The Neoconservative Convergence - Charles Krauthammer

WSJ Opinion Journal ^ | 21 July 2005 | Charles Krauthammer

[USAFJeeper]

Some once famously dissenting ideas now govern U.S. foreign policy, maturing as they go.

BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Thursday, July 21, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

The post-Cold War era has seen a remarkable ideological experiment: Over the past 15 years, each of the three major American schools of foreign policy--realism, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism--has taken its turn at running things. (A fourth school, isolationism, has a long pedigree, but has yet to recover from Pearl Harbor and probably never will; it remains a minor source of dissidence with no chance of becoming a governing ideology.) There is much to be learned from this unusual and unplanned experiment.

The era began with the senior George Bush and a classically realist approach. This was Kissingerism without Kissinger--although Brent Scowcroft, James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger filled in admirably. The very phrase the administration coined to describe its vision--the New World Order--captured the core idea: an orderly world with orderly rulers living in stable equilibrium.

[USAFJeeper]

Call me a Krauthammer fanboi, but I like what he writes. A lot.

[Fenris6]

"There is some justice in one charge that is frequently leveled against the United States, and more generally against the West: Middle Easterners frequently complain that the West judges them by different and lower standards than it does Europeans and Americans, both in what is expected of them and what they may expect, in terms of their economic well-being and their political freedom. They assert that Western spokesmen repeatedly overlook or even defend actions and support rulers that they would not tolerate in their own countries.

...there is nevertheless a widespread [Western] perception that there are significant differences between the advanced Western world and the rest, notably the peoples of Islam, and that these latter are in some ways different, with the tacit assumption that they are inferior. The most flagrant violations of civil rights, political freedom, and even human decency are disregarded or glossed over, and crimes against humanity, which in a European or American country would evoke a storm of outrage, are seen as normal and even acceptable.

...The underlying assumption in all this is that these people are incapable of running a democratic society and have neither concern nor capacity for human decency."

The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis, p104

President Bush is changing that assumption. No more "bigotry of low expectations"

[rwa265]

I don't know what a fanboi is, but I like Krauthammer, too.

[La Enchiladita]

He is close to characterizing what is happening, but I think it goes beyond the narrow term, "neoconservatism." President Bush and his Cabinet have indeed been spiritually transformed by 9/11 and a comprehensive understanding of the global playing field. We need a new term for the preemptive, proactive yet kinder and gentler foreign policy.

[rwa265]

Charles addresses that near the end of his column. He calls it democratic globalism.

[La Enchiladita]

Not a splashy name but it is certainly the maturing of U.S. foreign policy. Frankly, I'm excited about it!

[USAFJeeper]

Its a online geek term :) Fanboi is a mispelling of the made up word fanboy, as a fan boy. Usually applied to people who prefer one online game or gaming system to another to the point where they refuse to admit any flaws! As in "You are an Everquest fanboi" "You are just a Apple fanboi"

[My2Cents]

The "Clinton legacy" --

...the period between 1993 and 2001 was a waste, eight years of sleepwalking, of the absurd pursuit of one treaty more useless than the last, while the rising threat--Islamic terrorism--was treated as a problem of law enforcement.

[nikos1121]

I like what he writes also.

I think the senior Bush's failure to follow through in Iraq was the biggest blunder. It showed cowardice. We were there, outside of the city.

nick

[My2Cents]

Bismarck once said that God looks after fools, drunkards, children and the United States of America. Given the 2000 presidential election, it is clear that he works in very mysterious ways.

Great line.

[frithguild]

We need a new term for the preemptive, proactive yet kinder and gentler foreign policy.

Golobal Asskickingyouaskedforism

[rwa265]

Thanks for the explanation. I am a geek, but I'm not into online games. My sons sure are, though.

[USAFJeeper]

I was active duty during that time. I worked in JSTARS and AWACS. He shredded the military as far as manning and equipment goes (Gee how did he balance the budget)

Not only did he consider it law enforcement but enabled attacks on US assets in the region to go unanswered. If nothing else the painting of our jets enforcing the no fly zones by radar deserved Iraqi Freedom. His decimation of the military and it's morale as a side effect was unconscionable.

[La Enchiladita]

Leaving Saddam in place, and declining to support the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that followed the first Gulf War, begat more than a decade of Iraqi suffering, rancor among our war allies, diplomatic isolation for the U.S., and a crumbling regime of U.N. sanctions. All this led ultimately and inevitably to a second war that could have been fought far more easily--and with the enthusiastic support of Iraq's Shiites, who to this day remain suspicious of our intentions--in 1991. One recalls with dismay that the first two of Osama bin Laden's announced justifications for his declaration of war on America were the garrisoning of the holy places (i.e., Saudi Arabia) by crusader (i.e., American) soldiers and the suffering of Iraqis under sanctions. Both were a direct result of the inconclusive end to the first Gulf War.

Sad, sad, sad but true...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We need to do some A**Kicking with the Leftists also.....

See this:

*****************************************************

Unholy Alliance
by David Horowitz
Regnery Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 089526076X
Hardcover - 256 pages (September 2004)

In this tour de force on the most important issue of our time, David Horowitz, confronts the paradox of how so many Americans, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, could turn against the War on Terror. He finds an answer in a political Left that shares a view of America as the “Great Satan” with America’s radical Islamic enemies. This Left, which once made common cause with Communists, has now joined forces with radical Islam in attacking America’s defenses at home and its policies abroad. From their positions of influence in the university and media culture, leftists have defined America as the “root cause” of the attacks against it. In a remarkable exploration of the “Mind of the Left,” Horowitz traces the evolution of American radicalism from its Communist past to its “anti-war” present. He then shows how this Left was able to turn the Democratic Party presidential campaign around and reshape its views on the War on Terror.

Horowitz’s Unholy Alliance, writes John Haynes, the noted historian of American Communism, “is an insightful, brilliant examination of the mental world of the radical left. Horowitz shows how today’s radicals, unwilling to reflect on the internal flaws that destroyed Marxism-Leninism from within, have embraced an all-consuming nihilism in its place. This has led them to a hatred of American institutions and a solidarity with Islamic terrorists that makes the radical left more properly regarded as dangerous than loony.”

Unholy Alliance is an eye-opening book that should unsettle conventional assumptions and reveals why intellectuals and political leaders who applaud Michael Moore are no laughing matter. As Harvey Klehr, author of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, writes, “The world Communist movement may be moribund, but its habits of mind and ideological fantasies have not disappeared. This is a fascinating and depressing account.”

Price: $19.01 - Click here to order:

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Clinton didn't just ignore Islamic terrorism, he actively aided it, by bombing the Christians of Yugoslavia / Serbia after INVENTING reasons for doing so, claims which were clearly at the time hoaxes or events where the wrong side was blamed (e.g. a market massacre where the UN observers knew the Islamics had bombed their own peopl for the PURPOSE of getting Clinton to pretend to be outraged and bomb their enemies the Christian Serbs.

Also, bin Laden received a passport from Muslim-dominated Bosnia even earlier then that, and Washington has AIDED him for over 10 years directly.

[Zack Nguyen]

Great post. Fascinating article.

[My2Cents]

Then comes Syria, both because of its vulnerability--the Lebanon withdrawal has gravely weakened Assad--and because of its strategic importance. A critical island of recalcitrance in a liberalizing region stretching from the Mediterranean to the Iranian border, Syria has tried to destabilize all of its neighbors: Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and now, most obviously and bloodily, the new Iraq. Serious, prolonged, ruthless pressure on the Assad regime would yield enormous geopolitical advantage in democratizing, and thus pacifying, the entire Levant.

It's probably unlikely that this will be achieved in the next 3-1/2 years, but in that time it's likely that the Bush Doctrine will be further proven to be correct. But this effort needs to continue beyond the second Bush term. I hope and pray that there is a serious discussion and debate about this in '08, and that a true successor Bush and inheritor of the Bush Doctrine emerges.

[My2Cents]

As Clinkton continues to look for his legacy, I think most of us here already know how history will judge his administration. The only reason he hasn't been widely discredited is because of the blind kneejerkers on the left and in the media who continue to look upon the Clinkster as a god. They are wrongheaded, and dangerously delusional, and history will judge the Clinton syncophants as harshly as it will their leader.

[USAFJeeper]

Thanks. Krauthammer and Buckley never cease to make me think and see things in a fresh way. Two of my favorite writers as far as politics and current events go.