda campaign.[10]
However after the fall of the Soviet Union, several former Russian officials have acknowledged some state sponsored terrorism. Former Russian Vice Premier Sergei Shakhrai released documents in 1992 that detailed Soviet sponsorship of terrorism, against American and Israeli targets during the late 1970's, the height of Détente. Shakhrai said that the weapons and munitions supplied to groups like the PFLP were intended for "operations against American and Israeli personnel in third countries, to carry out acts of sabotage and terrorism".[11] Russian Information Minister Mikhail Poltoranin released documents in 1992 confirming that the Kremlin maintained contacts with some terrorist organizations until 1991.[12]
It should be noted though that CIA had never doubted that the Soviets provided assistance to Palestinian groups. The agency was mainly skeptical of the claims of Soviet support for European terrorist groups.
Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl of the CIA's Soviet office was the analyst handed the assignment to prepare the analysis on Soviet support for terrorism. "We reported that we had found no persuasive evidence of Soviet support for those European terrorist groups (the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Red Brigades and the Red Army Faction) about which Secretary Haig had specifically asked," Ekedahl said about the analytical division's draft of its intelligence estimate.
Contrary to Sterling's allegations, Ekedahl said the consensus of the intelligence community was that the Soviets discouraged acts of terrorism by groups getting support from Moscow for practical, not moral, reasons. "We agreed that the Soviets consistently stated, publicly and privately, that they considered international terrorist activities counterproductive and advised groups they supported not to use such tactics," Ekedahl said. "We had hard evidence to support this conclusion."[13]
The Iran-Contra scandal
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Ledeen was involved in the biggest foreign policy scandal of the Ronald Reagan administration. As a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, Ledeen vouched for Iranian intermediary Manucher Ghorbanifar, and met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the CIA to arrange meetings with high-ranking Iranian officials and the much-criticized weapons-for-hostages deal with Iran that would become known as the Iran-Contra scandal.[14] Ledeen gave his view of these events in his book, Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.
Yellowcake forgery allegations
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Michael Ledeen had been accused of being involved in the forgery which claimed that Saddam Hussein had bought yellowcake in Niger.
According to Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris noted in Washington Monthly of September 2004:[15]
- "The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians.
In 2005, Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA and the intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, when asked by Ian Masters if Ledeen was the source of the forged memo, replied, "You'd be very close." However, just moments earlier when asked, "Do we know who produced those documents?" Cannistraro stated, " I'd rather not speak about it right now, because I don't think it's a proven case"[16]
Former CIA counter-terrorism officer Philip Giraldi, who is Cannistraro's business partner and a columnist for The American Conservative, a paleoconservative magazine, said in an interview on July 26, 2005 that the forgeries were produced by "a couple of former CIA officers who are familiar with that part of the world who are associated with a certain well-known neoconservative who has close connections with Italy" and went on to confirm that he was referring to Ledeen. Giraldi added that the ex-CIA officers "also had some equity interests, shall we say, with the operation. A lot of these people are in consulting positions, and they get various, shall we say, emoluments in overseas accounts, and that kind of thing."[17]
Giraldi more recently stated in The American Conservative:[18]
- At this point, any American connection to the actual forgeries remains unsubstantiated, though the OSP at a minimum connived to circumvent established procedures to present the information directly to receptive policy makers in the White House. But if the OSP is more deeply involved, Michael Ledeen, who denies any connection with the Niger documents, would have been a logical intermediary in co-ordinating the falsification of the documents and their surfacing, as he was both a Pentagon contractor and was frequently in Italy. He could have easily been assisted by ex-CIA friends from Iran-Contra days, including a former Chief of Station from Rome, who, like Ledeen, was also a consultant for the Pentagon and the Iraqi National Congress. It would have been extremely convenient for the administration, struggling to explain why Iraq was a threat, to be able to produce information from an unimpeachable "foreign intelligence source" to confirm the Iraqi worst-case. The possible forgery of the information by Defense Department employees would explain the viciousness of the attack on Valerie Plame and her husband. Wilson, when he denounced the forgeries in the New York Times in July 2003, turned an issue in which there was little public interest into something much bigger. The investigation continues, but the campaign against this lone detractor suggests that the administration was concerned about something far weightier than his critical op-ed.
Andrew McCarthy and Mark R. Levin have defended Ledeen, writing[19]
- Up until now, the fiction recklessly spewed by disgruntled intelligence-community retirees and their media enablers — some of whom have conceded that the claim is based on zero evidence — has been that Michael had something to do with the forged Italian documents that, according to the Left's narrative, were the basis for President Bush's "lie" in the 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium (for nuclear-weapons construction) in Africa.
Iraq War advocacy
Regarding regime change in Iraq, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:[20]
- He fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and destroy the War on Terror."
- One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.
- That's our mission in the war against terror.
Ledeen specifically called for the deposition of Saddam Hussein's regime by force in 2002:
- So it's good news when Scowcroft comes out against the desperately-needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein and the rest of the terror masters.[21]
and:
- Question #2: Okay, well if we are all so certain about the dire need to invade Iraq, then when do we do so?
- Ledeen: Yesterday[22]
Ledeen's statements prior to the start of the Iraq war such as "desperately-needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein" and "dire need to invade Iraq" make his later statement that he "opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place" to be an "outright lie" to Glenn Greenwald. [23] However, Ledeen maintains these statements are consistent since: "I advocated — as I still do — support for political revolution in Iran as the logical and necessary first step in the war against the terror masters."[24]
Iran air strikes advocacy
Although Ledeen was in favor of regime change in Iraq, he believed that Iran should have been the first priority. Ledeen's phrase, "faster, please" has become a signature meme in Ledeen's writings and is often referenced by neoconservative writers advocating a more forceful and broader "war on terror".
In 1979, Ledeen was one of the first Western writers to argue that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a "clerical fascist", and that while it was legitimate to criticize the Shah's regime, if Khomeini seized power in Iran the Iranian people would suffer an even greater loss of freedom and women would be deprived of political and social rights.
Ledeen currently claims to be against a US invasion of Iran: "Not that I want the Marines marching on Tehran, as readers of this blog are well aware". [25] But he is apparently arguing for airstrikes against Iran without a full military invasion, as laid out in this article on his blog at Pajamas Media:
- "I have little sympathy for those who have avoided the obvious necessity of confronting Iran"
- "This is a particularly good moment to go after the mullahs, because they are deeply engaged in a war of all against all within Iran."
- "Just as the likes of General Abizaid need to be replaced with generals who are prepared to attack targets like the terrorist training camps (especially those used by Hizbollah) in Iran and Syria, so we need civilian leadership that will attack our enemies politically."[26]
Controversial theories
Ledeen was a prominent advocate of regime change from within Iran, as he had earlier supported the dissident movements within the Soviet Union. Many of Ledeen's National Review columns are devoted to this topic.
Ledeen also believed that Iran is the main backer of the insurgency in Iraq and even supported the al-Qaida network formerly led by al-Zarqawi despite its declaration of jihad against Shi'ite Muslims.[27] He claimed that German and Italian court documents showed Zarqawi created a European terrorist network while based in Tehran.[27]
Ledeen was a board member of the "Coalition for Democracy in Iran" (CDI), founded by Morris Amitay, a former Executive Director of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ledeen had also been part of the board of the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. According to the Washington Post, quoted by Asia Times, he was the only full-time international affairs analyst regularly consulted by Karl Rove, George W. Bush's closest advisor[5]
In a 2003 column entitled "A Theory," Ledeen outlined a possibility that France and Germany, both NATO allies of the United States, "struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs" to use "extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice" to bring down a potential American Empire. He stated, "It sounds fanciful, to be sure," but that, "If this is correct, we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us."[28] See also: Eurabia
Jonah Goldberg, Ledeen's colleague at National Review magazine, coined the term "Ledeen Doctrine" in a 2002 column.[1] This tongue-in-cheek "doctrine" is usually summarized as "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business," which Goldberg remembered Ledeen saying in an early 1990s speech. The term "Ledeen Doctrine" is often mistakenly attributed to Michael Ledeen himself.
Weapons, Spooks, and Mirrors
Angleton stays on the news.
By Michael Ledeen
James Jesus Angleton, the late chief of CIA counterterrorism, and one of America's all-time fans of James Joyce, was looking for the right words with which to express his feelings about the latest developments. It may have been the uncertainties associated with the (very) long-distance connection I'd worked out via my old ouija board, but it seemed to me that he was actually sputtering.
JJA: Can you believe it? The Brits getting rolled by an Arab thug? It's... well, it's pure blackmail, and they actually paid off.
He was talking about the story that appeared in the Guardian back on February 15, telling of the day when Prince Bandar — formerly ambassador to Washington and now the head of the Saudi national-security council — told the British government that if they didn't shut down an investigation into payoffs from British arms manufacturers to Saudi businessmen, it might lead to the loss of "British lives on British streets." The Saudis would just cut off intelligence on "suicide bombers and terrorists," and so there might well be "another 7/7" in England. Blair caved, and the investigation was terminated... |