Featured Profiles
Michael Hayden
Right Web | June 14, 2013
Michael Hayden—the former CIA and NSA director who presided over the Bush administration's controversial warrantless wiretapping program—has praised the Obama administration's "incredible continuity" with the Bush administration's approach to intelligence gathering, saying recently: "We've had two very different presidents pretty much doing the same thing with regard to electronic surveillance. That seems to me to suggest that these things do work.”
Leon Wieseltier
Right Web | June 13, 2013
Longtime New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier has spuriously accused many Western critics of Israel of anti-Semitism. However, Wieseltier himself has grown increasingly frustrated with the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, warning recently that “Unless there is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there will not be a Jewish state for very long.”
Jennifer Rubin
Right Web | June 11, 2013
![[![Alternative text]!]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/images/uploads/j_rubin.jpg)
Jennifer Rubin, a prolific neoconservative blogger for the Washington Post, has repeatedly accused the Obama administration of lying about its handling of the September 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic personnel in Benghazi, Libya. However, media critics have noted that Rubin herself has frequently and repeatedly misrepresented or fabricated elements of the story.
Freedom’s Watch
Right Web | June 06, 2013
Freedom’s Watch, a now-defunct pro-Iraq War advocacy group from the latter days of the Bush administration, had a budget of some $56 million for the two years it was active. Declaring itself a tax-exempt “social welfare” organization, the group and its funders attracted the scrutiny of the IRS, which conducted an audit of its political activities in 2010, followed by an audit of its top funders in 2011. Conservative critics were quick to link the IRS’ actions to its contemporaneous scrutiny of Tea Party-linked organizations, but tax experts say the IRS acted within the law.
American Center for Democracy
Right Web | June 03, 2013
A vehicle for the controversial writer Rachel Ehrenfeld, the American Center for Democracy is a Manhattan-based nonprofit dedicated to “exposing and monitoring threats to the national security of the U.S. and Western democracies.” In recent publications, Ehrenfeld has warned that the U.S. is vulnerable to an “electromagnetic pulse” attack from Iran or North Korea and chided President Obama for “attempting to pacify the Muslim/Arab world” by “sitting on the fence” over Syria.
Jamestown Foundation
Right Web | May 28, 2013
Founded in 1984, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank closely associated with right-wing actors that monitors security trends from Eurasia to Africa, has been dogged by allegations that it secretly works with the CIA and allied governments. In April 2013, the group attracted renewed scrutiny after the Russian media reported that the foundation had funded a conference attended by one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects in Tbilisi, Georgia, stoking speculation that the group may have been linked to an alleged Georgian effort to funnel militants into the restive Russian province of Dagestan.
Sohrab Ahmari
Right Web | May 24, 2013
Sohrab Ahmari is a conservative Iranian-American who supports U.S.-led regime change in Iran and is closely associated with rightwing “pro-Israel” factions in the United States. In a recent video posted on the Wall Street Journal website, Ahmari lambasted Stephen Hawking for boycotting an academic conference in Israel in honor of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
From the Wires
Rice Replaces Donilon as Obama’s Top Foreign Policy Adviser
June, 06 2013Susan Rice, President Obama’s new National Security Adviser, and Samantha Power, the administration’s new nominee for UN ambassador, are both firmly committed to the principles of “humanitarian” intervention.
More Sanctions, More Problems
June, 05 2013Because lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran requires legislative action that Congress is unlikely to take no matter what steps Iran’s leaders make, analysts say the Iranian regime has less incentive than ever to halt its nuclear enrichment.
Little Support in Washington for Kerry’s Mideast Efforts
May, 24 2013U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's recent push to resume Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has received almost no support from Congress, which has largely ignored the issue even as it has drifted to the right.
U.S. Congress Moves Toward Full Trade Embargo on Iran
May, 23 2013As the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to back Israel in the event of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran, the House Foreign Affairs Committee moved closer to imposing a full trade embargo on Iran and the countries who trade with it.
Nuclear Iran Unlikely to Tilt Regional Power Balance – Report
May, 18 2013A new report by the Rand Corporation argues that while a nuclear-armed Iran might raise tensions among the country’s Sunni neighbors, it would be extremely unlikely to use the weapons offensively or transfer them to proxies.
Framing Iran: Media Coverage Echoes Some Iraq Problems
May, 16 2013An examination of media coverage of Iran's nuclear enrichment program reveals a tendency by mainstream outlets to frame the issue according to the statements of government officials to the exclusion of alternative voices—a trend also observed during the run-up to the Iraq war.
Despite Horrific Repression, the U.S. Should Stay Out of Syria
May, 15 2013Syria's simmering sectarian tensions and increasingly extreme rebel movement make even a large-scale U.S. intervention unlikely to restore stability to the country.