There are dangerous men in the world and Daniel Pipes is one of them.
He first came to my attention several years ago during a visit to Washington. It appeared that a number of Arab-Americans were concerned about him and the growing influence he was exerting in the media and the political arenas.
Prior to the attacks of Sept. 11 Pipes was voicing his apprehension regarding the dangers of Muslim immigration into the United States as a potential “fifth column” for radical Islamists. After the attacks, Pipe’s media exposure grew. Called upon as a “Middle Eastern expert,” he staged his campaign instilling a combination of fear and prejudice into the American public, particularly concentrating on Saudi Arabia.
He zeroed in on the Wahhabi doctrine and skillfully crafted an entire theory on the cause for terrorism based on partial data but with just enough truth to make it appear reasonable.
In 2003 President Bush nominated Pipes to serve as a director on a government-funded think tank, United States Institute of Peace, that works closely with the administration to resolve international conflicts. Several senators including Edward Kennedy opposed this nomination so strongly that Bush made Pipe’s appointment a “recess appointment” so he would only serve in a temporary capacity until the end of 2004. He will not be reappointed due to his hostile behavior. During his brief tenure, he criticized USIP for hosting a conference with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy because he claimed that organization had Muslim “radicals” on its staff.
Yet, Daniel Pipes is a long way from finished with his self-anointed work. He is now creating a new “Anti-Islamist Institute” designed to expose the legal “political activities of Islamists”. He is calling this program the new “Center for Islamic Pluralism” (CIP). The funding for this organization will come from contributors in the American Shiite community and from “Sunni mosques once they are liberated from the Wahhabi influence,” according to Pipes.
CIP claims to have some very impressive supporters, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former CIA Director James Woolsey, Senators Charles Schumer and Jon Kyl, terrorism experts Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project, Paul Marshall of Freedom House, Glen Howard of the Jamestown Foundation and journalists such as Fox News anchors David Asman, Brit Hume and Greta van Susteren. Even the editors at the New York Post, the Los Angles Times and the Globe are being mentioned.
The first goal of Pipes’ venture will be “the removal of the Council on American Islamic Relations from their monopoly status in representing Muslims to the American public”. He criticized President Bush for “legitimizing” both CAIR and the Arab-American Institute by allowing their representatives to participate in White House ceremonies and failing to identify “radical Islam” as “the enemy” in the war on terror. He will be working with another interesting character forming CIP, Stephen Schwartz. Schwartz is the author of a book about Islam and Saudi Arabia. He has created a new terminology to describe what he contends is the violent movement within Islam — “neo-Wahhabi”.
Like Pipes, Schwartz is preaching a doctrine that is based on very limited fact. He proclaims that the Wahhabi movement has “violently attacked Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, traditional Sunnis, Sufis and Shiites worldwide”. “Eighty percent of American mosques are Wahhabi-influenced”, he states. As a recent convert to Sufism, Schwartz is a disciple of the 13th Century Spanish mystic Ibn Arabi. By his own admission Schwartz did not travel to Riyadh to learn about Wahhabism; he chose instead Sarajevo, where he could absorb the “true message” of Islam.
The goal of CIP according to Pipes is to enhance the influence of moderate Muslims. According to Pipes, CIP’s president is Professor Kemal Silay, a teacher at Indiana University. But Silay says that although he has spoken with Pipes and Schwarz about the dangers of extreme Islamic groups, he was surprised to find out he was selected to be the president.
In addition to CAIR and AAI, Pipes has targeted the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Islamic Trust, the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Extremists, he claims, influence all of these organizations, do not represent the average American Muslim and are dangerous to the United States. Daniel Pipes is a very cleaver man. He mixes just enough truth with doctrine to make some people believe that he has the best interest of Arab-Americans and the security of the US at the heart of his campaigning.
You have to read carefully to understand what he really means. Just four days before the Iraqi elections he endorsed the US government’s goal of making Iraq a democracy but cautioned that the Iraqis had to learn the habits of civil society. It is only 22 months since Saddam Hussein has been deposed, he said, “so elections for chief of a government there should take place more like 22 years”.
Hopefully, no one is listening to him.
— Adrienne McPhail is an American journalist based in Yokosuka, Japan.
