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The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is a Washington, D.C.-based national security think tank founded by former senior aides to President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Originally devoted to counter the military and ideological threats that the Soviet Union presented to the United States and western democracies, the Center focused on jihadist threats shortly before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. CSP also has programs on missile defense, critical infrastructure protection, China, and western hemisphere security. Political figures such as Senator Ted Cruz and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have favorably cited the Center's work. The Center has faced public support and criticism from across the political spectrum.

History

Senior Reagan Administration officials founded the Center in 1988. The founders included Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., who acted as an assistant secretary of defense; and Kenneth de Graffenreid, Sven Kraemer, and the late Constantine Menges, who served on Reagan’s National Security Council staff at the White House.

The Center originally focused on challenging and dismantling the Soviet Union and countering the Soviet military threat; challenging Soviet-backed revolutionary movements around the world; rebuilding U.S. and allied defenses; and fighting Islamist expansion before it became a global concern.

Center has attracted both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition. President Bill Clinton’s former CIA director, R. James Woolsey, is a prominent participant in Center events and has co-authored Center publications. Former Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee, has participated in Center events and received the Center's annual Keeper of the Flame award.

Programs

After 9/11, the Center was one of the first to raise pressing questions about Saudi Arabia involvement in the terrorist attacks on the United States. The Center has emphasized international Saudi Wahhabi Islamist indoctrination, training, and organization and other Islamist ideological warfare worldwide that stresses violent jihad and non-violent jihad to gain political power. It has particularly targeted Qutbism and the Muslim Brotherhood and its North American front groups and affiliates. The Center has worked with Muslim figures like American Islamic Forum for Democracy President Zuhdi Jasser and others opposed to radical ideologies.

Keeper of the Flame awardees

Since 1990, the Center has presented an annual “Keeper of the Flame” award in recognition of an individual or individuals who devoted their careers to “the propagation of democracy and the respect for individual rights throughout the world.” The Keeper of the Flame recipients are:


 * 1990: Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan.
 * 1991: Garry Kasparov, world chess master and Soviet dissident.
 * 1992: Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming).
 * 1993: Steve Forbes, publisher.
 * 1994: Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona)
 * 1995: Ronald Reagan, former President of the United States, accepted by Reagan’s former National Security Advisor, William P. Clark.
 * 1996: Rep. Newt Gingrich, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives.
 * 1997: Rep. Christopher Cox (R-California).
 * 1998: Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense under President Gerald R. Ford, and future Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush.
 * 1999: GEN James L. Jones USMC, Commander, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.
 * 2000: Rep. Floyd D. Spence (R-South Carolina), Chairman, Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.
 * 2001: James Schlesinger, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, and CIA Director.
 * 2002: GEN Richard B. Meyers USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 * 2003: Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense.
 * 2004: GEN [Peter Pace]], Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 * 2005: Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma).
 * 2006: Rep. Duncan Hunter, Chairman, Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives. (The award event also honored five servicemembers of the U.S. military, represented by Marine GEN Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)
 * 2007: Senator Joseph Lieberman, (I-Connecticut).
 * 2008: GEN Jack Keane, U.S. Army (Ret).
 * 2009: Former Vice President Richard Cheney.
 * 2010: GEN James Conway, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps.
 * 2011: Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, Chairman, Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.
 * 2012: Rep. Peter King, Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives.
 * 2013: Rep. C. W. “Bill” Young (R-FL), Chairman, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, U.S. House of Representatives.
 * 2014: Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), Co-Chair, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
 * 2015: Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).

Controversy

The Center has sought controversy to sharpen debate and advance its policy views. It has built bipartisan coalitions on individual issues, and has often clashed with Republicans as well as Democrats. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld credited the Center for Security Policy with assisting the administration of President George W. Bush. “If there was any doubt about the power of your ideas, one has only to look at the number of Center associates who now people this Administration – and particularly the Department of Defense – to dispel them,” Rumsfeld said at the Center’s Keeper of the Flame dinner in 2001. ‬

The Center’s many critics include the Muslim Brotherhood and its front organizations, the Southern Poverty Center, which brands the Center as a “hate” group; the Prince Alwaleed Center; and The Intercept, associated with Edward Snowden, who lives in Russia under the protection of the Putin regime.

Critics accuse the Center of “islamophobia.” J. Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, calls the Center “an extremist think tank” run by what he calls an “anti-Muslim conspiracist.” The Bridge Initiative, based at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has criticized the Center’s polling methodology and considers the group to be “islamophobic.”  The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has frequently accused the Center of islamophobia] and denounced it as a [[hate group.

The Center makes little distinction between jihadist groups that use terrorist violence, and like-minded groups that presently do not practice violence but that share the same end goals. This focus on the radical groups’ strategic ends of imposing global sharia law, and not the tactics employed in reaching that goal, have won sharp criticism from U.S.-based individuals and organizations funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Those critics and others have tended to ignore the Center’s focus on the sharia-adherent end goals of Islamist radicals, and to confuse the issue by calling the Center bigoted or extremist.