Neoconservatism -- RIP
The moralistic ideology has utterly failed. But as long as Bush still abides by it, his disastrous "war on terror" will drag on.
By Gary Kamiya
from Salon.com
Nov. 14, 2006 | The neoconservatives who dreamed up America's Iraq nightmare are rushing desperately about, searching for scapegoats. Their favorite whipping boy is yesterday's jutting-jawed hero, Donald Rumsfeld, who has been unceremoniously tossed onto the scrapheap. But they also blame the National Security Council, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Bremer, Gen. Tommy Franks and George W. Bush himself. The only thing they don't blame is the actual culprit -- neoconservative ideology itself.
The neocon finger-pointing over who lost Iraq, recently showcased in Vanity Fair, obscures the fact that Bush's war was a laboratory in which their doctrine was tested -- and completely failed. This failure was manifested on the ground and confirmed by the midterms. Most Americans don't even know what neoconservatism is, but they know a failure when they see it -- and they decisively rejected it.
Unfortunately, Bush himself and the key figures in his administration continue to cling, with the fervor of true believers, to neoconservative ideology. Bush has taken some potentially positive steps, like dumping Rumsfeld and replacing him with the more pragmatic Robert Gates, and saying he's open to "any idea" on Iraq. And he is now under enormous pressure, not just from Democrats but also from his own party, to implement profound changes in his Middle East policies. But it remains doubtful whether a figure as dogmatic and inflexible as Bush, who regards his "war on terror" as a sacred duty, will be able to change his approach. It is essential that the fundamental failure of neoconservatism be recognized, to prevent more foreign policy debacles like Iraq.
Neoconservatism is a notoriously slippery and hard-to-define term, in part because its definition has shifted as its enemies have changed. The first generation of neoconservatives, including Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Irving Kristol and Norman Podoretz, were former liberals who believed that America needed to stand up and fight communism. Accusing their former colleagues on the left of going soft, they claimed that America's survival and the fate of the free world required toughness, not compromise. (Kristol defined a neoconservative as a "liberal mugged by reality," which goes a long way to explaining why the ideology gained new adherents after 9/11.) The second generation of neocons, including Robert Kagan, William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, continued to believe in American exceptionalism and the virtues of force, but they added an idealistic note: America should not just battle evil but also promote democracies around the world. The "good" they sought, however, was not purely altruistic but inseparably bound up with America's self-interest. They wanted America to exercise "benevolent global hegemony." It was axiomatic that what is good for America is good for the rest of the world.
In 1997, many leading neocons started a pressure group called the Project for the New American Century, which called for America to overthrow Saddam Hussein. A number of PNAC members, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams and Richard Perle, went on to hold high positions in or to function as influential advisors to the Bush administration.
One of the reasons the neocons were obsessed with Iraq, as George Packer points out in his brilliant study of the Iraq war, "The Assassins' Gate," is that they "concluded it would be very good for Israel." Many neocon thinkers were closely associated with Israel's right-wing Likud Party; some went on to write a 1996 paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," that urged incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to roll back Syria, work to effect regime change in Iraq, and refuse to return the occupied territories to the Palestinians.
(There is more.)
By Gary Kamiya
from Salon.com
Nov. 14, 2006 | The neoconservatives who dreamed up America's Iraq nightmare are rushing desperately about, searching for scapegoats. Their favorite whipping boy is yesterday's jutting-jawed hero, Donald Rumsfeld, who has been unceremoniously tossed onto the scrapheap. But they also blame the National Security Council, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Bremer, Gen. Tommy Franks and George W. Bush himself. The only thing they don't blame is the actual culprit -- neoconservative ideology itself.
The neocon finger-pointing over who lost Iraq, recently showcased in Vanity Fair, obscures the fact that Bush's war was a laboratory in which their doctrine was tested -- and completely failed. This failure was manifested on the ground and confirmed by the midterms. Most Americans don't even know what neoconservatism is, but they know a failure when they see it -- and they decisively rejected it.
Unfortunately, Bush himself and the key figures in his administration continue to cling, with the fervor of true believers, to neoconservative ideology. Bush has taken some potentially positive steps, like dumping Rumsfeld and replacing him with the more pragmatic Robert Gates, and saying he's open to "any idea" on Iraq. And he is now under enormous pressure, not just from Democrats but also from his own party, to implement profound changes in his Middle East policies. But it remains doubtful whether a figure as dogmatic and inflexible as Bush, who regards his "war on terror" as a sacred duty, will be able to change his approach. It is essential that the fundamental failure of neoconservatism be recognized, to prevent more foreign policy debacles like Iraq.
Neoconservatism is a notoriously slippery and hard-to-define term, in part because its definition has shifted as its enemies have changed. The first generation of neoconservatives, including Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Irving Kristol and Norman Podoretz, were former liberals who believed that America needed to stand up and fight communism. Accusing their former colleagues on the left of going soft, they claimed that America's survival and the fate of the free world required toughness, not compromise. (Kristol defined a neoconservative as a "liberal mugged by reality," which goes a long way to explaining why the ideology gained new adherents after 9/11.) The second generation of neocons, including Robert Kagan, William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, continued to believe in American exceptionalism and the virtues of force, but they added an idealistic note: America should not just battle evil but also promote democracies around the world. The "good" they sought, however, was not purely altruistic but inseparably bound up with America's self-interest. They wanted America to exercise "benevolent global hegemony." It was axiomatic that what is good for America is good for the rest of the world.
In 1997, many leading neocons started a pressure group called the Project for the New American Century, which called for America to overthrow Saddam Hussein. A number of PNAC members, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams and Richard Perle, went on to hold high positions in or to function as influential advisors to the Bush administration.
One of the reasons the neocons were obsessed with Iraq, as George Packer points out in his brilliant study of the Iraq war, "The Assassins' Gate," is that they "concluded it would be very good for Israel." Many neocon thinkers were closely associated with Israel's right-wing Likud Party; some went on to write a 1996 paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," that urged incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to roll back Syria, work to effect regime change in Iraq, and refuse to return the occupied territories to the Palestinians.
(There is more.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home