Foreign Policy Initiative Archives

Foreign Policy Initiative Cease Of Operations

Published on April 11, 2018May 22, 2018

News/U.S.

The Foreign Policy Initiative was founded in 2009 and its main financial supporter was a hedge-fund billionaire and Republican Paul Singer. This right-leaning think tank that was based in Washington ceased its operations during the last year.

Singer is a well-known critic of President Trump, and we could hear him many times during the campaign. Before the election, he commented that Trump’s stance on trade is “close to a guarantee of a global depression—widespread global depression.”

According to sources that were close to Singer, it has been said that the election results had no influence on the decision to stop the Foreign Policy Initiative. One of the veterans of a think tank that wanted to stay anonymous stated: “Even before the election, Paul, I think, had some questions about whether FPI was providing enough return for his investment in terms of moving the needle on things. Like a lot of things, after the election of Trump, the question was: What are they going to do?”

Source also added that Singer “decided to reduce the amount of money he was giving to FPI to a very low amount, and all the board members came to the conclusion that there was no point in continuing.”

We did receive another comment from a Republican that was close to the Foreign Policy Initiative who said that after changes in the world this group has simply outlived its usefulness. The main goals of the organization were to stay focused on problems regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, but this mission lost on its relevancy and Republican Party is moving on to other pressing issues.

Furthermore, the source said: “This was not some rash decision—this was kind of part of the plan. The initial impetus for the thing was always to sort of beat back the isolationist strain in the party at the beginning of the Obama era.

The whole idea behind the Foreign Policy Initiative is for it to be a temporary organization. Prior to shutting down, the number of personnel was reduced, and those plans were in motion for about two years. According to publicly available 990 form of FPI from 2015, it was noted that they received slightly over $1.5 million in grants for financing their operations during that year.

Among the most prominent names that left Foreign Policy Initiative prior to its shutdown was David Adesnik that was policy director. He joined the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Jamie Kirchick also decided to transfer as he went to the Brookings Institution. In the last few months and weeks, before everything stopped, only a handful of members stayed.

If we take a look at the board of directors that was in FPI, we could see some of the biggest names from “Never Trump” Republican foreign-policy world. Those include Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Eric Edelman.

Another senior level member of FPI claimed that the Never Trump Republicans did not have any influence on the decision for this organization to stop its activities. It was also added that the election certainly changed the way how the initiative work. “The Trump era is not why FPI shut down. But the Trump era does affect how those who founded FPI are thinking about what should come next.”

The source continued by saying: “I think there will be internal disagreements between the founders.” There were talks if it would be best to “isolate and abandon” the idea, and the other option was to stay and be “critical when necessary but cooperative.” According to the source, Singer did not want for the Foreign Policy Initiative to be shut down and he supported it to continue its work during the campaign in 2016. In the end, the conclusion of our source is that they “should have wound it down sooner.”

Source: theatlantic.com

Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor – Foreign Policy Initiative

Published on September 14, 2016May 22, 2018

News/U.S.

Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor is former chief spokesman for Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and senior foreign policy adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 election campaign. He was born on November 6th, 1971. During his life, he worked as a columnist, writer, and political adviser. He also appeared on Fox News as a commentator and was a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. He is the co-author of the book called Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Dan Senor is married to TV personality Campbell Brown.

Early life and education

Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor was born in Utica but grew up in Toronto, Ontario. He is the youngest of his family’s four children. He is the son of Jim Senor, who worked for Israel Bonds. His mother was Helen Senor who came to Canada from Kosice (Slovakia). Helen, together with her mother, hid in this Slovakian city from Nazis during the Holocaust. The grandfather of Dan Senor, from mother’s side, was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, Helen moved to Paris, and afterward via New York to Montreal. Dan often spoke about how his mother’s “Holocaust trauma” was hard on family during his childhood.

Dan Senor graduated from Forest Hill Collegiate Institute and earned a B.A. in History at the University of Western Ontario in 1994. After that he attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem, only to receive an MBA from Harvard in 2001.

Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor Career

During the 1990s Senor worked as a staffer at Spencer Abraham’s campaign for Senate and later in his office at Capitol Hill. After that, he worked at AIPAC and for Senator Connie Mack. While at AIPAC he was spotted by William Kristol who was an editor at Weekly Standard. Kristol was the one who introduced Senor to neoconservative group that had an affiliation with George W. Bush. The period from 2001 to 2003 saw Dan working as an investment banker at Carlyle Group.

Iraq

When the U.S. invasion of Iraq started in 2003, Senor was White House adviser in Doha, Qatar. Later he was moved to Kuwait as the part of U.S. Central Command. There he worked under general Jay Garner. The author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, stated that Dan Senor was the one who put the “good face” on the catastrophe that was Iraq War which did not end until 2011. His press statements didn’t describe the exact situation in Baghdad.

Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor was transferred to Iraqi capital on April 20th, 2003 and was one of the first civilians to enter this city after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Dan was a Chief Spokesperson for the CPA, and a Senior Advisor to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, Senor was the one to report from the location and was regularly on television. Because of this, many regarded him as “the face of the Bush Administration’s efforts in Iraq.”

His service in Iraq ended in 2004 after he became one of the longest-serving civilians during the invasion and it earned him Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award, one of the Pentagon’s highest civilian honors.

Other professional activities

* Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
* Writer for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Post, and The Weekly Standard.
* Established think tank Foreign Policy Initiative.
* Currently serves on advisory board for nonprofit America Abroad Media.

Role in the Romney campaign

In 2012 Daniel Samuel “Dan” Senor started working as a foreign policy adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney. What Dan bought to the campaign were close ties to Israel through his sister Wendy Singer who works at the Jerusalem office of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He was the leading man behind Romney’s campaign. Many analysts considered that if Romney managed to win the elections, there was a place reserved for Dan Senor in the West Wing.

Personal life

Dan Senor is married to Campbell Brown. The two are married since 2006 and they have two children together.

Beyond Af-Pak: The War Against Al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia

Published on April 19, 2010May 22, 2018

News/U.S.

On Monday, April 19, 2010, the Foreign Policy Initiative and the Critical Threats Project of the American Enterprise Institute organized a panel. The group was assembled to talk about Al-Qaeda and their operations in countries such as Yemen and Somalia. The moderator of this panel is Charlie Szrom, the program manager for the Critical Threats Project. Some of the names included Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the director of the Center for Terrorism Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, John Kiriakou, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and Chris Harnisch, an AEI Research Analyst.

Szrom opened this panel with the truth, which may have been concerning at the time. He pointed out that al-Qaeda has spread across the world and they were present on the Arabian Peninsula, while al-Shabaab was in Somalia. This meant that the war against al-Qaeda could not end in Afghanistan, near the border of Pakistan. Iraq’s al-Qaeda was the most notorious one, but the two groups Szrom mentioned were considered a threat to the American homeland.

Meanwhile, Harnisch pointed out that excellent communication characterized the relationship between the central leadership of al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia. In Yemen, there were 200-500 operatives, and then-President Saleh showed reluctance to act. The US was debating whether President Saleh should be considered an enemy, but they saw him as the partner in the War on Terror. On the other hand, there was Al-Shabaab, which was a cross between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They were a much greater threat, with 2,500 operatives that spread terror through Somalia and imposed ideology upon people in this country. They also threatened to attack the American homeland.

Daveed Gartenstein Ross noted that the American government knew little of what was going on in Somalia. Since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, the US neglected this region and this shouldn’t have happened. Last but not least Kiriakou outlined the situation in Yemen. People were facing poverty, living on less than $2 per day, while the country experienced lack of oil and drinking water problems in the capital. President Saleh wanted to leave al-Qaeda in order to draw the United States in this, but he quickly realized that they were an imminent threat to his rule.