The Guardian Blows the Whistle on the Ersatz Middle East Experts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html:

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

See also:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest

The Nation, September 2

The Men From JINSA and CSP
by Jason Vest


lmost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d'être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power.