Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back? (WaPo Op/Ed by a Neocon)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701474.html

Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back?

By Joshua Muravchik
Sunday, November 19, 2006; B03

...

The midterm "thumping" the GOP suffered on Nov. 7 was largely a repudiation of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, a conflict linked to neoconservative ideology. Donald H. Rumsfeld, the administration's leading patron of neoconservative personnel, was quickly ousted as defense secretary. Key players from the administration of Bush the elder are back -- former secretary of state James A. Baker III heading the search for new Iraq policies, and former CIA director Robert M. Gates nominated to take over at the Pentagon -- leading some to believe that the president will cast aside the neoconservative influences that have distinguished his foreign policy from that of his father.

...

Neoconservative ideas have been vindicated again and again on a string of major issues, including the Cold War, Bosnia and NATO expansion. It is the war in Iraq that has made "neocon" a dirty word, either because Bush's team woefully mismanaged the war or because the war (which neocons supported) was misconceived. But even if the invasion of Iraq proves to have been a mistake, that would not mean that the neoconservative belief in democracy as an antidote to troubles in the Middle East is wrong, nor would it confirm that neoconservatism's combination of strength with idealism is misguided. Neoconservatism isn't dead; it can be renovated and returned to prominence, because, even today, it remains unrivaled as a guiding principle for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond.

Let me confess to the obvious: I am a dyed-in-the-wool, true-believer neocon. And to show why neoconservatism will continue to thrive, let me explain first what that term really means. We neocons were a small group of political thinkers who broke with fellow liberals during the war in Vietnam. Most liberals came to believe that the United States had gotten into Vietnam out of what President Jimmy Carter later called an "inordinate fear of communism." By contrast, neocons held to the conviction that communism was a monstrous evil and a potent danger. For our obstinacy, we were drummed out of the liberal camp and dubbed "neoconservatives" -- a malicious gibe to which we eventually acquiesced.

...
As badly as things have gone in Iraq, the war has not disproved neoconservative ideas. Iraq is a mess, and the U.S. mission there may fail. If that happens, neocons deserve blame because we were key supporters of the war. But American woes in Iraq may be traced to the conduct of the war rather than the decision to undertake it. In fact, despite the alarming spike of anti-Americanism worldwide, the political space in many Middle Eastern countries -- such as Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and most of the Persian Gulf nations -- has widened appreciably in response to Bush's pressure and advocacy.

...

[e-mail]

Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Utter Revisionist History Garbage

The crux of the neocon argument was that empires, such as Iraq, were brittle and ready to topple - just a little push, and they'd turn into shiny happy Democracies. That's why idiots like Wolfie and Rummy were so sure that Iraq would be a piece a' cake.

Stupid, stupid people, with utterly fucked understandings of history.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. These fuckers are spinning, madly, nonstop from their magazine editorships and their

private sector think tank spots, hoping that Republicans will no longer blame them for Iraq years from now when they get another idiot ass Republican President like the shrub to fool into trying out their whacked out ideas.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. I'm Always Shocked At What Bald-Faced Liars They Are

Shocked, but not surprised - human nature is, what it is.

[Mountainman]

4. Neoconservatism is nothing but modern imperialism. All imperialist nations have fallen because it

is pure selfishness and the peoples who they take over eventually drive them out.

[Me.]

5. Communism Did & Continues To Do Itself In

It's the economy stupid, and not misguided, hyper aggressive neo values.

[leftofthedial]

6. that's a buttload of crap

that

[countmyvote4real]

7. Really?

True democratic governments are formed from within, not from an outside, occupying force.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Joshua Muravchik also has an editorial in the LA Times, justifying a

bombing on Iran to pre-empt an inevitable attack by a third country or entity on the U.S.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2756992

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. I'm rather pissed that these people continue to get such platforms to

broadcast their drivel like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post.

This is obviously a concerted attempt by the whole gang like this guy, Perle etc., within the last year or so, but reaching a fever pitch now that it's clear the American people are rejecting this war and the Republican Party, to revise history to where "no, no, the ideas behind it were great, it's not our fault, blame the incompetence of the Bush administration for this outcome."