Featured Profiles
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.
NORPAC
Right Web | May 21, 2013
NORPAC is a New Jersey-based political action committee that backs legislators who favor hardline "pro-Israel" policies. Sometimes referred to as “the little brother” of the powerful American Israel Political Action Committee, NORPAC recently flooded the U.S. Capitol with supporters calling on the United States to back Israel in the event that it goes to war with Iran.
Matthew Levitt
Right Web | May 14, 2013
A counterterrorism specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—a spinoff of AIPAC—Matthew Levitt has accused Iran of waging "asymmetric war" against the West through proxies such as Hezbollah. A proponent of the disputed notion that Iran's leaders are pursuing nuclear weapons, Levitt has praised the Obama administration's sanctions against Iran but argued that they must be accompanied by "military options."
Daniel Pipes
Right Web | May 09, 2013
Daniel Pipes, an outspoken neoconservative and critic of Islam, has broken with many of his fellow hawks on the issue of Syria. Rather than advocating the imposition of a "no-fly zone" or sending U.S. arms to the Syrian rebels, Pipes has argued that the United States should consider backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad, writing that "Western powers should guide enemies to stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong the conflict" and keep each side "focused locally."
Michael O’Hanlon
Right Web | May 09, 2013
Brookings scholar Michael O'Hanlon, a well known liberal interventionist who often teams up with rightwing hawks to push for U.S. military action abroad, has exceeded the proposals of many of his conservative partners with respect to Syria. In addition to advocating arming rebels and creating “no-fly zones,” O'Hanlon has suggested that the United States send as many as 20,000 U.S. "peacekeepers" to police an ethnically and religiously fractured Syria.
John McCain
Right Web | May 09, 2013
Since his longtime ally Sen. Joe Lieberman retired from the Senate, Sen. John McCain has led the congressional push for U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war, recently quipping that President Obama's supposed "red line" regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria "was apparently written in disappearing ink." Dismissing warnings about Syria's simmering sectarian tensions and the prevalence of radical Islamists amid its armed opposition, McCain has advocated sending heavy weaponry to Syria's rebels and employing U.S. airpower to create "safe zones" inside Syria.
Clare Lopez
Right Web | May 09, 2013
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Longtime rightwing activist and former CIA officer Clare Lopez is a vocal proponent of the notion that the U.S. government—and in particular the Obama administration—has been infiltrated by Islamic extremists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. A senior fellow at the Clarion Project and the Center for Security Policy, Lopez implied in the wake of the Boston marathon bombing that Brotherhood-linked “front groups” had stymied FBI surveillance of mosques and Muslim organizations, making such attacks more likely to occur.
From the Wires
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.
Benghazi, Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy: America’s Broken System
May, 14 2013The much-publicized hearings over the Benghazi fiasco have neglected to examine the proper balance of security and flexibility for America's diplomats—or the limitations of military intervention as a tool for improving security environments.
Nuclear Iran Can Be Contained and Deterred: Report
May, 14 2013A report by the Center for a New American Security, a national security think tank close to the Obama administration, argues that the United States has a plethora of viable strategies—including deterrence—to manage the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Decade After Iraq, Right-Wing and Liberal Hawks Reunite Over Syria
May, 08 2013Ten years after right-wing and liberal hawks came together to push the U.S. into invading Iraq, key members of the two groups appear to be reuniting behind stronger U.S. military intervention in Syria.
Europe Urged to Step into Breach of Failed Mideast Peace
May, 07 2013A group of former European leaders is urging the EU to sidestep the stalled U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace process and take a strong stance against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.