November 4, 2011

Walid Phares Under Attack

By Robert Rabil
Since his appointment as a special advisor on the Middle East by presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Dr. Walid Phares has come under a concerted vicious attack discrediting his expertise and maligning his reputation, pressuring Romney to drop Dr. Phares from his roster of advisors.  A series of articles appearing in the Daily Beast (McKay Coppins, October 12, 2011), Politico (Ben Smith, October 6, 2011), Salon (As'ad Abukhalil, October 7, 2011), The New Republic (Jard Vary, October 24, 2011) and particularly Mother Jones' controversial Adam Serwer (October 27, 2011) raise in slightly different versions several arguments that are false and offensive.  Most of these attacks, which could be seen as bordering defamation, were based on a letter issued by a CAIR lobby group. Notwithstanding the fact that these articles contain imprecise information, I will comment on two main far-fetched arguments that form the gist of the authors' unfounded and inflammatory charges leveled...(Read Full Article)