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Hillel Fradkin is a specialist in Islamic studies and a noted Straussian scholar with a long track record of working for or supporting major neoconservative and hardline pro-Israel outfits, including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Jerusalem Summit, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. (For more on Leo Strauss, see Jim Lobe, "The Strong Must Rule the Weak," Foreign Policy In Focus, May 12, 2003; for an example of Fradkin's work on Strauss, see "Philosophy and Law: Leo Strauss as a Student of Medieval Jewish Thought," The Review of Politics, Winter 1991.) Fradkin also has substantial experience working for conservative foundations like Olin and Bradley, where he served as a program officer and vice president, respectively. Fradkin is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he directs the Center for Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World. According to his Hudson bio, Fradkin "is the founder of Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, the leading journal on contemporary Islamism (sometimes known as militant or radical Islam)."

A proponent of attacking Iraq in the wake of 9/11, Fradkin joined an influential group of hardline and neoconservative figures in signing PNAC's September 20, 2001 letter calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein, even if he was not connected to the terror attacks. According to the PNAC letter, "It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Fradkin wrote in an AEI article titled "Why They Hate Us": "Muslim teachings envision a world united under Islam, but in modern times the previously great cities of the Arab and Ottoman Empires have become weak and the Muslim world has diminished politically, militarily, and economically when compared with the progress of European civilization. It is therefore no wonder that Muslim radicals want to destroy the West. ... The Islamic world itself has stopped improving; Muslim leaders have not appropriated those aspects of modernity that made their rivals strong. Worse still, Muslims have intermittently tried to adopt defective forms of modernization—especially various types of socialism. What they have not lastingly tried is democratic capitalism. Almost all Muslim countries are still ruled by some form of autocracy—some softer, some harsher—and most of their autocrats are corrupt. The Muslim world has a truly glorious past—not only politically and militarily but also intellectually and spiritually—and a diminished and humbling present. The natural consequence is disappointment, shame, even despair. The contrast with life in today's powerful advanced democracies like the United States is stark and often embittering" (AEI, December 1, 2001).

Fradkin repeated that same theme several months later in an article for the rightist National Review, this time extending the "why they hate us" question to Europe. He wrote: " President Bush's question [about why they hate us] obviously concerned the radical Islamic terrorists who attacked us 15 months ago. Today that question might be raised not only about our manifest enemies but our alleged allies and friends, particularly in Europe. Why do they hate us? Haven't we been good for and to them?" He added: "It is not surprising that people in [the Middle East] will doubt our motives until we actually undertake this mission. They have been burned too many times. What is surprising is the criticism, scorn, and even hatred heaped upon us by our European allies for any venture in Iraq, either the limited goal of removing Saddam Hussein or the more ambitious one of helping Iraq chart a new democratic future. These criticisms are often presented as friendly advice. But they are neither friendly in tone nor even coherent and persuasive counsel" (National Review, January 31, 2003).

Despite the deteriorating situation in Iraq in the years after the invasion, Fradkin, like many of his colleagues at the Hudson Institute, turned his attention to pushing regime change in Iraq's Mideast neighbors. In a May 2006 article for the Weekly Standard, Fradkin brushed aside growing concerns that the United States might attack Iran, writing: " Will the United States declare war on the Islamic Republic of Iran? For months, this question has been the theme of diplomatic and public discourse—with horror usually expressed at the idea." He added that, in any case, Iran had already declared war on America: "It now seems that we have this backwards. For the import of the letter that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, sent to President Bush in the first week of May is that Ahmadinejad and Iran have declared war on the United States. Many reasons are given, but the most fundamental is that the United States is a liberal democracy, the most powerful in the world and the leader of all the others. Liberal democracy, the letter says, is an affront to God, and as such its days are numbered. It would be best if President Bush and others realized this and abandoned it. But at all events, Iran will help where possible to hasten its end."

In the face of this frightful letter (which Fradkin said echoed with "ancient and modern analogs" like "letters of Muhammad to the Byzantine, Persian, and Ethiopian emperors"), Fradkin argued that "liberal democrats" must "declare that they have no intention of abandoning their way of life and see no need to do so, since they are fully prepared to defend it and because that way of life provides the resources—political, economic, and military—to defend itself. It is necessary to inform Ahmadinejad and his radical allies that they are in for a real fight."

Fradkin is also associated with Benador Associates, the New York-based publicity firm that has played a central role in publicizing the voices of several neoconservative figures in the years after the 9/11 attacks. Headed by Eleana Benador, Benador Associates clients include Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Meyrav Wurmser, and several other prominent neoconservatives whose hawkish opinions, writes journalist Jim Lobe, "proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months. Also found among [Benador's] client list are other major war-boosters, including former executive editor of the New York Times and now New York Daily News columnist A.M. Rosenthal; Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer; the Council on Foreign Relations' resident imperialist Max Boot; and Victor Davis Hanson, a blood-and-guts classicist and one of Vice President Dick Cheney's favorite dinner guests."

According to his old bio at AEI, Fradkin is the author of With All Your Heart, Soul, and Might: Freedom, Morality, and Politics in the Hebrew Bible; "Religious Liberty and the Integrity of Piety," in Religious Liberty and Secularism (1998); "Philosophy or Exegesis: Perennial Problems in the Study of Judeo-Arabic Philosophic Authors," in Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations III (1997); and "A Word Fitly Spoken: The Interpretations of Maimonides and the Legacy of Leo Strauss," in Leo Strauss & Judaism: Jerusalem and Athens Critically Revisited (1996).

Over the years, Fradkin has donated in the low thousands to Republican causes, specifically to the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign and to the Republican National Committee (see NewsMeat.com).

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.