Laurent Murawiec

Murawiec came to public attention after he delivered a July 2002 PowerPoint presentation to the Defense Policy Board (DPB) --a panel that advises the Pentagon on strategy and policy that was led at the time by Richard Perle --in which he argued that U.S. grand strategy in the Middle East must see Iraq as the "tactical pivot," Saudi Arabia as the "strategic pivot," and Egypt as the "prize." Regarding Saudi Arabia, Murawiec argued that the House of Saud is "hated throughout the Arab world: lazy, overbearing, dishonest, corrupt." To effect change in Saudi Arabia-which he called the "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent"--Murawiec suggested that the United States threaten holy sites, take control of oil fields, and confiscate financial assets in the United States. Ultimately, if the country did not stop funding fundamentalist schools and terrorist outfits, the United States should threaten the House of Saud itself (Laurent Murawiec, "Taking Saudi out of Arabia"; see also, "Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies," Washington Post).

The presentation, which first came to light in an August 6, 2002 Washington Post report, spurred a tumult of criticism, prompting then Secretary of State Colin Powell to assure the Saudi foreign minister that the presentation had no bearing on U.S. policy and Richard Perle to issue an excuse to Time magazine (August 19, 2002), arguing that he had no idea what Murawiec was planning to say. George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, where Murawiec briefly served on the faculty, abruptly took down its biography of Murawiec from its website, although it claimed the move had nothing to do with the presentation ("The Continuing Saga of Laurent (of Arabia) Murawiec," Slate.com, August 27, 2002).

Murawiec, however, stuck by his PowerPoint presentation, telling a Middle East business reporter: "My experience of your part of the world is that most people hate the Saudis' guts, not to make too fine a point about it. Everybody knows they are a bunch of lazy assholes that are arrogant, too big for their shoes, which behave in a consistently disgusting manner. People in your region have told me that for 20 years. But I am not telling you anything new." After the online news service ITP.net posted the remark, Murawiec denied he had made it, telling Agence France-Presse: "I gave no interview neither to that guy ... nor to anybody. The whole story is spurious and void." ITP.net subsequently released the recorded conversation. When asked by Slate.com about the episode, Murawiec referred questions to his employer at the time, the Rand Corp. In response, Rand released a brief statement from its president, James Thompson, who said: "The comments on the tape recording on the website ITP.net are offensive and repugnant, and Rand repudiates them in the strongest terms. Rand was unaware of these comments until they were reported by ITP.net" ("The Continuing Saga of Laurent (of Arabia) Murawiec," Slate.com, August 27, 2002).

One group that apparently did not take offense to Murawiec's views was the neoconservatives. In November 2002, Murawiec briefed Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum with his ideas on terrorism and the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Soon after, Murawiec became a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a U.S. think tank known for its promotion of hawkish, Israel-centric U.S. foreign polices and close association with leading neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz, Irwin Stelzer, and Meyrav Wurmser.

Murawiec's biography on the Hudson website claims that his "main research areas concern the application of anthropology to strategy, the 'Revolution in Military Affairs,' and information warfare." Describing his past research and publications, the biography states: "Murawiec has translated Clausewitz's On War into French (Perrin, 1999), as well as works by G. von Scharnhorst. His book La Guerre au XXIè siècle (Odile Jacob, 2000) dealt with the 'Revolution in Military Affairs.' L'Esprit des Nations: cultures et géopolitique, appeared in 2002 in Paris (Odile Jacob): It examines the historical and cultural identity of China, Japan, India, and Russia. His book on Saudi Arabia and the United States appeared in 2003 in France as La Guerre d'après (Albin Michel, Paris) and as Princes of Darkness: the Saudi Assault on the West (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2005). Vulnerabilities in the Chinese Way of War, a study for the Department of Defense, was published in 2004 by Hudson Institute, as was Aristotle in Cyberspace: Toward a Theory of Information Warfare and The Mind of Jihad (2005) and Pandora's Boxes, volumes in a series investigating the theology, history and anthropology of modern jihad. A completely recast version of the two volumes will be published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press as The Mind of Jihad."

According to the Cambridge University Press, the new edition of The Mind of Jihad (August 2008), "examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks."

In an interview about his books The Mind of Jihad (vol. I) and Pandora's Boxes with the right-wing FrontPageMag.com (founded by David Horowitz), Murawiec said: "There's one thing that uniquely differentiates the modern jihadi movement from all others: it is the bloodlust. Let me explain: the decapitation 'live,' on camera, of Paul Johnson, of Nick Berg, of Daniel Pearl and of countless others is an exaltation of their raw power to kill, to be the masters of life and death. Now, they do that in the name of God--'if God wills it, everything is permitted'--just like for the Russian Nihilists like Nechaev and his Bolshevik progeny, 'if God does not exist, everything is permitted.' Nechaev said that the revolutionist was 'a man of another nature.' So they are" (July 24, 2007).

In his 2006 paper, "Deterring Those Who Are Already Dead?", written for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Murawiec argued that deterring terrorists could not work because of the nature of fanatical religious beliefs and that "workarounds," like assassinating leaders, were necessary. He wrote: "Deterrence only works if the enemy is able and willing to enter the same calculus. If the enemy plays by other rules and calculates by other means, he will not be deterred. There was nothing the Philistines could have done to deter Samson. If the calculus is: I exchange my worthless earthly life against the triumph of Allah on earth, and an eternity of bliss for me, if the enemy wishes to be dead, if to him the Apocalypse is desirable, he will not be deterred."

Murawiec then characterized the Israeli strategy of killing militant Islamic leaders-or, as he put it, the "high-tempo attrition of . leadership cadre"--as "exemplary and should be studied and emulated elsewhere, different conditions obtaining." He wrote: "Contemporary jihad, like its emanation, terrorism, is an integral chain: as long as it is islamico-glamorous to be a cleric who issues fatwas calling for the murder of Israeli civilians or American GIs, the cleric will go on. Once dead, he will stop. So will the chairman of a charity that funnels money to jihad. So will the senior intelligence officer who trains or smuggles them, the predicator who incites, the madrasa or university professor who brainwashes, the prince who lies for terror, the ayatollah who sends out teams of killers, etc."

In 2007, Murawiec gave two presentations at the Intelligence Summit, titled "Britain & the Freedom of Speech: How Jihadists are Using British Libel Laws to Silence Anti-Terrorist Authors Worldwide," and "Saudi Arabia-World's Foremost Supporter of Terrorism." Other speakers included Rachel Ehrenfeld and Paul Vallely. Murawiec also participated in the 2005 summit.