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Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) who worked as a Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq during the first George W. Bush administration. An outspoken and controversial proponent of hardline U.S. foreign policies, Rubin is closely associated with neoconservatism. His track record includes working for a number of groups associated with the U.S. “Israel lobby” (including AEI, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Middle East Forum), championing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, suggesting assassinating foreign leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, allegedly misrepresenting translations of statements by Iranian officials,[1] serving as a consultant to the heavily criticized Pentagon Office of Special Plans, and consulting for the PR firm the Lincoln Group, which was accused of planting propaganda in the Iraqi press.

In March 2011, Rubin attacked the Right Web (RW) program, arguing on Commentary’s Contentions blog that it uses standards “embraced by conspiracy theorists like the LaRouchies, 9/11 revisionists, and Birthers.” Rubin suggested that Congress should investigate PBS Frontline for citing RW profiles in news articles published on its Tehran Bureau website, calling the profiles “fake, conspiracy-riddled biographies.”[2] Rubin also misrepresented a brief correspondence he had with Right Web (presented in full here), falsely claiming that RW's director insisted “that even when no evidence supports his allegations, corrections of his slanders would require proving his allegations wrong.”[3] (For more on this incident, see "Commentary Smears Right Web," Right Web, March 18, 2011.)

PBS Frontline issued the following response to Rubin’s claims, which appeared on the stories that linked to Right Web profiles: “In March 2011, a few months after we originally published this piece, FRONTLINE/Tehran Bureau received a complaint from a blogger who posted on Commentary magazine's web site. The complaint centered on some of the links included in our story—particularly those that took readers to a site called ‘Right Web.’ The Commentary blog post contended that Right Web publishes ‘fake biographies of conservatives.’ After reviewing the matter, we find that the biographies on the Right Web site are not at all fake or fabricated, and seem to be well-sourced. However, we do think it's helpful for our readers to understand this site's particular point of view—and their stated focus on those who ‘promote militarist U.S. foreign and defense policies’—if they choose to click on this outside link for further information.”[4]

Among his more notable characteristics are Rubin's consistent support for rightwing Israeli politics and fierce opposition to those critical of Israel. In May 2010, for example, Rubin defended the Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of several activists. Rubin harshly criticized the international outrage over the attack in a series of posts on the National Review blog The Corner. In one post he ominously warned that “if the White House decides to come down hard on Israel now, it is the same as giving a green light for Israel to strike Iran.”[5]

In another post on the flotilla, Rubin condemned the “chattering classes” for arguing that the Israeli attack was disproportionate. He wrote, “[I]t may be time to recognize that, in the face of growing threats to Western liberalism, strength and disproportionality matter more to security and the protection of democracy than the approval of the chattering class of Europe or the U.N. secretary general.” Rubin then obscurely added, “One final note on proportionality: Fifteen ‘peace’ activists dead is a tragedy, but they represent only one one-thousandth of the death toll of a French heatwave.”[6]

On Obama Foreign Policy

An often bombastic critic of President Obama, Rubin has endeavored to portray the president as weak and ineffective on U.S. security and naive about foreign affairs.

He has repeatedly chastised the Obama administration on Iran policy, arguing in an April 2010 Commentary article titled "Iran: The Case for 'Regime Change'" that the administration was "shamefully silent" about protests there and "embarrassingly naive" about Tehran's motives. In an earlier article, he targeted the Obama administration's efforts to pursue negoatiated solutions to Iran’s nuclear program, arguing that such an approach will ultimately “leave Israel with no choice” but to attack Iran’s nuclear sites (similar arguments have been advanced by hawkish writers like Jeffrey Goldberg and the Post's Anne Applebaum).[7]

On Libya, Rubin has claimed that the Obama administration was holding back the military, writing that while on a trip across the Atlantic aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, “some of the less discreet pilots expressed frustration they were not able to do their jobs to the fullest: If only they could operate non-stop for 48 hours and provide Qaddafi with a bit of shock-and-awe, they felt they could accomplish the mission rather than have it drag on endlessly. President Obama and his advisers appear too detached from reality: They have no sense of the importance of momentum.”[9]

Rubin has tried to hype the threat of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, comparing Egypt’s revolution to Iran’s Islamist revolution and warning the Obama administration to keep the movement in check. He wrote in February 2011, “The worst-case scenario would see the Muslim Brotherhood triumph, abandoning any pretense of a commitment to democracy as it consolidates control.” Rubin continued, “If the White House is to avoid an Iran-like tragedy, it must stay one step ahead of the Brotherhood, refuse to be a populist foil and guarantee the September elections, and bestow legitimacy only upon those groups that eschew violence and abide by the Egyptian constitution.”[10]

Rubin similarly expressed skepticism of Turkey’s thrice-democratically elected Islamist-run government, wondering if they “might simply provide” American military secrets, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, to Beijing or Tehran. Rubin expressed opposition to the Obama administration’s plan to sell Turkey the fighter, despite admitting that “Turkey is part of the consortium building the jet.”[11]

Rubin also criticized Obama for his decision to extend constitutional rights to suspected terrorists and pursue their cases in civilian courts, making the legally dubious argument that the Geneva Conventions do not “fully apply” to them—this despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruled against the George W. Bush administration’s argument that the conventions did not apply to so-called unlawful combatants.[12] Rubin opined, nevertheless, that Obama’s decision “undermined national security and eroded the foundation of human rights law.”[13]

In a November 6, 2009 op-ed, Rubin joined a chorus of conservative writers like Newt Gingrich in lambasting Obama for not attending ceremonies celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, making the rather odd claim that this was a sign of “American isolation and weakness.” He wrote, “Pres. Barack Obama's decision not to celebrate one of the seminal events of the 20th century … [is] replete with symbolism. … I'm afraid that Obama does not understand how important his refusal to attend commemoration events will be, not only to those still suffering under the yoke of oppression, but also to adversaries who see American isolation and weakness as a phenomenon to be exploited.”[8]

On Iran

Rubin has been a leading hawk on Iran policy. However, he has at times appeared to be a bit overzealous in his efforts. In early 2009, for example, a number of commentators—including Paul Kerr, an arms control expert, and Farideh Farhi, an Iranian scholar—accused Rubin of providing misleading translations of comments from Iranian officials in an effort to push his anti-Iran agenda.[14] In one case, Rubin wrote in a National Review blog entry criticizing New York Times writer Roger Cohen, "One of Cohen’s interlocutors, at least according to his February 5, 2009 column, was former IRGC Chief Mohsen Rezai. Here is Rezai in today’s Iranian press: ‘Our enmity with the U.S. has no end.’ Cohen painted him as a bit more reasonable." However, according to Farhi, “Rezai in fact said exactly the opposite, using a double negative. He said: ‘Our enmity with the U.S. is not without end.’”[15]

Responding to the accusations, Rubin dismissed Fahri, “a sometimes-academic and activist with the National Iranian American Council,” as simply “dishonest,” arguing that she “cherry picks and removes quotations from immediate context.” However, Rubin did not address directly Farhi’s criticism of the Rezai quotation.[16]

Commenting on the affair, Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service, wrote, “Now, polemics is one thing; simple translation errors are yet another; but deliberate misrepresentation is quite something else, and that’s what Farhi suggests may be going on. Not that that would be particularly surprising. After all, Rubin not only is a protegeof Richard Perle, who recently denied the existence of neo-conservatism or that it had the slightest impact on Bush’s foreign policy; he also worked with the notorious OSP. … On the other hand, Rubin is a stickler for accuracy when it comes to what other writers report about him, myself included, so you would expect him to exercise great care in his own writings and translations.”[17]

In 2008, Rubin was the lead drafter of a report entitled Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development, which was published by a study group convened by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a group led by several former government officials. Other participants in the study group included Dennis Ross; Henry Sokolski; Michael Makovsky, a former aide to Douglas Feith in the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon; Stephen Rademaker, the husband of AEI’s Danielle Pletka who worked under John Bolton in the State Department; and Kenneth Weinstein, CEO of the Hudson Institute.[18]

Called by one commentator a “roadmap to war,”[19] the report argues that despite Iran’s assurances to the contrary, its nuclear program aims to develop nuclear weapons and is thus a threat to “U.S. and global security, regional stability, and the international nonproliferation regime,” a conclusion that stands in stark contrast to the CIA’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Iran had put its efforts to develop nuclear warheads on hold. In contrast to many realist assessments of the situation, the report contends that “Cold War deterrence” is not persuasive in the context of Iran’s program, due in large measure to the “Islamic Republic’s extremist ideology.” Thus, even a peaceful uranium enrichment program would place the entire Middle East region “under a cloud of ambiguity given uncertain Iranian capacities and intentions.”[20]

The report advises that the new U.S. president bolster the country’s military presence in the Middle East, which would include “pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, emplacing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries. In addition, the new administration should suspend bilateral cooperation with Russia on nuclear issues to pressure it to stop providing assistance to Iran’s nuclear, missile, and weapons programs. And, if the new administration agrees to hold direct talks with Tehran without insisting that the country first cease enrichment activities, it should set a pre-determined compliance deadline and be prepared to apply increasingly harsh repercussions if the deadlines are not met, leading ultimately to U.S. military strikes that would “have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.”[21]

Commenting on the report, one observer wrote, “In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil—a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio—war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove).”[22]

Earlier, during a March 2007 speech at the University of Haifa, Rubin argued that "U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq are diametrically opposed, and will continue to be until one side wins and the other loses."[23]

Rubin has suggested the United States should assassinate leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In an August 28, 2006 National Reviewarticle, Rubin wrote: "If a single bullet or bomb could forestall a far bloodier application of force, would it not be irresponsible to fail to consider that option—especially when the leaders of both Iran and North Korea threaten to use nuclear weapons and call for the destruction of both regional democracies and the United States?"[24]

Trajectory

Like many of his neoconservative colleagues, Rubin's political trajectory began on the left. He highlighted his liberal background in a National Review Online interview, saying: "I'm not just at AEI, neocon, Zionist conspiracy central, but I was also Quaker-educated for 14 years and spent one summer interning for a Democrat on Capitol Hill funded by a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation summer fellowship. Let Mother Jones go nuts with that wire diagram."[25]

Before joining the Bush administration in 2002 as an adviser to the Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq policy, Rubin was a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) (1999-2000) and visiting fellow a the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations. He also lectured at a number of academic institutions, including Yale University, the Hebrew University, and Sulaymani University in Iraqi Kurdistan.

According to retired Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked briefly in 2002 and 2003 in the Pentagon's directorate for Near East and South Asian Affairs (NESA), an office overseen by William Luti and whose Iraq desk eventually became the Office of Special Plans, Rubin was one of a number of researchers from the WINEP and other like-minded think tanks who were brought in to staff the Iraq desk. When she volunteered to take a job in the NESA directorate, writes Kwiatkowski, she "didn't realize that the expertise on Middle East policy was not only being removed, but was also being exchanged for that from various agenda-bearing think tanks, including the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Interestingly, the office director billet stayed vacant the whole time I was there. That vacancy and the long-term absence of real regional understanding to inform defense policymakers in the Pentagon explains a great deal about the neoconservative approach on the Middle East and the disastrous mistakes made in Washington and in Iraq in the past two years.”[26]

Gregory Djerejian sums up Rubin’s time working for the Bush administration, which also included serving briefly as a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, thusly: “Rubin was part of a group associated with Doug Feith at the Pentagon that were, in the main, [Ahmed] Chalabi-cheerleaders, and swallowed with alacrity the kool-aid that the ‘liberation’ would be swift and welcomed by the Iraqis and that the U.S. government would be able to hand off the governance quickly and without much pain to Chalabi and Co. Putting it plainly then, and I hope I’m not hurting anyone’s feelings here, Rubin had a significant responsibility for the strategic and operational decisions made after the invasion. In effect he could well be called to task for this major U.S. policy failure and all the tragic mess our government and nation is now facing with so much blood and treasure spilled.”[27]

After his government service, Rubin returned to the neoconservative think tank community. He became a fellow at AEI and the editor of Middle East Quarterly, which is co-published by the Middle East Forum and the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. Commenting on Rubin’s transition back to the think tank world, Laura Rozen wrote that "like Ledeen, Rubin straddles the worlds of government consulting, academic-think tank-dom, and journalism-advocacy on behalf of neocon causes. Rubin has spent the past few years as a consultant to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and then the Office of the Secretary of Defense (read: Doug Feith), and more recently has served as a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. ... It will be interesting to see where Rubin's combination of consulting for neocon officials at the Pentagon, and advocacy on behalf of their pet causes at AEI and in the New Republic and other media, will lead him. He certainly seems to be being carefully groomed for something special over at AEI."[28]

During Bush’s second term, Rubin joined many of his AEI colleagues—including Michael Ledeen and Danielle Pletka—in criticizing administration foreign policy for straying from its hardline, non-diplomatic track since the Iraq War began unraveling. In an interview with Timemagazine, for example, Rubin argued that efforts to negotiate with Iran would simply bolster the regime's position: "The very act of sitting down with them recognizes them.”[29]

In an August 7, 2007 editorial, Rubin criticized the Bush administration’s dealing with Turkey. He charged that the administration had "flip-flopped" in its dealings with "terrorists," in this case the Kurdistan Workers Party, which U.S. forces have not targeted despite promises to Turkey to do so. He wrote: "President George W. Bush's failure to uphold an assurance to Turkish officials that the United States would take action against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a terrorist group, is merely the latest in a series of broken promises. Bush has backtracked on both the philosophical underpinnings of his foreign policy as well as individual promises to specific nations and world leaders. The president's record of broken promises will haunt future administrations and mar Bush's foreign policy legacy."[30]

Misleading Claims

Rubin has a track record of misleading claims, in addition to the accusations that he has misrepresented translations from Farsi.[31]

In a May 2004 article titled "You Must be Likud!" published by National Review Online, Rubin suggested that all criticism of neoconservatives boils down to "creeping anti-Semitism,” which he claimed had “infected” mainstream discourse. Grouping together the likes of patently racist figures like Louis Farrakhan and respected Middle East expert Juan Cole, Rubin wrote, “That racists, anti-Semites, and other hate-mongers substitute threats for discourse is not new, although a number of Jewish journalists and analysts remark on the increasing virulence of their hate mail. … What is new, however, is the infection of mainstream discourse with anti-Semitic references.”[32]

An example of this trend, according to Rubin, is the “ease with which the questioning of Jewish officials' motivations has infiltrated some in the academic community.” Rubin cites as an example “University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole,” who according to Rubin “has accused several Bush administration employees of having ‘strong ties to the Likud.’”[33] Rubin’s indignation notwithstanding, his criticism of Cole fails to address the fact that many Bush administration officials had long-standing ties with Likud figures. Nor did Cole, contrary to Rubin’s insinuation, make any claims with respect to the motivations of any officials as a result of their Jewish backgrounds.

Rubin than cited with approval Max Boot's observation: "If neocons were agents of Likud, they would have advocated an invasion not of Iraq or Afghanistan but of Iran, which Israel considers to be the biggest threat to its security."[34] However, this claim—which deliberately overstates the more modest contention that many Bush officials simply had connections with the Likud Party—conveniently ignores the abundant evidence that many Likud figures had long pushed attacking Iraq as a step in reconfiguring the security situation in the Middle East vis-à-vis Israel. A key example of this was the 1996 study group organized by the Likud-affiliated Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (largely based in Israel), which produced a report aimed at shaping the policies of the then-incoming Likud-led government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The June 1996 report, titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," urged Israel to break off then-ongoing peace initiatives and suggested strategies for reshaping the Middle East, including "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" and working closely with "Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll back" regional threats and using "Israeli proxy forces" based in Lebanon for "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon." Study participants included a number of individuals who would later be given posts in the Bush administration, including Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and David Wurmser.

Rubin continued his criticism of Cole in April 2006 when he and several over prominent neoconservatives participated in a smear campaign against the blogger, who was being considered for a tenured position at Yale, Rubin's alma mater. Writing in the Yale Daily News, Rubin again hinted that Cole's analysis of the Middle East might be skewed by antisemitism. "While Cole condemns anti-Semitism," wrote Rubin, "he accuses prominent Jewish-American officials of having dual loyalties, a frequent anti-Semitic refrain. That he accuses Jewish Americans of using 'the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment' is unfortunate.”[35] On June 1, 2006, Yale's Senior Appointments Committee announced that it had rejected Cole's nomination, despite three other committees having already accepted it. Several observers were convinced that the rejection was a direct result of the accusations against Cole. "I'm saddened and distressed by the news," said John Merriman, a Yale history professor. "I love this place. But I haven't seen something like this happen at Yale before. In this case, academic integrity clearly has been trumped by politics."[36]

Rubin's own reputation as a scholar took a hit in early 2006 when the New York Times revealed that he had reviewed propaganda articles that had been produced for distribution to the media by the PR firm Lincoln Group, which had been hired by the Pentagon. According to the Times, Lincoln Group "paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers.”[37] When first asked a month earlier by the Times about Lincoln's contract with the Pentagon, Rubin said: "I'm not surprised this goes on. Informational operations are part of any military campaign. Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents—replete with oil boom cash—do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs.”[38] What Rubin didn't mention to the Times in December was that he had given the Lincoln Group feedback on its work. When later asked by the Times about his role in the Lincoln affair, Rubin admitted: "I visited Camp Victory and looked over some of their proposals or products and commented on their ideas. I am not nor have I been an employee of the Lincoln Group. I do not receive a salary from them.”[39]

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