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| Spring 2008 CommentsNeocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776“The Iraq War will always be linked with the term ‘neoconservative,’” George Packer wrote in his book on the war, and he is probably right. The conventional wisdom today, likely to be the approved version in the history books, is that a small group of neoconservatives seized the occasion of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to steer the nation into a war that would never have been fought had not this group of ideologues managed somehow to gain control of national policy ... Full text articleHillary Clinton had the best argument for invading Iraq. Had Saddam Hussein been left unmolested, he would have reconstituted his nuclear weapons program. President Bush had a memo prepared by Don Rumsfeld outlining all the downsides of going to war in Iraq that have come to pass. It was not as thought Bush did not know what might happen and how difficult the war would be. Rumsfeld estimated an 8 to 10 year war. Nevertheless Bush decided to invade. But now that we are in Iraq, the question is should we stay until Iraq is stable, or should we leave? If we leave al Qaeda and or Iran will gain control. Political and security progress is ongoing. Therefore we have no other option than to stay. Posted by Rod | April 8, 2008 12:34:32 AM EDT Hindsight is 20/20, and Mr. Kagan makes some good points. But there's no disputing that the neocons had an agenda pre-9/11, and used the tragedy to further that agenda. The total incompetence with which the war in Iraq has been conducted is unforgivable. Tens of thousands of our military killed and wounded, trillions of dollars lost, all for nothing. Posted by Karen | April 8, 2008 12:57:02 AM EDT This thorough piece certainly should give pause to those who would throw inane one-line invectives at their political enemies over a situation that obviously has no easy solution and was the culmination of a number of intersecting factors. Beware those who do. Posted by Rockyspoon | April 8, 2008 1:06:18 AM EDT Thank you for your erudite historical analysis. However, I think there is one missed point. Those that scream 'Neocons!' do not think this is something new. They believe that throughout history a small cabal of Jews have sought control of the world's governments for their own selfish ends. Their tradition of anti-Semitism long precedes the American revolution. What is new in the recent history of America, is the acceptability in public of such plainly anti-semitic views and rhetoric. The word Neocon is the thinnest of veils. Posted by Thank You | April 8, 2008 1:27:48 AM EDT I think what has so many Americans upset by Bush's Iraq campaign is not the war itself but the sheer incompetence of its execution. The worst thing is to go to war and lose, or to be indefinately stuck in a bear trap. If Bush had been willing to forgo his tax cuts and triple the size of the Army right after 911, we could have subdued Iraq and established a stable puppet state. We could have paid for it with Iraq's own oil. But instead we are stuck in a quagmire, with no way out. Almost any outcome at this point will leave Iraq a puppet or even property of Iran, and the US will be worse off than when Saddam was in power. Posted by Andrew P | April 8, 2008 1:29:18 AM EDT How refreshing to read an historical perspective that forces us to look at ourselves and our attitudes as a people. Makes one wonder whether GWB's "humble foreign policy" of the 2000 campaign is advice we should have followed then and need to follow now. To be humble is to be truthful about oneself, to recognize one's strengths and one's weaknesses and perhaps even our difficulty in distinguishing between them. Thanks to Mr. Kagan for this national examination of conscience. Posted by James Gaughan | April 8, 2008 2:06:04 AM EDT WMD was the reason for the war. The people approved no other reason. The war now has a purpose unapproved by the people via their representatives who are solely empowered with declaring war. The lesson, all proactive intervention wars require popular support from the beginning for the purposes of the war. If the war is a failure, the people can accept their own fault. But when a war's purpose shifts to a goal never approved as justification by the people, then those who maintain such war risk being fairly viewed by history as failures. Regarding the poll that 79% supported the war shortly after it was known no WMD would be found: this should not be confused with a poll indicating belief that the war should have been INITIALLLY waged if it were known beforehand that there were no WMD. Clearly our history is this: people will support freedom/democracy/etc. interventions ONLY if the outcome is clear and not oo costly. In other words, we like our interventions to be short and sweet. Chances are, if it's not short, then it was not really freedom-promoting anyway. Liberation is a fairly short act. The challenge in Iraq was not liberation. The challenge in Iraq was, and will be, that of nation building. I challenge the author to find the historical precedent for the U.S. to wage a (1) voluntary war (2) motivated for self-defense (e.g., find WMD) that (3) devolved into an unauthorized attempt at nation building. Posted by JTS | April 8, 2008 3:37:19 AM EDT I got to "the Bush administration weighed the risks of leaving Saddam Hussein in power against the risks of fighting a war to remove him and chose the latter, its calculus shaped by the terrorist attacks and by widely shared suppositions about Iraq’s weapons programs that ultimately proved mistaken," and then stopped. This article is crap. Are you trying to pull the wool over our eyes? Documents have already been released by the press (Downing Street Memo) that prove the justification for war was falsified. Do you actually believe, sir (and I use that term VERY, VERY loosely), that Saddam Hussein planned to attack the U.S. or to arm terrorists that they might do so? Furthermore, do you really believe that Hussein, a power-hungry secular despot, would allow a corrosive influence such as radical Islam to alter the one-sided balance of power which existed in his SECULAR, SOCIALIST domain? You are truly naiive. You are wrong and you know it. So please, get another job and stop polluting the internet. Posted by Asa | April 8, 2008 3:50:05 AM EDT It is a very good article. I have tried to find a reason to support Obama. I thought Obama should oppose preemptive strike against another country and Iwas never able to find it. I grew up in China and I believe a country should never impose its own ideas on another country no matter how good you think they are. You need to respect others. My sixth grade daughter hates dictators, non-democracy countries, communism, and chainman Mao. I often told her these things are not always bad. But it seems you won't listen to me. Americans are taught from elementary schools! What is American Federal government debt now? It approaches 10 trillion dollars! It will eventually bankrupt America. Posted by Teddy | April 8, 2008 3:50:05 AM EDT If this were an essay before me to mark, it would get a C-. Good effort, but woefully under researched. Some glaring errors in your assessment... Donald Rumsfeld was "Not Considered a Neoconservative"? This is the same Donald Rumsfeld of the Nixon Whitehouse, founding member of 'Team B' which came to radically wrong conclusions about Russian 'arms build up', and who built up Iraq's military to aid it against the 'Russian Client State of Iran'? Anyone who had looked over the Bush cabinet's history could see the Neoconservative tilt. And it is of course revisionist history to say that it was commonly accepted that Iraq had WMD and intended to build more... There were many loud and vocal voices of opposition to this idea. All of which fell on deaf ears, including it appears your own? Posted by Jay Blanc | April 8, 2008 6:24:52 AM EDT The only "realistic" foreign policy is to oppose and depose aggressive fanatics & dictators, who threaten us and our civilization with aggression, terrorism and WMD, be they the Kaiser, Hitler, Tojo, Stalin , Kim Ils I&II, Saddam or OBL. We can live with the Ho Chi Minhs, Titos & Francos of the world. But when we depose them, the only option is to put democratic governments in their place- Marshal plans, not Versailles treaties. That is what American history teaches. "Except for slavery, fascism, communism, miitarism, Nazism, & Islamofascism, war never accomplishs any thing." In WWII, FDR did nothing but to defend "US shores". He knew well that without help from the US, the British sooner or later would have joined the Nazis - just think about the many Nazi-lovers in the British establishment of the early 30s. FDR defended "US shores" by pre-empting a situation that would ultimately have led to a German-British naval and submarine attack on the US. Has nothing at all to do with the utterly failed and highly stupid neocon war against Iraq. Historic belief in American exceptionalism≠neoconservatism It just ain't so. We weren't bound to invade Iraq in any way. Everything that happened between the end of the first Gulf War and the start of the second proves the point. "Is it true that moralism, idealism, exceptionalism, militarism, and global ambition—as well as imprudent excesses in the exercise of all of these—are alien to American foreign policy traditions?" These are flimsy justifications for Vietnam, South America and Iraq. Iran-Contra is evidence of immorality. As for every other noble cause rooted in American tradition, they are absent from the past 30 years, and you know it. Global ambition should be the aim of peaceful trade not unwarranted bloodshed. What planet were you on when all this happened? Go back and reread the transcript and watch the videos. Once all this is sorted out, it will be quite clear that America was hijacked, people were threatened and verbally beaten into submission and the Nation as a whole lied to about this war. Faulty intelligence is a useful tool when one is lying to the public. What a splendid article. Sadly, those who would most benefit from reading a reasoned and thorough explanation of the arch of American foreign policy are those that are immune to reason. Those who cry "neocon!" have minds of pigeons. They cannot be helped. Although my worldview is antithetical to Kagan's, he is right on the the money when it comes to the thesis of this article: the urge to dominate other nations has been present in the United States almost from its inception. Those of us who don't follow the line of "American exceptionalism" see it as a hideous deformity, of course. But jingoism has been in style here much more of the time than it's been out of style. Valiant attempt to place the Neoconservatives in the mainstream of American history. I still remain wholly unconvinced. Some historians used to try to do much the same with German history seeing it as nothing but a prelude to Hitler and the Nazis, but there are always turns in the road. Luther does not equal Hitler (even if both were anti-Semitic). People always have choices along the way. A national identity is quite flexible. Our country is the home of many extremes, from pacifist hippies to well armed neoconservatives, from the environmental movement to Haliburton. They are/were all Americans. But none of them speak for all of America. One smaller point, you argue that the Iraq War was popular in its infancy. I remember the polls at the time, there was an approximate 60/40 majority supporting attacking Iraq but WITH UN backing. That's a bit different than how things shortly thereafter unfolded, when we despite appearances, did most everything unilaterally. Plus, the American people supported a war assuming they were fighting to destroy WMDs which never existed. This again was different again than the reality. Furthermore, we were promised they would throw flowers on our tanks and that Iraq's oil money would pay for everything. Blaming the American people for naively believing lies instead of the neoconservative leaders who made up these lies is dishonest. Maybe, we deserve some of the blame, but certainly others deserve even more. What a delightful essay! This brief historical survey of American foreign policy traditions and counter traditions is consistent with much of Kagan's work - a dedication to intellectual honesty and an appreciation for the long "duree." Both Kagan and Walter Russell Mead have written some of the best analyses on US foreign policy during the Bush years. One nugget of wisdom I took away from this particular essay - the pugnacious debate surrounding the Iraq invasion is rather narrow and intellectually vapid by historical standards. The "neocon conspiracy" trope is actually a distraction to a larger debate, one that, as Kagan points out, will probably not take place this election season. One last thought - several years ago, the neo-conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute, held a panel discussion on foreign policy issues. What made the event interesting was that several strains of conservatism were represented. Pat Buchanan represented the "nativist" strain, which placed the most restrictive limits on the US abroad. There were traditional conservatives, of the kind Kagan cites. Then, of course, were the neoconservatives, with their unabashedly expansive arguments for US power abroad. It was amazing to see such breadth of policy positions and even philosophies among a group of folks who all called themselves "conservative." Kagan at least opens a window to view some of these traditions with this excellent essay. Thank you for an interesting, thought-provoking article that deals honestly with one of the dominant issues of the current administration. I guess after reading the piece I would have to put myself in the category of a realist, and I would have to say that I see two parallel American traditions existing over the past 200-plus years; the idealistic tradition of intervention/expansion, and the more libertarian tradition of individualism and mistrust of power. I believe that most Americans probably would have a worldview that incorporates elements of both, with one being more dominate depending on the circumstances. In times of crisis we tend to be more willing to support action, while in times of calm we tend to favor a more conservative approach. Mr. Kagan's assertion that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were not known to be neo-conservatives is blatantly false. They were signatories on the "Project for a New American Century" Statement of Principles. That group is the one referred to when people talk about neo-conservatives. Surely, Mr. Kagan hasn't forgotten that organization has he? The members of that group are responsible for running this country for the past eight years, are they not? They wrote paper after paper about their political goals--policies put into motion after 9/11. I love how the shapers of opinion and policy later submit their biased analysis of history they helped create. The hubris is amazing. Mr. Kagan is apt at pulling out quotes from history showing that America has always been as he and his group are--However, I would like to submit that America doesn't really exist. Americans do. Of course there have been Americans who run the gamut of political and moral opinions throughout history. The problem is when those Americans try to pawn off their misguided views as the "true American view". People in power in America are no different than people from other nations and other times---they want to assert their will over the many. They get replaced by others who use those actions to justify themselves, etc. ad nauseum, "He did it, then so can I!" The Iraq war is another moral failure in a long list of moral failures that run throughout this country's history. I believe those moral failures are a direct result of a misguided attempt to view America as a "special place" with a "special destiny". As much as people try to ascertain a moral certainty and moral purpose with America, it just won't work. America is a Protestant country that deviates further and further from moral certainty with each passing generation. The same heresy that projects the Bible onto its people are the same people who can and do misconstrue the founding documents and laws of our country for their own end. If there is no certain moral authority, there can be no certain legal authority. It turns into a case where those with power can interpret onto themselves any power they can imagine. The evidence is all around, but some people---notably the author of this article---are unwilling or unable to see that. The worst of it is that he's probably right when he says their are two parties who share a common idea of America's role in the world. God help us. This is an absolutely excellent article. I'm not sure if this was mentioned in the article, but belief in relativism is what fuels the argument against neoconservativism. I think history is going to treat this war differently than the media is now. Spot on, Mr. Kagan! One could summarize your disingenuous attempt to minimize the perfidy of the neocons first by quoting the dictum of Clausewitz that war is an extension of politics by other means and then moving on to the good Germans of World War II who either were ignorant of Nazi excesses or just doing what everyone else was doing. Then there were the Nazis who were just following orders. At the end of this article, I thought to myself, "Now, what was this all about?" Sorry for my slowness, b/c I was absorbed in your details. What I got out of your review was that 'neoconservatives' are not the ones to examine or point our fingers at, but ourselves, our nation as a whole. As Andrew P stated: thank you for "this national examination of conscience." I am like George Will in that I have changed my tune considerably. I was 25 when the Iraq War started. I would describe my support of it as slightly better than lukewarm. I saw Iraq as unfinished business, but like the Gulf War (I was 13) I was never completely reconciled to it. After alot of moral study and introspection I wonder, whatever happened to the ideal of preparing one's defenses when threat is perceived--so as to be ready and prepared, if the threat DOES strike (OUR land and people). Has our nation ever known such an ideal? My opinions have changed because I now see the enormous moral consequences that have resulted from this war, consequences i refused to consider before. I began to wonder, "when is it OK to go to war?" I no longer blankently condone going into other people's lands to keep them out of ours. I have a strictly narrow view of when to engage: when they attack us here. (i see afghanistan and iraq as separate matters) That is self-defense--kicking them out and keeping them out, but when we pursue them into their own lands, we begin to approach moral hazards, and reap the consequences thereof. As for pre-emption--perhaps my neighbor wouldn't mind if I incorporated this principle into my family. Maybe when the neighbor boy begins making threats to my child, and maybe even gets a gang together to help him, I should encourage my child to beat the hell out if him before the kid ever gets to make good on his threat. But then, (beside the fact that this would NOT be OK), it would probably escalate problems instead of ending them. I agree with the article, but it might be useful to consider that the invasion of Iraq was a response to a menacing enemy. Bush did not want to invade Iraq prior to 9/11. The terrorist attack in New York demonstrated the effective evolution of asymmetrical warfare, that terrorism can be projected to any corner of the world via public transportation and small suicide units. Bush, like Hussein, realized that American interests, as well as America, could be attacked by Hussein. Hussein was no longer contained by conventional military forces. It was in Hussein's best interest, along with the other terrorists, to get the U.S. to withdraw back into it's borders. I really enjoyed this article because I love history, and it's fascinating to read about the concept of "benevolent hegemony" being repeatedly enacted throughout the American experiment with very mixed results. I can certainly understand why some feel compelled toward this path as if it were written in the stars by Destiny, whereas others (presumably more secular and more progressive others) find it absolutely disturbing. My personal sentiments do lean more toward Strauss than Marx. But what stirred me most about this article was one of the comments: "Those that scream 'Neocons!' do not think this is something new. They believe that throughout history a small cabal of Jews have sought control of the world's governments for their own selfish ends. Their tradition of anti-Semitism long precedes the American revolution. What is new in the recent history of America, is the acceptability in public of such plainly anti-semitic views and rhetoric. The word Neocon is the thinnest of veils." Was this writer seriously opining that "neocon" is a thinly veiled term for "Elder of Zion" coined in the thinly veiled corruption of Maurice Joly's political satire called "The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu - Humanitarian Despotism and the Conditions of Modern Tyranny"? Just for fun I did a Google search on "Neocon" and "Elders of Zion", with low expectations. Tragically, I cannot even count the huge number of return results generated - nearly all linked to radical left websites from AlterNet to the Huffington Post to TalkLeft to Daily Kos and on and on ad nauseum. I even discovered a new term conflating the Elders of Zion with neocons, "ZioCon". I didn't do a thorough statistical analysis, but I'm comfortable with the theory that the "acceptability in public of such plainly anti-semitic views and rhetoric" is positively correlated to the rise of the far left in government, academics, journalism and other communications media. As disturbing as this revelation is, it certainly helps me comprehend the portrayal of Israel as "the little Satan" and America as "the Great Satan" by both the far left and their clients, the Islamic fundamentalists. Or is it the other way around? I'm not so sure, but I am certain that those strange bedfellows are definitely booked into the honeymoon suite together. Mr. Kagan may be right that "neoconservative" tendencies have been at the root of US foreign policy since 1776. However, I'm sure you could pull quotes from any of the founding fathers to prove the opposite ("avoid entangling alliances...). On the other hand, however integral "neocon" thinking is to US foreign policy, we are rapidly reaching the end of our ability to in anyway implement those policies. However martial and self-righteous the American political ethos might be, the American people are traditionally conservative and deeply pragmatic. I wonder if we would still be reading that the war is not substantially the product of the neoconservatives if it hadn't gone so badly -- would they want to be sure they did not get any undeserved credit? Neoconservatives, whatever they are, may've seized the occasion of 9/11 and run with it, but why did others follow? There was never an investigation, a trial, of the supposed hijackers; every Iraqi, therefore, was (and still is), according to our system of justice, innocent. History will not find this to be about neoconservatives or conservatives of any kind. In the end, the fact of the matter is that such would-be representatives of the people who are not conservatives, and as Hillary Clinton would today have herself to be, cannot extricate us, not even by way of impeaching Bush, without presenting evidence (or, more precisely, lack of evidence) that would demand their own impeachments first. A lot of us, especially New Yorkers, are essentially without representation in Congress. What kind of historians can we hope to have? A very interesting article no doubt with some equally interesting comments. Particularly the one comment raising the "New American Century" spectre, and quite rightly pointing them out as the "Neocons". How much of the Bush administration is made up of the original signatories of this group? The essential fact that separates the Neocons from previous American "extroverts" is that the Neocons went looking for a specific war to achieve a specific agenda; whereas in WWl & ll, Vietnam, Kosovo, Gulf War, there were already wars being wage, America just picked a side. Outside of America, History has been pretty scathing of the apparent relunctance to get involved and watch events from cushy "splendid isolation". Such that American action was encourage around the world, very much unlike the invasion of Iraq where the obvious majority of the rest of the world was strikingly against an American initation of hostilities. Interesting article, but it misses a lot of key points. Sure, the neocons are not new -they are part of a long American tradition of trying to impose American values on others through force and violence, and then justifying this through self-deluding moralism. Then there are those American leaders who don't bother with the self-deluding moralism and simply act with force because they think they can or, more charitably, think that they need to do so in a hostile world. Jonathan Monten, in an article in "International Organization" described the continuing phases of American foreign policy very well, where the US has constantly gone from imperialism to isolationism in multi-decade cycles. But the article misses the fact that the neocons are a variation on these earlier themes. They are products of both the American tradition and more recent distortions in American foreign policy - most notably the bizarre and unhealty fixation with Israel - and so are a unique product. As an earlier writer pointed out, the neocons clearly seized 9-11 to pursue their own agenda. It is highly unlikely that a Democratic presidency would have been distracted from Al Qaeda and Afghanistan by a pointless war in Iraq. Bush did this because he was a deeply ignorant man, easily led by those with a ready-made ideology that appealed to many of the very American instincts that Bush possessed and that the article sets in historical context. In the end, the explanation for why the US decided to embark on this latest imperial adventure will require many different and complementary explanations. The neocons are just one - albeit one very important - thread in that overall explanation. But, just as contribution should not be exaggerated, it should not be minimized, either. Anyone familiar with medieval history has heard the "king has evil advisors" argument. It's funny how much the left has embraced conspiracy thinking lately, leaving behind their late emphasis on structural explanations. I suspect your average leftist thinks a "conservative" is a dumb ox standing in the way of heaven on Earth. A "neoconservative" is a Jew who used to be on our side who's standing in the way of heaven on Earth. "Neocon" is now the new "fascist." In a word, Excellent as an exegesis of American; not so manifest, destiny. A very pleasing article to read. I found it objective and keen to avoid simplistic branding of one political camp or the other. A very nice historical political piece on continual currents in American thought. Mr Kagan, as a European, I made a selection of your own quotes, trying to sum up what you seeemed to had in mind. Here is the result: Americans believe they know the truth, and they do not admit alternate truths. As the former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine observed (during the Clinton administration), most “great American leaders and thinkers have never doubted for an instant that the United States was chosen by providence as the ‘indispensable nation’ and that it must remain dominant for the sake of humankind.” And as Robert W. Tucker observed (during the first Bush administration), Americans may have sought international order, but for them “international order implies [American] leadership.” That leadership imposes “special responsibilities others do not have,” but in the American view it also “confers a degree of freedom others do not enjoy.” The effort to explain the war as the product of manipulation by a handful of “neoconservatives” is an effort to escape what for many may be a more troubling reality: that there is something in the American character which leads it in this direction. Americans have an image of themselves as a peace-loving people who generally mind their own business unless blatantly provoked. This self-image is profoundly at odds with reality. So many Americans must find a way to explain American behavior that seems out of character. Says it all, doesn't it? Although we 'll allways be grateful for the American led victory over communism (and to a lesser extent against fascism, which was equally defeated by the same communists), it is harder and harder for us to believe that what's good for America is good for the rest of the world. This was a fascinating read! But Mr. Kagan seems to assume that America is exceptional in this regard. People support war and imperialism in all democracies. The moment people heard that the BJP government tested a nuclear device in India, their popularity hit the stratosphere as it did when they hinted at an another war with Pakistan in the late 90s. Even Gandhi lost popularity in India when he favored the idea of giving aid to Pakistan that was violently splitting against his wishes. I think patriotism tends to support militarism in pretty much all democracies. And patriotism doesn't enjoy losing a war; hence, the trouble with Vietnam and Iraq where clear victories have eluded America. But what I am surprised about is that all these authors do not mention the hardcore economics of the Iraq war, the real reason for the war, as Greenspan himself has mentioned. Absolute genius. I feel, having read this, as if I have just completed a complete and very brilliant college seminar on the history of American foreign policy. I am stunned, and deeply gratified. Reading this article here (Qingdao, China) adds nuance to Mr. Kagans always excellent work; two quick points: I'm very careful what to include in this comment; and (2) THE runaway best-seller in China today is Currency Wars, by Song Hongbing detailing how the Jews brought down first S. E. Asia in 97, then Japan, and are now focused on China. This is an excellent article. As one who has observed the last 2 decades from Germany, My feelings aout 9/11 and the Iraq war differ from those of other commenters. I knew in my gut that if America did not respond and lead the response, other nations would make their accomodations with the terrorists. In fact, the radical pacifists soon were seen on TV talk shows. As the build up to Iraq began, I heard people who had "evaded Saddam's minders" and managed to talk with real Iraqis. Said Iraqis told of the hardships caused by America's sanction but had little to say about Saddam's meat grinders. It was clear that Saddam's propaganda would win public opinion here and that our allies would be willing to feed us to the crocodile. At the same time I saw total incompetence in analyzing the nature of the islamist threat. No one seemed to be getting a handle on things like the Paris bannlieu or the Finsbury Park mosque. Pundits seemed oblivious to the difficulities of assimilating immigrant populations and the intergenerational conflicts within these groups. I supported the invasion of Iraq because I saw any big stick backup for negotiations being thrown away by the likes of Gerhard Schroeder. I also saw the public ignoring the fact that a massive and unsustainable troop buildup had been needed to get Hans Blix back into Iraq. Removal of these troops with Saddam still in power would have been a major recruiting tool for terrorist types convinced that America was a paper tiger. For me the GWOT was less an expansion of our ideals than an unwillingness to see our freedoms dribbled away by consessions to radical groups. JJ has said that he was grateful for America's role in defeating communism. Believe me, many in Europe were not. In their heart of hearts, many were and are reluctant to give up their utopian dream. 'The lady doth protest too much methinks." (Hamlet Act 3) Kagan and his ilk reveal an unmatched craven political cynicism taking full advantage of an effete opposition and an ignorant electorate that still believe Iraq is responsible for 9/11. Leave your impotent screed aside and take your own advice to 'go shopping' instead. Having re-read the very sad and moving Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I thought to myself "has the American governing ethos really changed?" It may have changed in appearance (and even this is debatable) but in ethical substance, I say, in accordance with Robert Kagan (a marvellous article). NO. Attributing our invasion of Iraq to certain historical and political imperatives ignores the obvious, short-sighted economic imperative of various corporate interests. It is not reasonable to attempt to legitimize the economic self-interest of the Bush-Cheney oil lobby with philosphical constructs. The neo-cons did not lead the way to an invasion--they simply facilitated the profiteering motives of the oil lobby which has rigged the past two presidential elections. Neoconservatism is a chimera which will vanish with the George W. Bush administration. Corporate power has always been the real force behind the political blarney of neo-conservatism. Reflective, intrusive, blunt and thought-provoking Robert Kagan, in his insightful article has comprehensively analyzed the traditions of the US offered doctrines of foreign policy. Instead of going into the hairsplittings of his argumentation, I would simply like to add that so whatever remains the premise of the foreign policy advocates- the realists or the idealists, the glaring truth is that the forces of hegemonism, expansionism,interventionism have been the driven objective of the US-foreign policy during both the cold war and the post cold war era. Yet the way the neoconservatives or the neocons have adopted the foreign policy dictates in the post 9/11 epoch, is tantamount to indicating the fact that American survival is perhaps compromising with its historic norms of civic liberties, human rights and democracy-sufficiently endorsed by the fact of US's invasion of Iraq and its ongoing war on terror in Afghanistan-cum-Pakistan. Both the libertarians and revisionists in the American foreign policy think tanks have grave responsibilities ahead to pragmatically reorient the American foreign policy in a way to save both the American and the poor nations' interests in the world. The way Mr Rober Kagan has managed his case against the neocons'-endorsed foreign policy regarding Iraq and the necoconservatives' ongoing realpolitik, may move the American think tanks, although it needs a liberal and an unbaised American outlook. Unquestionably, Kagan's arguments carry leverage and pragmatism. America was not 'tricked or lied' into entering WW2.It fought Japan because it was attacked at Pearl Harbour,and Germany because it had to.Germany declared war on the US several days after Pearl Harbour,a foolish decision because there was no way the US wanted war with Germany.They had let Britain and her allies fight alone from 1939,preferring them to shed their blood and money while the US profited .What a shame for the US that Hitler upset their applecart. This article is nonsense. The U.S. did not defeat the Nazis and Japan' it helped. but only after being bombed in 1941. Today it is the Nazis and is the Japanese imperialists of our world. Since 1945 it has carried out genocidal wars, the overthrow of democratic regimes, terrorism on the most massive scale, torture,and on and on. I could continue, but I don't have the stomach for it, except to say that its present butchery of millions in Iraq, its total destruction of that country, is about oil and military bases. The U.S. today, has the ideals and morals of pimps and gangsters. "I once heard a Cornell professor earnestly define neoconservatism as an ideological commitment to torture and political oppression." Maybe that's because neocons are in favor of torture and political oppression, and not all the long-winded articles that even Robert Kagan can manufacture can change those facts. This article shows an almost breathtaking ignorance of American history. The invasion of Nicaragua as one of "Liberation", come on! That was the war which coined the phrase "Banana Republic". It was solely to protect American investments in the region. All of America's interventions in Central and South America have been to protect US trade and investment, or to prevent the election of left wing governments. The protection of, or expansion democracy has never been American foreign policy. Indeed, the belief in 'manifest destiny' and origin of 'New age' for all mankind was there from the start. But so was the constitution, abolitionism and aversion to colonial policies of the old world monarchies. All that is 'good America' - now under the attack by the 'bad America', slavers, clerofascist and neocons. Fight of good and evil can be found in any history. We can have different opinions on which is which, but we should not try to falsify facts, mr Kagan. Just war against Nacism was not result of American militarism, of neocon philosophy, or attempt to steal resources. It was a wise reaction of a democratic nation, lead by a wise Democratic president. Something which America lacks at the moment. Here in Europe, we did not forgot that good America. We remember it well and prey it will return. And it will. God Bless America. God , please, help her to elect a better president this November. Polls show that Good America is winning. That is the reason for this skilled but misleading attempt to pretend we all or one, all unified. We really want to Not a good article. It's disturbing to see the process of rewriting history beginning already. The war was based on a lie, period. One further point: the posted comment that suggested that without FDR's help the UK would have joined the Nazis needs to go to college and study a little history. Maybe Charles Lindbergh would have taken the USA down that route. Maybe we should stop playing pointelss counterfactual games of 'what if'. The one thing that offensive posting and the article does share, though, is a certain insularity of outlook. Friends of the US people often despair at the narcissism and wish fulifilment that characterises such a lot of US right of centre comment on world affairs. Ah, to see yourselves as others see you... I found Kagan's essay to be an excellent survey of the dynamic mix of pragmatic idealism and a desire to restrain ourselves. Depending on the outcome of our most recent steps, we either praise ourselves as fine stewards of the wilderness that is the world or, when things go wrong, we see ourselves as the hapless victims of whatever "snake" has entered our "garden" and deceived us into partaking of the Tree of Knowledge. Millions where I come from owe our life to the Monroe and Truman doctrines. It's impossible to find a normal Japanese or German who's against his personal freedoms today under a national constitution written and imposed by America. This article is a timely lesson in your own history, there's nothing neo nor con about Iraq and like, dreadful, murderous, militaristic trouble spots. Of course intervention has its risks, particularly if the natives are medieval and primitive in their reaction to liberation and stupidly refer to the liberator as the invader. And of course America also some has self-serving motives, don't we all? And corporate America's often taken insensitive advantage of essentially noble political inroads. But the difference is America's values are ultimately inclusive, there for all, not ideological or imperial. Yes, Republicans are perhaps more hard-nosed but they seem to know your history better than your own historians and other faculty quacks. And learned ignorance ill serves a left woefully inept at balancing America's own disparities and which one bus trip around the country exposes to all except apparently those critics of privilege who see 4000 fallen in 5 years oversees but don't give a damn about 4000 shot over the same span in the city of Los Angeles. Whence all this moral selectivity? The author asks "What are the sources of (America's)enduring power?" and goes on to list the virtues of the people. This explanation could not be further from the real source of power. The real source of it's power was it's economic wealth and the sound dollar. America had a major advantage over the rest of the world after WWII because the dollar was treated as if it were gold. Unfortunately America has squander most of this wealth and power. In fact America's power is at the mercy of its creditors (foreign nations). The dollar has lost substantial value. Much like Rome and the Soviet Union, America's empire will crumble because it spent all its wealth maintaining an unnecessary world empire. In order to maintain American greatness we need to stop spending our money on unnecessary wars and bring home the troops. "...and Saddam Hussein naturally became a potential target, based on a long history of armed aggression, the production and use of chemical weapons, proven efforts to produce nuclear and biological weapons, and a murky relationship with terrorists." 1. Neoconservatives were the most ardent backers of Saddam when he was at his brutal worst. 2. Terrorist ties?! Secular Saddam and fundamentalist Bin Laden were arch enemies! 3. When there is so much deceit in the first paragraph, there is little inclination to read on. Great article, but what about all the dead people? Wars aren't like football games you know. There is alot more boiling blood and burning entrails involved. Please don't ever forget that all of these wars of which you sometimes proudly and reverentially speak destroyed the lives of millions of people and gave birth to an infinity of unspeakable horrors that words cannot even begin to describe. You should never make war sound like some romantic journey the country is on. These wars are all about killing. Plain and simple. You write, "These beliefs, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, were neither exclusively Anglo-Saxon nor Burkean accretions of the centuries but, in Hamilton’s words, were 'written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself.'" The passage you quote above comes from one of the two early revolutionary pamphlets Hamilton published when a teenaged college student. The pamphlets sound more like John Locke than anyone else, and they were written when Hamilton was perhaps at his most radical stage of thought. I would not use this quotation, or the ones that follow, as forerunners of the neocon belief in intervention and even reemptive strikes. For one thing, Hamilton would surely not have approved of a military expenditure of 10 billion a month, with funds borrowed from other nations, resulting in a huge increase in the national debt. |  Submit Your Comment |
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Posted by P | April 8, 2008 12:17:46 AM EDT