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Daniel Pipes, a recognized expert in Islam and son of the well known anti-Soviet crusader Richard Pipes, is an outspoken promoter of the "Islamofascism threat" theory and is closely aligned with many high-profile neoconservatives, many of whom are associated with Pipes' Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank that purports "to define and promote American interests in the Middle East." In his publications and public appearances, Pipes frequently lambastes Arab politics, urges a broad war on terror aimed at challenging Mideast regimes from Syria to Iran, and pushes a Likud Party line on Israeli regional relations.

His success at promoting both himself and his views was underscored in 2003 when President George W. Bush nominated Pipes to serve on the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). A Boston Globe columnist, commenting on the nomination, opined that if Pipe's "admonitions [on Islamic terrorism] had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11" (Boston Globe, June 22, 2003).

Other observers, however, have argued that following Pipes' advice would have led the country to war with most of the Arab world. In 2000, for example, he co-produced with Ziad Abdelnour and the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon a report calling for the United States to force Syria from Lebanon and to disarm it of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. The document, titled "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role?" argued that "Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct opposition to American ideals" and criticized the United States for engaging rather than confronting the regime. Regarding the use of force, the document reasoned: "The Vietnam legacy and the sour memories of dead American Marines in Beirut notwithstanding ... the United States has entered a new era of undisputed military supremacy with an appreciable drop in human losses on the battlefield. ... This opens the door to a similar decision to act for Lebanon's endangered freedoms and pluralism. But this opportunity may not wait, for as weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities spread, the risks of such action will rapidly grow." (See Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour, "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role?" Middle East Forum, 2000.)

Among the signatories to this MEF report were several future Bush administration figures, including Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Michael Rubin, David Wurmser, and Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky. Other signers included Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Michael Ledeen, and Frank Gaffney.

When congressional figures and media pundits expressed outrage over Bush's nomination of Pipes to the USIP, Pipes' friends in the neocon community quickly came to his defense. His nomination was also reportedly endorsed by no other than the patriarch of another neocon family, Donald Kagan. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that the "attack on Pipes" was nothing but "another symptom of the absurd political correctness surrounding Islamic radicalism" (Washington Post, August 15, 2003). Following strong opposition from democratic senators, President Bush bypassed the Senate and gave Pipes a recess appointment while Congress was out of town ("'Anti-Islamist' Crusade Gets Organized," Right Web Analysis, International Relations Center, March 3, 2005).

In his many publications on Islamic issues and the war on terror, Pipes often espouses extremist views, some of which border on racism. He once said that Muslim immigrants were "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene" (quoted in Lobe, "'Anti-Islamist' Crusade Gets Organized," Right Web Analysis, International Relations Center, March 3, 2005). Regarding the reason for invading Iraq, Pipes opined: "WMD was never the basic reason for war. Nor was it the horrid repression in Iraq. Or the danger Saddam posed to his neighbors. ... The campaign in Iraq is about keeping promises to the United States or paying the consequences. ... Keep your promises or you are gone. It's a powerful precedent that U.S. leaders should make the most of" (Mark Engler, "Hawks Say the Darndest Things," TomPaine.com, July 10, 2003).

When Pipes' term at USIP ended in 2005, Bush declined to renominate him, which came as little surprise to many observers who pointed to the incessant criticism Pipes directed at the Bush administration while serving on USIP's board. Wrote Jim Lobe: " Pipes blasted USIP for hosting a conference with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, charging that it employed Muslim 'radicals' on its staff. That accusation was publicly refuted by the USIP itself, which echoed the complaints of his longtime critics, accusing him of relying on 'quotes taken out of context, guilt by association, errors of fact, and innuendo.' Pipes also criticized Bush for 'legitimizing' various 'Islamist' groups, such as CAIR and the Arab-American Institute, by permitting their representatives to take part in White House and other government ceremonies, and for failing to identify 'radical Islam' as 'the enemy' in the war on terror" ("'Anti-Islamist' Crusade Gets Organized," Right Web Analysis, International Relations Center, March 3, 2005). In early 2005, Pipes suggested establishing an Anti-Islamist Institute, which he argued was necessary because "in the long term ... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones." He also promoted the creation of the Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP), which according to its website is " a think tank that challenges the dominance of American Muslim life by militant Islamist groups" (Right Web Analysis, March 3, 2005).

The CIP was purportedly created to fight back the influence of the Wahhabi movement—a very conservative strain of Islam—in the United States. It proposes to get rid of the monopoly that the "Wahhabi lobby" supposedly has on Washington. This lobby includes, according to CIP, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Islamic Trust, the Muslim Students' Association of the United States and Canada, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Some scholars view these as independent, not Wahhabist, organizations. Other organizations targeted by CIP include more secular groups, such as the Arab-American Institute and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. However, some associates of CIP expressed concern when queried about the various groups to be targeted by the new organization. Ali al-Ahmed, who was named as CIP's first director of research, told the Inter Press Service (February 24, 2005) that although he supported the group's goals he was surprised at the list of organizations to be scrutinized by CIP because several of the "Wahhabi lobby" groups were in fact independent.

In the early 1990s, Pipes founded the Middle East Forum (MEF), a think tank that describes itself as "aimed at defining and promoting American interests in the Middle East. ... The Forum holds that the United States has vital interests in the region; in particular, it believes in strong ties with Israel, Turkey, and other democracies as they emerge; works for human rights throughout the region; seeks a stable supply and a low price of oil; and promotes the peaceful settlement of regional and international disputes."

Among MEF's programs is Campus Watch, which tracks university professors who are perceived to be anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-Palestinian, or pro-Islamist. Seen by many as an affront to academic freedom and an attempt to silence criticism of U.S. policies toward Israel and the Arab world, the program encourages students at colleges and universities to report any teachers who exhibit such behaviors in the classroom. One critic of Campus Watch, Joel Benin, a former professor of Middle East studies at Stanford University, said of the program: "Campus Watch ... compiles dossiers on professors and universities that do not meet its standard of uncritical support for the policies of George Bush and Ariel Sharon. ... The efforts to stifle public debate about U.S. Middle East policy and criticism of Israel are being promoted by a network of neoconservative true believers with strong links to the Israeli hard right. They are enthusiastic supporters of the Bush administration's hands off approach to Ariel Sharon's suppression of the Palestinian uprising. And they are aggressive proponents of a preemptive U.S. strike against Iraq" (Joel Benin, "The Israelization of American Middle East Policy Discourse," Department of History, Stanford University).

Similarly, the well-regarded international relations scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in their controversial 2006 critique of the influence of the so-called Israel Lobby on U.S. foreign policy that Campus Watch was founded by "passionately pro-Israel neoconservative Jews" with the intention of "encourag[ing] students to report comments or behavior that might be considered hostile to Israel" in a "transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars."

Pipes' personal website, DanielPipes.org, is almost single-mindedly devoted to attacking Islamic figures and organizations. It posts his publications, which frequently appear in the pages of rightist outlets like the New York Sun and FrontPageMagazine.com, which is a project of David Horowitz's Freedom Center. DanielPipes.org also hosts Pipes' weblog, where he discusses issues such as the potential for war between Israel and Syria and the potentially unhappy consequences for Israel of Arab demographics. Pipes seems to be trying to reach as broad an audience as possible; he typically has his articles posted online translated into several languages—German, Arabic, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, and Polish, to name but a few.

After a plot to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey was uncovered, the right-wing National Review Online asked Pipes and others what lessons they drew from the events. Pipes responded: "... Immigrants seeking refuge in the West must be grilled for their attitudes toward our civilization, our religion, and politics. Whether it be Somali refugees in the United Kingdom, Algerian ones in France, or Balkan ones in the United States (remember the Salt Lake City shooter in February, as well as four of the current six accused terrorists [involved in the Fort Dix plot]), individuals given the privilege and benefits of a new life then with some regularity turn around and attack their adapted fellow citizens. This unacceptable pattern has to be scrutinized to prevent future such atrocities" (National Review Online, May 9, 2007).

In May 2006, Pipes received the "Guardian of Zion" award, given annually to a prominent supporter of the state of Israel, from the Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel (Jerusalem Post, June 8, 2006). Krauthammer received the award in 2002.