Conversly, in his current stands, he may be maintaining that there is indeed a right and a wrong to the world. I am reminded that even such an old traditionalist as Russell Kirk expanded his understanding of the first principle of his conservatism to "a belief in an enduring Moral Order". His substitution of "transcendant" with "enduring" was (IMHO) for inclusion of such other Old Whigs as Heyek and Irving Kristol in his cosmos.
It is really as James Fenimore Cooper says in The American Democrat (a wonderful Conservative text):
The most important point that is proved by the condition of this country is the fact that religion can, and does, exist as well without as with the aid of government. The experiment has been tried here, for two centuries, and it is completely successful.While I hardly see a neocon Hitchens in our future, the punture of iconclastic views of his former allies in tribute to objective Truth is hardly something to lament. I find his writing of great interest and see nothing but good to come from a free-wheeling Hitchens, of the last year, so far.
No doubt. But I don't think this is necessarily noteworthy. Somehow, conservatives have convinced themselves (thanks in part to the ongoing dumbing down of the movement) that the Left is incapable of recognizing that there is "right" and "wrong" in the world. Now while this may be true of a certain species of American campus liberal and the entire French diplomatic corps, it is most certainly not true of the hard Left, whence Hitchens comes.
The hard Left is perfectly capable of acknowledging that right and wrong exist; the trouble is that they are essentially antinomian (like Milton's Satan, they "make evil my good.") Thus "organized religion" is evil. Infanticide is good. Sexual repression is evil. Libertinism is good. Etc. etc. etc. You get the picture.
As for Hitchens, let's not forget that, while he's skewering certain Leftists today, he's never too far from skewering, say, Mother Teresa, whom he apparently places just below Kissinger in his bizarre antinomian hagiography.
He likes the war on terror, (aka, the war on militant Islam) because he sees America not as the old Arsenal of Democracy, but as the Arsenal of Secularism, Materialism, and personal Liberation. In this respect, he is WAY ahead of his fellows on the Left, who are still caught up in Cold War paradigm that no longer applies. They'll catch up to him eventually, but Hitchens is just that much smarter than the rest.
Don't take all of this to mean that I don't like or respect Hitchens. On the contrary, I think he's a rip-snorting good writer, a genuine wit, and a paragon of intellectual honesty.
Believe me, I wish he were on our side. But he's not. And I daresay he never will be.