Michael Ledeen is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and a resident scholar (Freedom Scholar) at the American Enterprise Institute. His political ideas, informed by his background in history and philosophy, are said to have influenced or inspired the Bush administration.

He advocates "total war" in the service of democracy, a view some critics disparage as "totalitarian".

After the 3-11-04 attacks in Madrid, he wrote:

"Either the Spaniards were intimidated by the terrorists, or they punished Aznar for trying to trick them into thinking it was the Basques, when he had strong evidence that the jihadists were involved."

Links

• interview (alternet) http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15860
• Profile at the American Enterprise Institute http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.35/scholar.asp
• Profile of Ledeen http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/ledeen/ledeen.php
• Profile on disinfopedia http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Michael_Ledeen
• Flirting with Fascism (The American Conservative) http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html details on Ledeen's youthful sympathies for Italian fascism