Posted on 09/04/2023 9:32:56 AM PDT by Kazan
It’s time to ignore the Bill Kristols, Max Boots, and David Frums of the political spectrum. They have been disastrously wrong for 30 years.
The Washington Post on Aug. 15, 2023, in a story by Mariana Alfaro, writes about Bill Kristol’s launch of “Republicans for Ukraine,” which is using a $2 million ad campaign “to get congressional Republicans to commit to continue funding aid for Ukraine ahead of what is likely to be a lengthy appropriations fight.” According to Alfaro, advertisements, which will include “testimony” from pro-Ukraine Republican voters, will appear on television, billboards, and online. After two decades of promoting failed and costly wars and interventions, Kristol and what is left of the neoconservative movement are making a last gasp at relevance by once again promoting American involvement in another war.
Fortunately, neoconservatives are a dying breed in American politics. At least in the Republican Party. Having achieved relevance in the latter stages of the Cold War by breaking with the Democratic Party (where most of them came from) and supporting President Ronald Reagan’s policies that won the Cold War, the neoconservatives spent much of the post-Cold War world finding new “monsters to destroy” (to use the famous phrase of John Quincy Adams).
They first picked Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But after the U.S. military achieved a quick victory on the battlefield in 1991 and forced Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait, the neoconservatives criticized the Bush 41 administration for not toppling the Iraqi regime. During the Clinton administration, the neocons were ardent champions of U.S. intervention in the Balkans.
Then, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the neoconservatives persuaded the George W. Bush administration not only to retaliate against our enemies in Afghanistan but to declare a “Global War on Terror” and launch a crusade to democratize the Arab regimes of the Middle East. Bush 43, backed by the neoconservatives and using Wilsonian rhetoric, preemptively attacked Iraq, overthrew the heinous Hussein regime, declared “victory,” and then needlessly expended the lives of American soldiers and American treasure in failed efforts to remake the Middle East in America’s image.
At the same time that the neoconservatives promoted the democratization of the Middle East, they also urged the Bush 43 administration to expand NATO closer to Russia’s border, ignoring the prudent counsel of Bush 41 Secretary of State James Baker (who told Russian leaders that NATO would not expand if Russia didn’t contest German reunification), and Russian expert and elder statesman George F. Kennan who presciently warned that NATO expansion would revive the worst aspects of Russian nationalism and imperialism.
Bush 43 not only expanded NATO further (Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were given membership in 2004, while Albania and Croatia were invited during the Bush 43 administration but formally joined in 2009), he also publicly called for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance. The neocons also urged U.S. intervention in Syria and Libya in 2011 as part of their championing of the so-called “Arab Spring,” which led not to democracy but instead to anarchy, chaos, and increased Russian and Chinese influence in the region.
Last year Jeffrey Sachs wrote that Ukraine is “the latest neocon disaster.” He described the war in Ukraine as “the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement.” Sachs in that piece recounted the neocon track record of promoting disastrous military adventures that have resulted in diminishing U.S. influence abroad and, in the case of Ukraine, risking a wider European war. Sachs concluded that “[i]nstead of risking this disaster, the real solution is to end the neocon fantasies of the past 30 years and for Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table, with NATO committing to end its commitment to the eastward enlargement to Ukraine and Russia in return for a viable peace that respects and protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Sachs’ call for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine War was echoed recently in the pages of The National Interest by Russia expert Alex Burilkov and State Department consultant and military intelligence officer Wesley Satterwhite. Burilkov and Satterwhite call for an American-led peace effort in Ukraine before Russia launches a new offensive in the wake of Ukraine’s failed summer offensive. They call their proposed solution a “Korea scenario,” which will result in Ukraine trading parts of four regions occupied by Russia for “robust Western (American) security guarantees.” This, the authors write, would enable the United States to “defuse tensions with Moscow” and focus on the Pacific and China, where we face a “true peer rival.”
The authors worry, however, that Russia might seek victory instead of a negotiated solution, and if Russia achieves a victory it would be a “significant setback for the United States” and NATO. A Russian victory would also strengthen the Sino-Russian strategic partnership. America, the authors write, must pursue serious peace negotiations now with both Ukraine and Russia. “Only then,” they write, “will the United States be able to focus entirely on containing China, which is of paramount importance to American security and prosperity.”
It seems, however, that the last thing the neocons want is peace in Ukraine. Instead, Kristol’s group wants to “put pressure on Republicans to do the right thing on Ukraine” — which means providing more military aid and training to Ukrainian forces to enable them to achieve victory in the war. As Kelley Beaucar Vlahos notes in Responsible Statecraft, the neocons’ focus is more war, not diplomacy.
That also seems to be the focus of the Biden administration, which recently asked Congress for $24 billion more in aid to Ukraine. It is high time for Republicans and America’s leaders to ignore the advice of the Bill Kristols, Max Boots, and David Frums of the American political spectrum. They have been wrong — disastrously wrong — for the last 30 years.
The words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament in 1653 and Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain in 1940 should be directed at the neoconservatives who still seek to exercise influence over U.S. foreign policy: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
“Republicans for Ukraine,”
When do these NeoCons form “Republicans for America ?
When do they form their own brigade and pick up a rifle and get their neoCON a##es on the front lines in ukraine? Answer: never. They want YOUR kids to die in ukraine / iraq / syria / etc.
The NeocCons want to fight Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and half of Africa—all at the same time...
...what could possibly go wrong....
I can assume a few things here:
* They have connections to the MIC, so they make money from wars.
* They MIGHT have connections in the Uke where they get kickbacks from all funding sent there.
* They want the Uke to be “Afghanistan 1980-1988” Part 2. They want to bleed Russia of as many men and as much treasure as they can believing that somehow helps them.
If it’s none of the above, then I have to believe that they’re just evil, and like to see people die.
Exactly ! Having large numbers of white men from Red States killed fighting Russians is a feature, not a bug, for these guys.
They are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, and to the last white Republican.
Cookies gonna shizz her adult diaper when she figures out that Ivan has selected this door number three.
When do they form their own brigade and pick up a rifle and get their neoCON a##es on the front lines in ukraine?
Not just the neocons, but all the Zelensky fanbois/girls on FR, Twitter and elsewhere. It’s about time they all put up or STFU.
Yes, let’s abandon Ukrainians to the tender mercies of the Muskovite oligarchs. Think Ukraine is corrupt now? Just you wait.
Excellent article, one of the best from the Federalist. Thanks
Most of the world is corrupt oligarchs—including the US and Western Europe btw.
Inshallah. They are the greatest threat to humanity.
And here comes another Zelensky cheerleader, waving on innocent boys as they charge into Russian cannons. You're a regular hero, aren't you.
You know why. They see others’ kids as cannon fodder & expendable, their kids go abroad if there’s a draft.
Chad....feel free to head on over and join the fight.
Ukraine was already being led by the tender mercies of oligarchs. Ukrainian ones.
You and those like you make it like Ukraine was some fairytale peaceful country, living its own destiny.
It was, is and always will be a corrupt dump. Nothing more.
Easy for you and so many others to say things, from the comfort of your home in the USA, 1000s of miles away.
I’m sure the Ukrainians, you know, the ones that are being blown to bits, having their towns and cities destroyed, families torn apart, etc etc, welcome your continued support. Until the last Ukrainian is standing.
And lets not forget those that have left the country, never to return.
As for Ukrainian and Russian corruption. The only care I have about that is when the country is no longer used to launder US taxpayer money. Outside of that, I have ZERO F**KS to give about their corruption.
Kristol is just another deep-state paid actor. He had a crappy, zero-circulation magazine that went bankrupt a decade ago. No one reads his articles, no on buys his books, no one pays to see him speak, he never created or achieved anything which would give him credibility to be listened to - yet somehow, he’s always on TV and in the press.
As to Ukraine being the Neocon’s last act - far from it. There’s still a lot of chaos they can cause, abroad, but increasingly - at home.
.
As one Russian commentator correctly notes, the guy who takes over as minister of defense from Reznikov is not going to willing to be involved with the overwhelming debacle of the grand hoho “counteroffensive(TM)”. The counteroffensive is over.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.