Washington Institute for Near East Policy

This article gives a good background on one of the pro-Israel think tanks influencing US policy, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

I discovered this article while looking up articles written by Richard Speier, my old nemesis when I was working on missile proliferation issues. This LA Times article says he was one of the authors of the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime MTCR), which is true. However, if he had not been involved, the MTCR would have come into force sooner and probably would have been stronger. He was an acolyte of Richard Perle at the Pentagon, who held up formulating a US position on the MTCR in an effort to make it ban missiles absolutely. This, of course, is impossible, but it is a characteristic of politically right-wing, conservative approaches to arms control. In essence it means they don't like arms control (or international law) at all, because it doesn't make them feel absolutely safe. It's like saying that you should not outlaw murder because you can't be absolutely sure that no one will commit murder if you do outlaw it.

While looking to see what articles Speier has written since those bad old days when I was at the State Department feuding with him at Defense, I found that he has written for WINEP. It shows that if you are pro-Israel in Washington, somebody will look out for you. No wonder, AIPAC, WINEP and other Israeli lobbies are so successful! Interestingly, he also wrote an article on the dangers of the Iraqi al-Samoud missile in February 2003, before we found that Iraq didn't have any WMD. Another WINEP article dealt with the Israeli Arrow ABM missile which was a problem for us when I was working on the missile proliferation issue. To his credit, he continues to oppose the Arrow, which the US proposed during the Bush I administration to avoid the constraints on the US of the ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty, which the US has since renounced. Thus, the treaty is no longer a restraint on the US, and the US has less need of an Israeli proxy to do prohibited research.