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Bush Taps Controversial Philadelphia Scholar Named to Institute of Peace

By Thomas Ginsberg
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Saturday August 23, 2003

Pipes Says Muslim War Might Be Needed

Daniel Pipes, a controversial Philadelphia-based scholar of Islam appointed yesterday to a tax-funded peace institute, says war may be necessary for peace with some Muslim nations.

“Conditions of peace have, by and large, been created through military victory,” he said last week on condition his comments not be published until President Bush named him to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“Conflict without violence is the goal,” the historian said. “We have differences with all our allies, but there is no possibility of resorting to force with them, and that is the goal which we all hope for. But that is not where we find ourselves now, as we found in Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot always rely on nonviolent methods.”

Bush installed Pipes, 53, on the 15-member board of the think tank after the Senate failed to vote on his nomination, following opposition led by Muslim and Arab organizations and at least three members of Congress, all Democrats.

The peace institute was created by Congress in 1986 to use “knowledge to promote peace and curb violent international conflict,” its Web site says.

The recess appointment means he will serve in the unpaid position for about 16 months, until the congressional session ends in January 2005, rather than the usual four years.

Critics deride Pipes as unfit to promote peace and bigoted against Muslims. In the face of defeat yesterday, two groups claimed partial victory against a nomination that otherwise might have gone unnoticed.

“It is clear that the White House felt that this man was never going to be confirmed by the Senate because of his bigoted and extremist views,” said Mary Rose Oakar, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Pipes and his supporters rejected the criticism, saying he was not bigoted but just realistic in his description of a minority Islamist militant influence over a peaceful Muslim majority.

“He is certainly a prophet, of sorts,” said Jack Bershad, a Philadelphia lawyer. Bershad is chairman of Pipes’ own think thank, the Middle East Forum, and he was speaking of Pipes’ predictions of terrorism such as that on Sept. 11, 2001.

“He has a very strong reputation among those people in the religion who are not radical,” Bershad said. “The people who don’t like him are America’s enemies.”

A Harvard-trained historian, Pipes has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and other institutions. He reads Arabic and has written several books. He is a lifelong Republican and son of Cold War-era Kremlinologist Richard Pipes.

Pipes created the Middle East Forum in 1990 while serving as director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. Its fortunes soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, and its board membership changed.

“The diversity [of opinion] was gone,” said Jerry Sorkin, a Wayne businessman who quit the board in July. “Views not in accordance with [Pipes’] are gone.”

Pipes said his board still contained diverse views; he declined to debate Sorkin’s contention.

After the terror attacks, Pipes launched a Web site called Campus Watch, which currently describes its mission as critiquing Mideast-studies programs at colleges for “problems that include the mixing of politics with scholarship” and other issues.

Speaking about the Institute of Peace, Pipes said he hoped to apply his expertise on Islam.

The institute, while lacking formal policy influence, sponsors conferences and studies on conflict resolution. Its board members range from former Pentagon officials to human-rights activists.

Pipes declined to discuss specific conflicts or his goals for the institute, mentioning only that its study of peacekeeping efforts had made it “an important adviser in those activities.”

Pipes’ writings form the basis for most disputes between his critics and supporters.

On the Middle East, Pipes wrote in July that democracies tended to give away too much in pursuit of peace with totalitarian foes, with “the delusion that sweetening the pot would bring about the desired results.” In fact, it often ends “in a major outbreak of violence,” he wrote.

Palestinians, he wrote in 2001, “will not give up on their aggressive ambitions vis-a-vis Israel until fully convinced that these cannot succeed. Only then can they build a policy and an economy commensurate with their dignity and talent. Ironically, then, Palestinians need almost as much to be defeated by Israel as Israel needs to defeat them.”

Critics call those words proof that Pipes opposes peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

In speeches and writings, Pipes has likened the U.S. war against Islamist terrorism to its Cold War against communism or World War II against fascism.

He has estimated that 10 to 15 percent of Muslims in the United States may be adherents of radical Islam or terrorism. He wrote that the rest are “innocent” but that many still should be scrutinized, particularly those in military, diplomatic and law-enforcement positions.

“Singling out a class of persons by their religion feels wrong, if not downright un-American,” he wrote. But “if Americans want to protect themselves from Islamist terrorism, they must temporarily give higher priority to security concerns than to civil-libertarian sensitivities.”

His writings can be found at www.danielpipes.org.