Michael Ledeen: The Iranian threat
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Michael A. Ledeen, a resident scholar at the American Enterprises Institute and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Machiavelli on Modern Leadership and Tocqueville on American Character. His new book is The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction.
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FP: Can you talk about some of the ways that the Clinton administration left us vulnerable to 9/11?
Ledeen: Two main ways. The first is the empowerment of Iran, a story I had forgotten until I was forced to review the Clinton years while writing "The Iranian Time Bomb." Clinton carried out three secret policies: first, he arranged to have Iran arm the Bosnians via secret arms deliveries. This violated UN Resolutions and public American policy. Second, he permitted Russia to arm Iran. And third, he permitted Russia to provide Iran with nuclear technology. Ironically, the latter two deals were negotiated by Vice President Al Gore, and both contravened a law known as the McCain-Gore Act.
The second is the well-known failure to know enough about al Qaeda, and to act against it. By now, there are several extensive treatments of these monumental failures, of which the two most famous are the reports by the 9/11 Commission and the Silberman-Robb Commission.
FP: Can you talk a bit about the Shiite regime’s collaboration with al-Qaeda and other terror groups?
Ledeen: Iran is the leading sponsor of jihad, and has worked closely with al-Qaeda since the mid-nineties, starting from contacts in Sudan. When al-Qaeda was smashed in Afghanistan, the top leaders went to Iran, and some of them stayed there. This includes Saif al Adel, the military commander, Saad bin Laden, and probably the top two as well: Osama and Zawahiri. Already in 2000, Zarqawi created a European terror network from his headquarters in Tehran. So we have decades of close working relations between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni terrorists. But the link goes all the way back to the early seventies, when Arafat's (Sunni) al Fatah trained the (Iranian Shi'ite) Revolutionary Guards Corps in the (Syrian controlled) Bekka Valley in Lebanon.
FP: What are your thoughts on Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia? And what do you think of the double standard in terms of many Conservatives being shouted down on the American campus, but a tyrant like this -- of a regime that, among other thing, persecutes women and homosexuals – gets applause?
Ledeen: I think it was a dreadful mistake, by the Bush Administration and by Columbia University, to allow it to happen. It stems from an unwillingness to recognize that Iran is at war with us, it's a case of bad ideas leading directly to bad policy decisions.
Obviously I deplore the systematic violation of Conservatives' First Amendment rights on American campuses. I just saw a new documentary, "IndoctrinateU," which documents this repression in considerable detail.
On the other hand, it may well turn out that the Ahmadinejad circus at Columbia had a useful effect on American public opinion, at least regarding the nature of the Iranian regime. On the third hand, it must have greatly discouraged many Iranians, who see that a prestigious American institution permitted their oppressor to stand on its stage and lecture his audience....
Read entire article at Jamie Glazov at frontpagemag.com
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FP: Can you talk about some of the ways that the Clinton administration left us vulnerable to 9/11?
Ledeen: Two main ways. The first is the empowerment of Iran, a story I had forgotten until I was forced to review the Clinton years while writing "The Iranian Time Bomb." Clinton carried out three secret policies: first, he arranged to have Iran arm the Bosnians via secret arms deliveries. This violated UN Resolutions and public American policy. Second, he permitted Russia to arm Iran. And third, he permitted Russia to provide Iran with nuclear technology. Ironically, the latter two deals were negotiated by Vice President Al Gore, and both contravened a law known as the McCain-Gore Act.
The second is the well-known failure to know enough about al Qaeda, and to act against it. By now, there are several extensive treatments of these monumental failures, of which the two most famous are the reports by the 9/11 Commission and the Silberman-Robb Commission.
FP: Can you talk a bit about the Shiite regime’s collaboration with al-Qaeda and other terror groups?
Ledeen: Iran is the leading sponsor of jihad, and has worked closely with al-Qaeda since the mid-nineties, starting from contacts in Sudan. When al-Qaeda was smashed in Afghanistan, the top leaders went to Iran, and some of them stayed there. This includes Saif al Adel, the military commander, Saad bin Laden, and probably the top two as well: Osama and Zawahiri. Already in 2000, Zarqawi created a European terror network from his headquarters in Tehran. So we have decades of close working relations between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni terrorists. But the link goes all the way back to the early seventies, when Arafat's (Sunni) al Fatah trained the (Iranian Shi'ite) Revolutionary Guards Corps in the (Syrian controlled) Bekka Valley in Lebanon.
FP: What are your thoughts on Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia? And what do you think of the double standard in terms of many Conservatives being shouted down on the American campus, but a tyrant like this -- of a regime that, among other thing, persecutes women and homosexuals – gets applause?
Ledeen: I think it was a dreadful mistake, by the Bush Administration and by Columbia University, to allow it to happen. It stems from an unwillingness to recognize that Iran is at war with us, it's a case of bad ideas leading directly to bad policy decisions.
Obviously I deplore the systematic violation of Conservatives' First Amendment rights on American campuses. I just saw a new documentary, "IndoctrinateU," which documents this repression in considerable detail.
On the other hand, it may well turn out that the Ahmadinejad circus at Columbia had a useful effect on American public opinion, at least regarding the nature of the Iranian regime. On the third hand, it must have greatly discouraged many Iranians, who see that a prestigious American institution permitted their oppressor to stand on its stage and lecture his audience....