Michael Ledeen

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Michael Ledeen (born August 1, 1941) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also a contributing editor to the U.S. National Review and the Jewish World Review. Ledeen was a founding member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and he served on the JINSA Board of Advisors. In 2003, the Washington Post alleged that he was consulted by Karl Rove, George W. Bush's closest advisor, as his main international affairs adviser.[1] Ledeen was also a member of Benador Associates.

In 1974, Michael Ledeen moved to Rome where he studied Italian fascism and terrorism. In 1977, he went to Washington to join the Center for Strategic and International Studies affiliated with Georgetown University. He continues to visit Italy frequently.

In 1980, Ledeen worked for the Italian military intelligence service as a "risk assessment" consultant.[2] In 1981, Michael Ledeen then became Special Adviser to secretary of state Alexander Haig, previously head of SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe — NATO's European command center).

Contents

[edit] Academic and political career

Ledeen held a PhD 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".[2]

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"[3] 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".[4]

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 then the author of The Prince.

In 1979, 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 and elsewhere about Billy Carter's contacts with the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya.

[edit] 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." [1] While he acknowledges being paid by the SISMI in 1980 for "risk assessment",[2], 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.[5]. He denied having worked with [Francisco] 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."[5].

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 debunked by various authors and journalists, including Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who initially believed the story. Despite this, it was revived, with the same arguments, in 2005 by the controversed 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 directed 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." [5]

[edit] The Iran-Contra scandal

Main article: Iran-Contra scandal

Ledeen was a major figure 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.[6]

[edit] Yellowcake forgery allegations

Main article: Yellowcake forgery

Michael Ledeen had been accused of being involved in the forgery which claimed that Saddam Hussein had bought yellowcake in Niger.

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"[7]

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."[8]

Giraldi more recently stated in The American Conservative:[9]

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[10]

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. Of course,
  • Michael had utterly nothing to do with the forgeries (the source has actually been identified);
  • the forgeries were not the basis for the president’s statement; the president did not claim Saddam obtained yellowcake — merely that intelligence reports indicated that Saddam had sought to obtain it; and
  • the British intelligence reports that actually were the basis for the president’s statement were true (the Brits stand by them to this day).
But hey, why let the truth get in the way of a good story? (bullets added)

[edit] Regime change advocacy

Regarding regime change in the Middle East, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:[11]

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 caldron 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.

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'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" to be conducted primarily by political support for democratic revolutionaries in the Middle East.

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. [12]

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 [13]

Although Ledeen was in favor of regime change in Iraq, he believed that Iran should have been the first priority. This position has led some to accuse Ledeen of lying about his position on Iraq. However, Ledeen maintains he "opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place and 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." [14]

[edit] Controversial theories

Ledeen was a prominent advocate of regime change from within in Iran, as he had earlier supported the dissident movements within the Soviet Empire. 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.[15] He claimed that German and Italian court documents showed Zarqawi created a European terrorist network while based in Tehran.[15]

Ledeen was a board member of the "Coalition for Democracy in Iran" (CDI), founded by Morris Amitay, a former lobbyist for the 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[1]

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."[16]

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.

[edit] Opponents

Writing in The Nation, a left-wing magazine, Jack Huberman, who describes Ledeen as "the most influential and unabashed warmonger of our time", attributes these quotes to Ledeen:[17]

  • "the level of casualties (in Iraq) is secondary"
  • "we are a warlike people (Americans)...we love war"
  • "Change — above all violent change — is the essence of human history"
  • "the only way to achieve peace is through total war"
  • "The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people"
  • "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"

From the other side of politics, The American Conservative has claimed that Ledeen had strong sympathies for Italian fascism and that "Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist 'regime' and 'movement' makes him a clear apologist for the latter."[4] Ledeen is also targeted with some regularity at Antiwar.com, particularly by Justin Raimondo.

[edit] Quotations

“ It's always reassuring to hear Brent Scowcroft attack one's cherished convictions; it makes one cherish them all the more. [...] 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. [18] ”
“ I think it all depends how the war [in Iraq] goes, and I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say. But all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. [19] ”
“ I do not feel "remorseful," since I had and have no involvement with our Iraq policy. I opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place and 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. [20] ”
“ The usual suspects are up in arms that I am a 'liar' for stating in response to the Vanity Fair piece that 'I opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place and 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.' But those who have actually read what I've written would not be surprised I would say such a thing. Here is what I wrote in my book, The War Against the Terror Masters, published in 2002, well before the invasion of Iraq (pages 184-187):
"...we need to create a zone of freedom to which Saddam's enemies can repair to find safety and normalcy. We have long proclaimed a "no fly zone" in northern Iraq. We should transform it into a "no trespassing zone," help the INC install itself there, and then recognize the INC as the legitimate government of the country. It would immediately become a haven for Saddam's enemies and a staging ground for the democratic revolution. At the same time, we can create a similar zone in the south, where the country's Shi'ite majority is concentrated. Both would come under the protection of our irresistible air power.
"These steps should be combined with internal sabotage and an imaginative campaign of psychological destabilization. The CIA wrought havoc on Abu Nidal by playing with his tortured mind, and Saddam's spirit is no more tranquil. Facing outspoken challenges from north and south, coping with daily acts of sabotage against his oil business and his security forces, Saddam may well do what Abu Nidal did: turn his wrath against his own people, and decimate his own protectors.
"There are many ways to wage war, and many ways to destroy a tyrant. Especially when you have his oppressed people on your side. [21]
 ”


[edit] Bibliography

  • Universal Fascism; the Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928-1936, New York, H. Fertig, 1972
  • co-written with Renzo De Felice Fascism : An Informal Introduction To Its Theory And Practice, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0-87855-190-5.
  • The First Duce : D'Annunzio at Fiume, Baltimore ; London : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-8018-1860-5.
  • Italy In Crisis, Beverly Hills [Calif.] : Sage publications, 1977 ISBN 0-8039-0792-3.
  • co-written with George Mosse Nazism : A Historical and Comparative Analysis of National Socialism, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1978 ISBN 0-87855-661-3.
  • co-written with William Lewis Debacle, The American Failure in Iran, Vintage Books; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (1982) ISBN 0394751825
  • Grave New World, New York : Oxford University Press, 1985 ISBN 0-19-503491-0.
  • West European Communism and American Foreign Policy, New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A. : Transaction Books, 1987 ISBN 0-88738-140-5.
  • Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair, New York : Scribner, 1988 ISBN 0-684-18994-1.
  • Superpower Dilemmas: the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. at Century's End, New Brunswick, U.S.A. : Transaction Publishers, 1992 ISBN 0-88738-891-4.
  • Freedom Betrayed: How America Led a Global Democratic Revolution, Won the Cold War, and Walked Away, Washington, D.C. : AEI Press ; London : Distributed outside the United States by arrangement with Eurospan, 1996 ISBN 0-8447-3992-8.
  • Machiavelli on Modern Leadership : Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago, New York : Truman Talley Books/St. Martin's Press, 1999 ISBN 0-312-20471-X.
  • The War against The Terror Masters: Why It Happened, Where We Are Now, How We'll Win, New York : St. Martin's Press, 2002 ISBN 0-312-30644-X.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c "Veteran neo-con advisor moves on Iran", Asia Times, June 26, 2003. Retrieved on May 2, 2006.
  2. ^ a b c "Ledeen Seems To Relish Iran Insider's Role," Charles R. Babcock. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Feb 2, 1987. pg. a.01.
  3. ^ A Theory, Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, March 10, 2003.
  4. ^ a b "Flirting with Fascism", John Laughland, The American Conservative, 30 June 2003.
  5. ^ a b c The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed, Craig Unger, Vanity Fair, July 2006 (English)
  6. ^ Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters Volume I: "Investigations and Prosecution", Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, August 4, 1993, Washington, D.C.
  7. ^ Who Forged the Niger Documents?, Ian Masters, Alternet.com, April 7, 2005.
  8. ^ http://weekendinterviewshow.com/audio/giraldi_ledeen_clip.mp3 (MP3 Audio) interview with Philip Giraldi, July 26, 2005.
  9. ^ Forging the Case for War, Philip Giraldi, American Conservative, November 21, 2005.
  10. ^ Rolling Smear, Andrew McCarthy and Mark R. Levin, National Review Online, July 28, 2006.
  11. ^ Scowcroft Strikes Out, Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, August 6, 2002.
  12. ^ Scowcroft Strikes Out, Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, August 6, 2002.
  13. ^ To Invade Iraq or Not; That is the Question. Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com, August 12, 2002.
  14. ^ The Latest Disinformation from Vanity Fair Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, November 04, 2006
  15. ^ a b Iran Connects the Dots, Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, June 9, 2006
  16. ^ A Theory, Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, March 10, 2003
  17. ^ Who's Really Screwing America: #26: Michael Ledeen: Improving on Mussolini, Jack Huberman, The Nation, June 23, 2006.
  18. ^ "Scowcroft Strikes Out - A familiar cry", The National Review Online, August 6, 2002.
  19. ^ "Iraq: What Lies Ahead", The American Enterprise Institute, March 25, 2003.
  20. ^ "The Latest Disinformation from Vanity Fair", The Corner, The National Review Online, November 4, 2006.
  21. ^ "The Iraq War & Me", The Corner, The National Review Online, November 5, 2006.

[edit] External links

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