Daniel Pipes

Pipes returned to Harvard in 1973 and, after further studies abroad (in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Cairo), obtained a Ph.D. in medieval Islamic history[4] in 1978. His Ph.D. dissertation eventually became his first book, Slave Soldiers and Islam, in 1981. He switched his academic interest from medieval Islamic studies to modern Islam in the late 1970s, with the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.[4]

He taught world history at the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1982, history at Harvard from 1983 to 1984, and policy and strategy at the Naval War College from 1984 to 1986. In 1982–83, Pipes served on the policy-planning staff at the State Department in 1982–83.[8]

Pipes largely left academia after 1986, although he taught a course titled "International Relations: Islam and Politics" as a visiting professor at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy in 2007.[9] Pipes told an interviewer from Harvard Magazine that he has "the simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning."[6]

From 1986 on, Pipes worked for various think tanks. From 1986 to 1993 he was director of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and editor of its journal, Orbis. In 1990 he organized the Middle East Forum as a unit of FPRI; it became an independent organization with himself as head in January 1994. Pipes edited its journal, the Middle East Quarterly, until 2001. He established Campus Watch as a project of the Middle East Forum in 2002, followed by the Legal Project in 2005, Islamist Watch in 2006, and the Washington Project in 2009.

In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Pipes for the board of the United States Institute of Peace. A filibuster was launched by Democratic Senators in the United States Senate against Pipes' nomination.[10] Senator Tom Harkin said that he was "offended" by Pipes' comments on Islam, and that while "some people call [Pipes] a scholar... this is not the kind of person you want on the USIP."[11] While defending Pipes' nomination, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer distanced Bush from Pipes's views, saying that Bush "disagrees with Pipes about whether Islam is a peaceful religion".[12] Pipes obtained the position by recess appointment[6] and served on the board until early 2005. His nomination was protested by Muslim groups in the U.S., and Democratic leaders, who cited his oft-stated belief that victory is the most effective way to terminate conflict.[13][14][15] The Los Angeles Times wrote that "in trying to prevent Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes from joining the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are abusing their privilege."[10]

Pipes has long expressed alarm about what he believes to be the dangers of "radical" or "militant Islam" to the Western world. In 1985, he wrote in Middle East Insight that "[t]he scope of the radical fundamentalist's ambition poses novel problems; and the intensity of his onslaught against the United States makes solutions urgent."[22] In the fall 1995 issue of National Interest, he wrote: "Unnoticed by most Westerners, war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States."[23]

He wrote this in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing; investigative journalist Steven Emerson had said in the aftermath of the bombing that it bore a "Middle Eastern trait." Pipes agreed with Emerson and told USA Today that the United States was "under attack" and that Islamic fundamentalists "are targeting us."[4] Shortly after this, the bombing was determined by police to have been carried out by American anti-government terrorists Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier.[24]

Four months before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Pipes and Emerson wrote in The Wall Street Journal that al Qaeda was "planning new attacks on the U.S." and that Iranian operatives "helped arrange advanced ... training for al Qaeda personnel in Lebanon where they learned, for example, how to destroy large buildings."[25]

Pipes wrote in 2007, "It's a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution."[6][26] Pipes described moderate Muslims as "a very small movement" in comparison to "the Islamist onslaught" and said that the U.S. government "should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering, and celebrating" them.[27]

Pipes has praised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey and the Sudanese thinker Mahmoud Mohamed Taha.[28] In a September 2008 interview by Peter Robinson, Pipes stated that Muslims can be divided into three categories: "traditional Islam", which he sees as pragmatic and non-violent, "Islamism", which he sees as dangerous and militant, and "moderate Islam", which he sees as underground and not yet codified into a popular movement. He elaborated that he did not have the "theological background" to determine what group follows the Koran the closest and is truest to its intent.[29]

In 1990, Pipes wrote in National Review that Western European societies were "unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene ... Muslim immigrants bring with them a chauvinism that augurs badly for their integration into the mainstream of the European societies." At that time, he believed Muslim immigrants would "probably not change the face of European life" and might "even bring much of value, including new energy, to their host societies".[30] New York University academic Arun Kundnani cited the article as "Islamophobic".[31] Pipes later said "my goal in it was to characterize the thinking of Western Europeans, not give my own views. In retrospect, I should either have put the words 'brown-skinned peoples' and 'strange foods' in quotation marks or made it clearer that I was explaining European attitudes rather than my own."[32]

In 2006, Daniel Pipes said that certain neighborhoods in France were "no-go zones" and "that the French state no longer has full control over its territory." In 2013, Pipes traveled to several of these neighborhoods and admitted he was mistaken. In 2015 he sent an email to Bloomberg saying that there are "no European countries with no-go zones."[33]

In response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Pipes wrote that the "key issue at stake" was whether the "West [would] stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech" and the "right to insult and blasphemy". He supported Robert Spencer's call to "stand resolutely with Denmark." He lauded Norway, Germany and France for their stance on the cartoons and freedom of speech, but criticized Poland, Britain, New Zealand and the United States for giving statements he interpreted as "wrongly apologizing."[34]

Through his Middle East Forum, Pipes fund-raised for the Dutch politician Geert Wilders during his trial, according to NRC Handelsblad.[35] Pipes has praised Wilders as "the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic [European] identity"[36] and called him "the most important politician in Europe." At the same time, he found Wilders' political program "bizarre" and not to be taken too seriously[37] while criticizing Wilders' understanding of Islam as "superficial" for being against all of Islam and not just its extreme variant.[38]

Some commentators have argued that Pipes' writings on Muslims contain racist elements, often citing Pipes' words from 1990:[39]

Fears of a Muslim influx have more substance than the worry about jihad. Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene.

Pipes has since said that he intended to "characterise the thinking of Western Europeans" and that the comments should not be taken as representative of his own views.[39]

In October 2001 Pipes said before a convention of the American Jewish Congress: "I worry very much, from the Jewish point of view, that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims, because they are so much led by an Islamist leadership, that this will present true dangers to American Jews."[40][41]

The New York Times reported that American Muslims were "enraged" by Pipes' arguments that Muslims in government and military positions be given special attention as security risks and his opining that mosques are "breeding grounds for militants."[12] In a 2004 article in the New York Sun, Pipes endorsed a defense of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and linked the Japanese-American wartime situation to that of Muslim Americans today.[42][43]

Pipes has criticized the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which he says is an "apologist" for Hezbollah and Hamas, and has a "roster of employees and board members connected to terrorism".[44] CAIR, in turn, has said that "Pipes' writings are full of distortions and innuendo."[45]

The New York Times cited Pipes as helping to lead the charge against Debbie Almontaser, a woman with a "longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate" whom Pipes viewed as a representative of a pernicious new movement of "lawful Islamists." Almontaser resigned under pressure as principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arabic-language high school in New York City named after the famed Christian Arab-American poet. Pipes initially described the school as a "madrassa", which means school in Arabic but, in the West, carries the implication of Islamist teaching, though he later admitted that his use of the term had been "a bit of a stretch".[16] Pipes explained his opposition: "It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia. It is much easier to see how, working through the system—the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like—you can promote radical Islam."[16] Pipes had also stated that "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage."[16]

Pipes was a firm supporter of the Vietnam War, and when his fellow students occupied the Harvard administration building to protest it in the 1960s, he sided with the administration.[4] Pipes had previously considered himself to be a Democrat, but after anti-war George McGovern gained the 1972 Democratic nomination for President, he switched to the Republican Party.[4] Pipes used to accept being described as a "neoconservative", once saying that "others see me that way, and, you know, maybe I am one of them."[46][47] However, he explicitly rejected the label in April 2009 due to differences with the neoconservative positions on democracy and Iraq, now considering himself a "plain conservative".[46] In 2016, Pipes resigned from the Republican Party after it endorsed Donald Trump as its 2016 presidential candidate.[48]

Pipes is a supporter of Israel in the Arab–Israeli conflict and an opponent of a Palestinian state. He wrote in Commentary in April 1990 that "there can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both ... to those who ask why the Palestinians must be deprived of a state, the answer is simple: grant them one and you set in motion a chain of events that will lead either to its extinction or the extinction of Israel."[49] Pipes has proposed a three state solution to the conflict, in which Gaza would be given to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.[50]

In September 2008, he said, "Palestinians do not accept the existence of a Jewish state. Until that change, I don't see any point in having any kind of negotiations whatsoever." He also described the Israeli public as focused on a mistaken policy that he considers to be "appeasement".[29]

Pipes' opposition to Iran is long-standing. In 1980, Pipes wrote that "Iran made the transition to a post-oil economy. It is the only major oil exporter to abandon the heady billions and return to live by its own means."[51] Pipes was critical of the Reagan administration for its role in the Iran–Contra affair, writing that "American actions also helped to legitimize other kinds of help for, and capitulation to, the Ayatollah."[52]

In 2010 Pipes advocated that U.S. President Barack Obama "give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapon capacity. ... The time to act is now."[53] He argued that "circumstances are propitious" for the U.S. to initiate a bombing of Iran, and that "no one other than the Iranian rulers and their agents denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal." He further stated that a unilateral U.S. bombing of Iran "would require few 'boots on the ground' and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack more politically palatable."[53]

Pipes advocates that the U.S. support the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) against the Iranian government.[54][55] Previously listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union, Pipes had long advocated a change in that listing.[55][56] Pipes had described this listing as a "sop to the mullahs". He writes, "the MEK poses no danger to Americans or Europeans, and has not for decades. It does pose a danger to the malign, bellicose theocratic regime in Tehran."[54]

On 7 January 2008, Pipes wrote an article for FrontPage Magazine claiming that he "confirmed" that President Obama "practiced Islam".[57] Media Matters for America responded by exposing Pipes reliance on "disputed Los Angeles Times article", whose key claims were debunked by Kim Barker in the Chicago Tribune on 25 March.[58][59] Ben Smith, in an article on Politico, criticized Pipes for what he said were false or misleading statements about Barack Obama's religion, stating that they amounted to a "template for a faux-legitimate assault on Obama's religion" and that Daniel Pipes' work "is pretty stunning in the twists of its logic".[60]