Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back?

Far from it. 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.

A neoconservative is a former leftist. His goals have changed, but his methods have not, and in particular, his belief in the ability of government to improve the human condition has not. In outlook, the "paleo" conservative is modest; the neoconservative is bold. The paleocon recognizes that human nature is immutable, and human evil is a permanent fact of life. The neocon believes, as a leftist does, that the right government policies can overcome evil and eliminate it - he simply differs with his former collegues on the left as to what those policies ought to be.

In foreign policy, the neocon believes that democracy will lead to public virtue (somehow) through the "empowerment" of communitarian groups. In reality, public virtue is an individual choice that both requires and feeds an appreciation for liberty, which democracy is established to protect. The neocon seeks to change enemies into allies. The paleocon seeks to reward allies and punish enemies, and lets other countries choose on that basis which they want to be.

In domestic policy, the neocon favors faith- or market-based government initiatives in lieu of old-style bureaucratic programs to provide for people's needs, and he favors tax-based rather than spending-based fiscal stimuli to keep the economy growing. The old-fashioned conservative believes that people can and should provide for their own needs, and favors balancing the budget (at the lowest possible level of expenditure) and letting the economy find its own equilibrium.

Iraq is a textbook neocon policy, at least the occupation is. Purgue the Baathists, establish an American-style constitution, hold elections, and a thousand flowers will bloom. Of course it failed - how could it not? There is no tradition of public virtue in Iraq, not even an idea of it (apart from a few expatriates). Iraqis are loyal only to their tribes and are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and murder to gain an advantage for their tribe. What they are not willing to do, since Islam teaches them not to, is negotiate in good faith with other tribes and reach a compromise. The neocons' failure to recognize the immutable (at least in the short term) nature of the Iraqi people is of a piece with the leftists' failure to recognize the unconquerable evil of terrorists who will always want to kill anyone who is not moslem, regardless of how many of their ever-shifting demands are met.

Hopefully America's predictable failure in Iraq will be the first nail in the coffin of neoconservatism. A wiser policy in Iraq is to recognize that nobody there is really our ally, and frankly every moslem that dies in sectarian war is one less potential terrorist. After invading Iraq - which was a good idea, not for the reasons given by neoconservatives, but simply to prove to the moslem world that we could and would punish our enemies - we should have left immediately and let the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds go at it. America should have stood on the sidelines, encouraging the parties to keep fighting, prompting other moslems to join in, and expanding the conflict throughout the moslem world to the greatest degree possible, with the greatest possible amount of destruction and loss of (moslem) life. And that's what we should do now. Defeat Islam, protect America first.

And send the neoconservatives packing.

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