Mr. Obama’s half-hearted fight against the Islamic State

The Washington Post ^ | 10-25-14 | Editorial

[Ben Ficklin]

Well yes there are liberals at WaPo. But the editorial board always takes the neocon position on foreign policy issues.

As for your false choice between isolationists and neocons, you are leaving out the realists, and Reagan was a realist, although the neocons did influence him during his first term.

In fact, the Realists were the dominant foreign policy group for Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and GHW Bush. It was only under Clinton that the liberal interventionists rose to power and the NeoCons rose to power under GW Bush. George Bush campaigned as a Realist but followed the NeoCons.

Some of these shifts coincide with the shift from the Cold War Period to the Post Cold War Period.

[elhombrelibre]

How would you define the neo-cons’ foreign policy position?

[Ben Ficklin]

To start, neocons say the US won the cold war, is the last remaining super power, so, the US is the world hegemon, and should not be meek about using our military strength to influence the world. At the point of a gun. Little regard for diplomacy. Would like to roll the State Dept into the defense dept and replace the Sec of State with a Undersecretary of Defense for Diplomacy.

Highly interventionist.

Idealists and big believer in humanitarianism, nation building, spreading democracy.

Unilateralists, opposed to multilateralism, which they see as weakness, or call multilateralism "leading from behind". Opposed to multilateral orgs like Nato and the UN saying that the only world order achievable is a hierarchy of nations.

Invade: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, anywhere, everywhere.

[elhombrelibre]

I don't think that only neocons think that the USA won the Cold War. I could be wrong, but I'd say that nearly everyone without regard to their political philosophy thinks the Soviets lost, and the USA won the Cold War. I almost wonder if you wrote that sentence and didn't consider what you'd written. In fact, after the Cold War was won, the Liberals tried to claim full credit for being their from the beginning and being steadfast Cold Warriors throughout the struggle.

The idea that the USA is the world hegemon is hardly new or exclusive either to the neocons. Others, especially on the Left by the way, have called the USA a hyper-power and other terms that assert that the USA is the most extremely powerful country in the history of the world. These charges come and go with wild swings. Usually, it's the Liberals like Obama who want to reign in all this hegemonic power. Still with others, we either about to collapse or we're about to achieve world dominion beyond the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and Soviet Empire combined.

Using the interventionist assertion, I guess FDR was the original neocon, with Truman, JFK, and LBJ close behind. But none of them really would otherwise be considered neocons in any other way that I can think of in the definitions I'm aware of.

I cannot imagine any former Democrat turned conservative as more idealistic than Ronald Reagan whom I believe rightly blamed most of the world's problems on government and the state. He was a huge supporter of democracy, but admittedly that wasn't at a time when one man/one vote might lead to Hamas ruling in Israel. And Reagan certainly intervened in Grenada, Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Lebanon. In Grenada, he invaded. In Nicaragua, he backed the anti-communist rebels. In Angola, he supported rebels as well. In Afghanistan, he supported the Afghan rebels (remember?). Regarding Iran, he supported Iraq with weapons to assure that Iran and Iraq only achieved a status quo outcome to Iraq's war. In the Soviet Union, he supported the Pope, Solidarity, Jews emigrating to Israel, enhances broadcasting to the Soviet States, etc. In Lebanon, he supported boots on the ground and attempted to end the Civil War without success.

I'm not trying to be quarrelsome. I am just trying to point the imprecision of the anti-neocon attacks. Standing up for the USA today is often attacked by people who think that defending America is the exclusive domain of neocons who want to cozy up to a Putin or make nice with the nuclear-bomb-seeking Ayatollahs, and to avoid all of these "idealistic," "neocon," objections to Iran, Putins' Russia, and any other God awful tyranny.

Some of America's world role was almost an accident. We ended up in WWII. With the huge Soviet Army and Great Britain as allies, our massive materiel contribution, our leadership and sacrifice, we won. That war fully industrialized the USA, and we'd suffered less than any other major power. The rise to preeminence was almost an accident. We are still the hegemon of the democratic world. We're the one power everyone looks to to bring peace and security. I've plenty of anecdotal evidence, but I won't go into it on line.

To me, America is also like any nation. It has interest and it has ideals. And if Obama doesn't support America's interest or its ideals, I'll say so. If the Washington Post says it too, I'll agree with them. I don't care if a neocon agrees with me too. When the USA doesn't intervene, the consequences are often worse than when it does. It wasn't the USA's intervention in South Vietnam that led to Pol Pot. It was the Liberals retreat that allowed the realist foreign policy to collapse, the South Vietnam to fall under the North, the boat people, and the genocide in Cambodia.

We cannot solve all of the world's problems. We haven't the resources. And Obama-ism has weakened and exacerbated tensions and problems everywhere. Lead from behind doesn't work.

I respect the fact that you may disagree.

[Fightin Whitey]

I could be wrong, but I'd say that nearly everyone without regard to their political philosophy thinks the Soviets lost, and the USA won the Cold War

Virtually every liberal I (used to) talk to sneers at the idea that Reagan's USA "won the cold war."

To a person they believe that Gorbachev dismantled the U.S.S.R. in accord with his own heroic, visionary, democratic principles.

[elhombrelibre]

Yeah, I did realize that, but I was trying to be generous.

[Fightin Whitey]

No prob.

I just wondered if you knew more, um, reasonable liberals than I did...lol.