10/20/15 – Jim Lobe – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And now this ain't the most interesting thing I've read in a while.
The Disappearing Prince of Darkness by the great Jim Loeb.
Jim, of course, is the Washington Bureau Chief of Interpret Service and runs the blog LoebLog.com.
LoebLog.com.
Well, he is a world-renowned expert in the neoconservative movement and has written, oh, I don't know, hundreds probably of articles about the neocons as a separate and distinct species of Republican, basically, ever since the 1970s.
And knows as much about them, is as expert on the neocons as anyone in the world, or better.
So welcome back, Jim.
Good to talk to you again.
Hi, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing real good.
And I was thinking about it, and I was thinking I've been interviewing you for about 12, 13 years now, and I have learned probably more about the neoconservatives and what their movement is and isn't and who they are and who they're not and everything else from you, you know, as compared to any other source.
I really highly urge people to check out your stuff.
Okay, so...
That's very kind.
I hope people don't think I'm an obsessive.
No, no, you just...
You know what?
I think if you took the American public in 2002 and 2003 and told them, there's a special kind of Republican that you don't know about and there's only about 50 of them and they're the ones who are doing this and here's who they are and what they're about, they would have...we would have all just been shocked.
Everybody knew.
Everybody just thought the Republicans were the Republicans and yet this subset, this neoconservative movement is hugely important and none of them are less important or at least in the last decades, none of them more important, I meant to say, than this guy Richard Perle, the Prince of Darkness, who you have noticed, just as I had noticed, hasn't been seen much in public lately except for a couple of Newsmax interviews.
But so tell the people, who is Richard Perle and why are we so interested in what he's doing nowadays anyway?
Or what he's not doing.
I really don't know.
I mean, I've talked with people who know him and who deal with him fairly regularly and when I ask the question, what is he doing?
Have you seen him recently?
They also noted that he just hadn't been visible in recent weeks and months.
Richard Perle is a neoconservative.
He was hired by Scoop Jackson, my old senator when I was growing up in Seattle.
He was the senator from Boeing.
He was hired, I believe, in 69 by Jackson and worked as his number two foreign affairs advisor.
Hired a number of other people who would become very prominent neoconservatives in their own right.
People like Elliot Abrams, like Frank Gaffney, even Douglas Feith interned in the office in the 1970s.
It became what I've referred to as a kind of hatchery for Washington neoconservatives.
I mean, neoconservatives began less as a Washington movement, more as a New York intellectual movement, former Trotskyites who identified strongly with the Democratic Party, who were mainly interested in domestic issues initially, but then moved kind of into foreign policy and became prominent in the 1970s due to their opposition to detente and then their support for, and their subsequent opposition to Jimmy Carter, under whom many of them switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
And then they had a flowering in the first four years of the Reagan administration and then they kind of lost some influence, particularly to George Shultz who wasn't so neocon-inclined.
Then spent the 90s kind of in more, well, far from the executive office building or the State Department.
To return under George W. Bush with renewed vigor and obviously the first term in particular of Bush was dominated by neoconservative thinking after 9-11.
In the middle of all this, Pearl was, I think, probably the most central neoconservative operative in Washington.
That is, if you looked at all the various organizations that we consider to be neoconservative, the kind of one common person always seemed to have been Richard Pearl.
And if you look at the first term of the Bush administration, you look at where neocons wielded the greatest influence, you can see Richard Pearl's influence, which he exerted particularly over Donald Rumsfeld who thought that Richard Pearl was the smartest man in the world or at least among the smartest men in the world besides perhaps Rumsfeld himself.
And Dick Cheney was a partner of Pearl's dating back to the derailing of detente and so-called Team B back in the mid-1970s.
He really has been just a critical person in the growth of the operational arm of the movement in Washington, D.C.
And so his disappearance was really or his apparent or relative disappearance over the summer into the fall has been quite surprising to me.
And apparently when they thought of it, even to some prominent neoconservatives who just noticed that he really hadn't played any kind of role, particularly in the Iran debate.
Well, and now...
Yeah, well, so let's talk about that.
There was a huge...
Well, look, even...
Actually, let's go back to before that.
I mean, it seemed to me like he kind of dropped out years ago, maybe right at the end of all the kind of fake half apologies for Iraq in 2009 or 2008 and 2009 as Obama was coming in.
But I don't think I've seen him anywhere except Newsmax since then and with years going in between.
Yeah, I mean, one of the big mysteries that I haven't been able to clear up is what relationship, if any, he has with the American Enterprise Institute, which was his perch since he left the Reagan administration in 1989.
It seems he's just basically not there anymore.
And I got conflicting accounts as to whether he has any affiliation.
He apparently doesn't have an office there any longer.
It's just extraordinary to me.
Now, I did a Nexus search, which I didn't include in the piece I wrote on the blog, but he was actually quoted between 2001 and 2006.
He was, I think, appeared in over...
With respect to either Iraq or Iran, he appeared in like 1,200 articles on Nexus.
And then between 2006 and 2011, he appeared in even more, like 1,600.
So he didn't fade out in 2008 or 2009.
But since 2011, that number just dropped to under 200.
So I think he may have started kind of leaving at least the media scene, the mainstream media scene in particular, beginning around 2011.
Could it be, Jim, that it's because he's discredited that his name is Mudd and nobody wants to be associated with him?
Or is that too optimistic of a spin on it?
Well, I kind of noted that in the piece I wrote as one possibility, that the mainstream media now just considers him too far beyond the pale.
And in fact, the fact that he still appears through Gaffney's media...
I mean, Gaffney has gone completely...
I don't know.
Well, beyond the pale is understating it.
I mean, he's an out-and-out Islamophobe.
Although I still think he's supported in part by major defense industries because he's important to them.
But the fact that he appears in that fever swamp of Frank Gaffney and virtually nowhere else is, like, amazing.
And could be that the mainstream media decided that Pearl has just discredited himself far too much.
All right, now, hold it right there, Jim.
We'll be right back, y'all, right after this.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Talking with Jim Loeb from ipsnews.net and lobelog.com.
Loeb like your earlobe.lobelog.com.
And we're talking about Richard Perle, the formerly very, very most, probably, influential neoconservative ringleader right up there with Paul Wolfowitz at the very highest levels of power, especially in the first Bush Jr. administration, and one of the kingpins at the American Enterprise Institute with Michael Ledeen and the rest of the worst of these guys.
And now, apparently, he's on the outs and has barely been heard from, except for he's piling around with Frank Gaffney, which, correct me if I'm wrong, Jim, you're far more the expert than me on this.
My impression always really was that Frank Gaffney was basically the scum of the neocon movement and that the more upper-crust ones didn't necessarily pile around with him that much.
But then, I think, I can't remember who it was, told me, that's not really right.
They're all scum, just like Gaffney, and they're all perfectly happy to hang around with him all the time.
Don't assume too much there.
But you seem to kind of make a class distinction among neocons, too, and I don't mean by how much money they make.
They all work for Northrop Grumman at the end of the day.
But I just mean in terms of, you know, like you said, where Gaffney's a lunatic, smearing all Muslims and acting crazy in a way that Paul Wolfowitz wouldn't do publicly, right?
Well, that's true.
I mean, especially when you make that comparison, because Wolfowitz, I mean, unlike many, many neoconservatives, is definitely not an Islamophobe.
I mean, he's somebody who got into trouble with other neoconservatives for actually expressing some degree of sympathy for Palestinians.
That was when he was in the Bush administration.
I mean, he's a very rare neocon in the sense that he actually has a degree of empathy and he wants to understand Islam and he's tried to spend some time in his life actually doing that when he was ambassador to Indonesia and so on.
I mean, he's somebody who I actually think has more kind of liberal values than the vast majority of neoconservatives.
I mean, Pearl has been Islamophobic in his own way, but, you know, when he does speak, he's pretty subtle in what he says and he tends to be understated.
Whereas, I mean, Gaffney makes his Islamophobic politics, you know, blatant and clear and repetitive and goes on and on about it.
I just don't see Pearl as quite as, I mean, he's just not as public about whatever Islamophobia he has.
I mean, as I say, he wrote a book about six months after the invasion of Iraq with David Frum called An End to Evil.
And if you read that, I mean, Islamophobia definitely plays a big role in that book.
So does Iranophobia and Arabophobia and other kinds of phobias, even Europophobia or Francophobia.
Yeah, they got them all.
A lack of a national idea-phobia.
Right, but he tends to be soft-spoken in his presentation.
He's a very good debater.
He's usually careful in what he actually says, things like that.
I mean, he's a pretty subtle guy.
But you still can't get anybody to pay attention to him now other than people like Gaffney, it seems like.
I mean, see, another consideration, aside from the fact that maybe the major media now think that he is discredited, is that he may have been somewhat displaced, especially during the Iranian debate, because you have John Bolton, who's really a right-wing hawk, not a classic neoconservative in the sense that he doesn't come out of the Democratic Party.
He has no Trotskyite roots, and so on.
But you've got Bolton at AEI constantly writing, constantly appearing on television and taking up a lot of oxygen.
And an even more important figure who did take up enormous amounts of oxygen every time he chose – of media oxygen every time he chose to do so was, of course, Dick Cheney.
And Cheney, again, comes from the right.
He's not a true neoconservative, but most of his ideas translate into neoconservatism.
And his critique of Obama is totally neocon in orientation.
And whenever he wanted to speak or appear on air, I mean, there he was.
And he – you know, arguably, he's a much more prominent, famous draw than Richard Perle, who tended more to be a behind-the-scenes actor or tends more to be a behind-the-scenes actor.
Well, I mean, he was pretty prominent on TV, certainly in the run-up to the war.
Sure, like he and James Woolsey, whose only major claim to fame is that he served a year as CIA director, a year that Clinton, whose CIA director he was, I think kind of regrets.
But, yeah, he and Woolsey were probably the most active outside the administration in pushing toward war.
Well, you know, by the way, speaking of Woolsey, have you heard before the anecdote that when Clinton met him that he said, oh, my God, this guy's a nut, keep him away from me, and let's find a way to replace him as soon as we can and that kind of thing?
I haven't heard that specific one.
I did hear that Clinton had called him a blowhard at one time.
And Woolsey, you know, Woolsey himself, I mean, he has a sense of humor.
I mean, he said that, you know, he never really got into the White House.
I mean, he never really got any time with Obama – with Clinton, and that was probably good for Clinton because I think Woolsey's kind of a little bit not on the same planet.
Yeah, well, I mean, here's a guy who was the head of the CIA who believed all the Milroy theories about al-Qaeda's just a front for Iraq's mukbarat and all that, right?
Well, I don't know whether he believed it or not.
Or claimed to, anyway.
Well, he certainly propagated that belief.
But, I mean, yeah, I mean, he's a very strange guy.
I mean, very strange in many of his ideas and the enthusiasm with which he pursues them.
But now, so Danielle Pletka that runs AEI now, you couldn't get a straight answer out of her that what is Pearl's role there now?
Well, I didn't talk with her.
I talked with the press person and with the receptionist.
I've been persona non grata at AEI since 2002 when I – Not until 2002?
Wow, that's pretty great.
Yeah, because of a BBC documentary that AEI didn't like at all.
The War Party, yeah, it's a great one.
And they blamed me for putting it together.
And I don't think I had that – I don't think that was very fair to me.
I simply was interviewed for the show.
But so I – I mean, they basically said, you're not welcome here.
And I sent an email to the media person.
I said, what exactly is Richard Pearl's status at AEI?
And she never replied.
So I consider that probably my status is more or less unchanged.
Well, she did can Ledeen, right?
We know she can Ledeen back a few years ago, right?
No, we don't know it for a fact.
Oh, no?
And it may be that Ledeen was lured away by more money at FTD.
I mean, I frankly don't know.
But he too is pretty – I mean, he's disappeared virtually.
I mean, I think pretty altogether from mainstream outlets.
Yeah, thank God for that.
Does he even write for the National Review?
He's in the Gaffney world.
Yeah, yeah.
He doesn't even write for National Review anymore, right, Ledeen?
I don't know.
I mean, I haven't noticed anything by him, but I don't read it as religiously as perhaps I did at one time.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, great interview.
Thanks very much, Jim.
Appreciate it.
Great article, too.
Sure.
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