Free Republic

World dispatch -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy Brian Whitaker reports on the network of research institutes whose views and TV appearances are supplanting all other experts on Middle Eastern issues Monday August 19, 2002 A little-known fact about Richard Perle, the leading advocate of hardline policies at the Pentagon, is that he once wrote a political thriller. The book, appropriately called Hard Line, is set in the days of the cold war with the Soviet Union. Its hero is a male senior official at the Pentagon, working late into the night and battling almost single-handedly to rescue...

The Nation -- Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, two Iran experts at the pro-Israeli thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, have published a primer for bombing Iran that looks at the costs and consequences. It's called "The Last Resort," but it might have been called "Making the Unthinkable Thinkable." ADVERTISEMENT They make it look easy. Would Iranians "rally 'round the flag" if Iran is attacked? Maybe, maybe not, they say. "One cannot assume that a preventive strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure would necessarily prompt a nationalist backlash."

How Supreme Is Iran's Supreme Leader? July 23, 2007 The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Patrick Clawson and Mehdi Khalaji Reports that Ayatollah Ali Meshkini has either died or is on the brink of death shed light on the nature of power in Iran. Meshkini is speaker of the Assembly of Experts -- a body that, despite its traditionally minor role in Iranian politics, is constitutionally empowered to not only elect a new Supreme Leader if the post becomes vacant, but also to dismiss a sitting leader. Current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cannot be pleased that this body may...