Bipartisan Policy Center

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is according to itself:
 * BPC was formed to develop and promote solutions that would attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. In addition to advancing specific proposals, the BPC also is broadcasting a different type of policy discourse that seeks to unite the constructive center in the pursuit of common goals.

BPC was formerly named the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), but the organization changed spots in 2002 (when the organization sought to position itself to lobby on a wider range of issues, especially foreign policy.

The proliferation of important titles like “Senior, Executive, President, etc.” should alert one to the fact that this is a lobbying organization with a secondary role of providing a sinecure to out-of-office government officials.

Critical Assessment
Justin Raimondo, the AntiWar columnist writes:
 * If the Israelis have launched a covert operation in this country designed to push us into war – not the first time such an effort has been made by a foreign power, and no doubt not the last – one can hardly blame them. They, after all, are simply doing what all nation-states everywhere do: pursuing their own national interests. One could certainly argue that Israel’s interests would not be served by such a war, but, really, that’s not my shtick, as they say: I’m concerned with what’s in America’s interests – which is what really puts me on the other side of the barricades from Makovsky and Rubin. Covert operations invariably involve deception: front groups that aren’t what they appear to be, hidden interests that masquerade under false pretexts, and ostensibly "respectable" individuals who serve purposes other than those announced. This is what the Bipartisan Policy Center is all about.

Hawkish on... Iran
One of the means for BPC to propagate its views is to place Opeds in the major newspapers. Philip Giraldi, the former CIA officer, comments on BPC:
 * The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is surely one of the more bizarre pro-Israel think tanks doing business in Washington. Its sage advice pops up here and there, most recently in The Wall Street Journal, where it advocated giving Israel tanker aircraft so its warplanes can fly to Iran, bomb the hell out of that country’s nuclear facilities, and make it safely back. The BPC’s National Security Project is headed by Charles Robb, a former senator and governor from Virginia and living proof that you can fool most people more than once. Robb argues that enabling a devastating Israeli attack on Iran would create a credible deterrent to Tehran’s misbehavior and maintains that his judgment is derived from a “fact-driven consensus.” ... The BPC claims to be bipartisan because it includes both Democrats and Republicans, but that does not mean that it is objective. More than three years ago it produced a “task force” report on the Iranian threat called “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development.” It concluded that Iran has no right to enrich nuclear fuel for any purpose and predicted that Tehran would have sufficient highly enriched uranium in a year’s time to build a bomb. It advocated talking to Tehran to give it a chance to surrender on all key issues before attacking it, and it urged newly elected but not yet inaugurated President Barack Obama to build up forces for the assault. The task force recommended that the U.S. military should, after bombing Iran into submission, remain in the area, vigilant and ready to react to any attempt at retaliation by Tehran.

And about the nature and origins of BPC, Giraldi concludes:
 * The BPC has plush offices on Eye Street in Washington, a sizable staff, and a number of important people on its masthead. It might be churlish to ask where its money comes from, but I would hate to embarrass someone as self-important as former senator and governor Charles Robb. The fact is that groups like BPC do a major disservice to the people of the United States because they promote themselves as nonpartisan and free of any particular political agenda when they are anything but. Their claimed objectivity is clearly a fiction, as they have been calling for military action against Iran for years, citing nonexistent threats and even speculating on the state of a nuclear program that does not exist. Their failure to include anyone who actually knows anything about Iran on their team and their choice to exclude anyone who might oppose a new war or be disinclined to think that all Muslims are potential traitors should tell us everything we need to know. It is a sad commentary on the state of the United States that ignorant, blowhard warmongers such as the BPC receive money, political support, and press coverage while groups that want to restore sanity and balance to American foreign policy are forced to scramble to raise nickels and dimes.

Principals and Staff 2012
BPC: Former Principals and Staff

Contact

 * Web: www.bipartisanpolicy.org

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Foundation and global warming
 * The Joyce Foundation and global warming
 * Strategic Public Diplomacy Project

External Resources

 * Justin Raimondo, The Worms in the Apple, Antiwar.com, 18 September 2009