WASHINGTON, Aug 24: Daniel Pipes, a controversial scholar of Islam now appointed to a government-funded peace institute by President Bush, has said that war may be necessary for peace with some Muslim nations.

“Conditions of peace have, by and large, been created through military victory,” he said in comments published in the US newspapers after his appointment on Friday to the US Institute of Peace.

“Conflict without violence is the goal,” Mr Pipes said. “We have differences with all our allies, but there is no possibility of resorting to force with them, and that is the goal which we all hope for. But that is not where we find ourselves now, as we found in Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot always rely on non- violent methods.”

President Bush installed Mr Pipes, 53, on the 15-member board of the think tank after the US Senate failed to vote on his nomination, following opposition led by Muslim and Arab organizations and at least three members of Congress, all Democrats.

Critics deride Mr Pipes as unfit to promote peace and bigoted against Muslims.

After the 9-11 terror attacks, Mr Pipes launched a website called Campus Watch, which describes its mission as critiquing Mideast-studies programmes at colleges for “problems that include the mixing of politics with scholarship” and other issues.

But his critics, include prominent US lawmakers like Edward Kennedy, say that he is using the programme to single out those American scholars who support the Arab and Muslim causes.