Posted on 04/15/2008 12:21:05 PM PDT by mnehring
A central contention of those who insist that neoconservatism explains the Iraq War is that the doctrine is not only new but outside the foreign policy traditions that have guided the United States throughout its history. Where, for instance, did the idea of promoting democracy come from? To find an answer, Packer, along with many others, feels he must follow a winding intellectual path back to Leo Strauss, or to Leon Trotsky, or to the Jewish experience after the Holocaust. The point is that the “neoconservative” foreign policy of the Bush years needs to be understood as an alien presence in the American body. The further implication is that once this alien worldview is exorcised, the United States can return to its traditional ways and avoid future Iraqs.
Robert Kagan, of the Kagan intellectual triumvirate, has published an essay in the esteemed journal, World Affairs, questioning the definition and conventional wisdom regarding the origins of what is labeled neoconservatism in America. He poses the following question for the historical record:
Is this right? 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? The question must seem absurd to anyone with even a passing knowledge of American history. But then, perhaps, it is also very American to forget the past so willfully.
In recalling the epic battles of competing ideals and principles among Americans, Kagan quotes one prominent citizen declaiming publicly in the best neoconservative tradition, “Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness!”. His passionate and eloquent opponent’s response was, in the American voice of neo-isolationism, to accuse the former of attempting to “convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire”. He further contended, “When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object.” This debate could have occurred yesterday in any number of venues in the U.S.A., but it did not. Those heated words were exchanged more than 200 years ago by Alexander Hamilton and Patrick Henry.
The moral and ethical underpinnings, the weaknesses and strengths of what today is called neoconservatism were born with this nation, have survived under different banners, across political parties and have been variously shared and rejected by all the factions populating American history. Read the Kagan piece in full.
Absolutely. Hamiltonianism is as American as apple pie - and the Federalist.
bttt
Well....Hamilton for all his faults was not interested in spereading democracy (a concept that he despised) througho force of arms. That idea began under Wilson.
There is a difference between spreading "democracy" and spreading representaive government.
And Hamilton, as commander of the US Armed Forces during the Quasi-War, did suggest seizing both the Louisiana Territory and Mexico by force - implying that he saw Mexico as potentially being absorbed into the US or being organized as an ally along the lines of the USA.
+1
It’s get to the point that when I hear the word ‘neoconservative’ I just stop listening because I know its another conspiracy theory about how evil Bush and the Jews are and how America has changed its direction (yeah, we’ve never fought a war to keep people free before....).
Anybody debating neoconservatism (which is always debated from the left) is just looking for a justification because their ‘war for oil’ ‘revenge for daddy’ ‘occupying the Middle East’ ‘imperialist expansion’ motives were laughed at.
The funny part about that excuse is that an attempted assassination of a former president could considered an act of war.
All our problems are due to some kind of lib.
Don't keep up your end of the cease fire agreement, we don't keep up our end about ‘ceasing’ the fire.
It's interesting that the author of this piece links the critique of "neoconservatism" to the Jeffersonian critique of Washingtonian/Hamiltonian federalism.
Interesting because, as you point out with the "palaeocon" vs. "neocon" debate, the Jeffersonian critique of Washington and Hamilton was also a left critique: Jefferson was the champion of the French Revolution (he later recanted these views in his age and even partially in his presidency, but the "hot period" of Jefferson vs. Washington/Adams/Hamilton was 1794-1804), and he was the champion of Rousseau's anthropology.
The Washington/Hamilton party were the conservatives in that debate and the Jeffersonians were the radicals.
Here's a hint:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Seems to me that the argument could be made that Natural Law, God's gift of our human, "unalienable" rights gives us the responsibility to share that divine gift that our ancestors earned for us, with those who have not yet achieved it. Where much is given, much is required. From that perspective, would it not be the height of selfishness to do otherwise?
And yet the Founders solicited the aid of France and the Netherlands to assist Americans in securing theirs.
Reminds me of my old FR tagline...(Neither paleo- or neo-cons are conservative at all. More ironic than rain on your wedding day, eh?)
Well, perhaps not alien to American foreign policy traditions but allien to American foreign policy traditions of true conservatives. Neo-conservatives are of the left and not true conservatives. It's obvious when you see the readiness with which they're willing to innovate on everything, the timeless hallmark of the true-believing leftist.
We go to war when it is in American interest to do so. Freeing a people subjugated by a dictator and his control of arms in the region is often a compelling American interest as it makes the world freer for Americans to do business in and live in.
(Of course formerly American and now “multinational” companies with no allegiance to any nation do violence to this whole concept.)
It's the mix. Americans have always been idealistic and concerned about virtue. Some of them went in for an idea of American exceptionalism.
There were also security- and defense-oriented statesmen. And there were expansionists as well. But not all of those idealists were defense-oriented or expansionist. Not all of those who wanted a strong military were idealists. Some of them were realists. Not all of them were expansionists either. The expansionists were idealists, but of a very different sort than we'd admire today.
Now add to the mix the global ambitions. That's something we didn't have in the 18th or 19th century. Or if we did have them they were dreamlike -- let our example be felt around the world, let hundreds of democracies follow our lead -- and not to be achieved by the force of our arms.
So yes, you can find the pieces lying around in the American past, but the mix is different from what we had then. For starters, you needed to wed Hamiltonian emphasis on the military with Jeffersonian idealism about democracy. And you had to get away from the idea of an undoubted realist/idealist, John Quincy Adams:
But [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
Hamilton was an old fashioned imperialist (e.g. wanted the U.S. to conquer territory like other “great nations”) but that has nothing to do with the Modern Wilsonian, and neo-con, concept of spreading democracy. The primary motivation for Hamilton was old fashioned power politics not bringing “’representative government” to the world.
What do you think the primary motivation was for establishing representative government in Iraq?
Think: what countries border Iran?
Turkey - a NATO member. Azerbaijan, a US ally. Armenia, another US ally despite the conflict with Azerbaijan. Turkmenistan -a US ally with US airbases. Afghanistan - a US ally with NATO presence. Pakistan - a US ally. Across the Gulf of Oman is Oman, the UAE and Qatar - all US allies.
Finally, Iraq - a US ally with substantial US military presence.
Iran is completely encircled by US power.
Humanitarian interests and US national interests are usually identical - Hamiltonian conservatives knew, and today's conservatives also know, that the US does well by doing good.
Wilson - a Jeffersonian radical and Confederate sympathizer - has nothing at all to do with current US policy in the Middle East.
Ping per previous ping (on Paulville City). Read that one first.
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