Weyrich: Neocon Foreign Policy Troubling

My friend Irving Kristol, the father of neoconservatism, has an explanation of same in the Weekly Standard, the L'Osservatore Romano of neoconservative politics.

He says that although neoconservatism is not a movement as such, its purpose is to "convert the Republican Party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy." As usual, Irving is candid and honest.

He says this new conservatism is "hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic." Its modern political heroes? TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater are, in his words, "politely overlooked."

I am surprised that Woodrow Wilson is not among neocon heroes. It is he who wanted to make the world "safe for democracy." And if neocon foreign policy is directed toward that end, then I don't understand it at all.

In any case, Kristol says that neocons are really at home with Bush 43 as he recognizes the responsibility the United States has to use its enormous power acquired following World War II. We either will use this power, according to Kristol, or the world will come up with ways that will require its use.

I will comment on that view in a moment, but first let me say that other parts of the neocon agenda are a welcome influence on the Republican Party. This is a party that didn't really want to govern. I recall some years ago that a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats seized control of the lower house of the New Mexico Legislature. Conservative Democrats, even though there were far fewer of them, had to assume the chairmanships of double the number of committees than the Republicans chaired.

Republicans simply didn't want to govern. They had been in opposition so long they did not know how to use power. When the Republicans unexpectedly assumed control of the U.S. Senate following the 1980 elections, the only committee chairmen who were effective were former Democrats, such as Strom Thurmond and later, Phil Gramm.

Neocon influence in the GOP has changed that. Today, Republican officials in Congress ranging from Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt in the House, to Bill Frist and Rick Santorum in the Senate, as well as committee chairmen such as Sen. Jim Inhofe and Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (just to name a few), are strong, able governing officials. That influence is welcome.

In addition, neocons have generally supported religious conservatives (and opposed libertarians) in looking toward government solutions for cultural problems. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest neocon support gave legitimacy to the claim by religious conservatives, now 40 percent of the party, that abortion and pornography and the absolute decline in our schools, were real problems that needed government intervention.

In addition, the neocon emphasis on economic growth, which usually means tax cuts, was another welcome influence on the green-eyeshade Republicans. We are in total agreement there, although we worry more than they do about government spending being out of control.

Where I part company with neocons is over foreign policy. Kristol claims this is their least-defined issue cluster. I disagree. I think their influence, at least with this president, is the greatest in this area.

First, let me make it clear that I agree that we should maintain military superiority to the point that a potential adversary would think twice about challenging us. It worked with the Soviet Union. The Soviets were a conservative power in the sense that they attacked only when they believed they were sure of winning. Their only miscalculation was Afghanistan, and there only because the United States equipped the Afghan rebels.

I also welcome their unabashed support for the concept of patriotism that was all but lost in the 1970s. Neocons presented an intellectual backdrop for its revival. Only the Republicans picked it up.

Having said that, I believe our intervention should be limited to cases where our vital interests are at stake. That is where the neocons and I march down a different path.

Kristol says: "A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interest to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated calculations of national interest are necessary."

There is some truth to what he says, although in aiding England and France we were on the defensive mode. We had been attacked at Pearl Harbor, and Germany had declared war against us. As to defending Israel, she is our only reliable ally in the region, so our national interests are at stake if her survival is threatened.

But what of Kosovo? How about Bosnia? And now Liberia? Can anyone really make the case that our national interests are at stake there?

We toppled a regime in Afghanistan because we were attacked on 9/11. The case was made that our national interests were at stake in Iraq. Time will tell if that charge will hold up. But there are 26 places right now where there is active warfare. We could just as easily have intervened in one of those places as in Bosnia or Kosovo.

In the Sudan, the Christian population has all but been wiped out. Why not intervention there? In Angola, the late Jonas Savimbi gave refuge to Catholics fleeing from their Communist government. If we had to intervene somewhere, that intervention would have at least protected innocent people (except for the fact that we sided with the Communists against Savimbi).

We can pick any of these places (how about Northern Ireland if war breaks out there again) to intervene. We can't be everywhere. The only rational approach is to intervene ONLY when our interests are directly threatened. Otherwise we will become, as that great President George Washington warned against, entangled in foreign wars.

To what end? We were to have been out of Bosnia "in a year." It was "several years" when candidate George Bush suggested he might well bring the troops home. They are still there. No one ever speaks any more of a departure date. The same for Kosovo. And despite what President Bush has said, it remains to be seen how long we will be in Liberia.

All this would sicken George Washington. Many of us who believe he was right are not feeling very well either. While I welcome neocon intervention in the GOP on a number of fronts, I find their domination of this administration's foreign policy troubling.

The fact that Irving Kristol identifies so heavily with Franklin Roosevelt bothers me. FDR was the king of big government, though at the time he thought he was doing it for the right reasons.

Does this intimate that the neoconservative movenment is an advocate of expanded government? I think it does.

I don't. Coming from the neocon tradition myself, it was no less than Ronald Reagan who had no qualms about intervening any time and any place in the world to bring down the Soviet Union. President Reagan simply refused to accept the paleocon notion the USSR was our eternal enemy. He made clear from the outset of his presidency the U.S was out to win. And at the end of the decade he was proven right. Today President Bush is pursuing the same course of action against Islamofascism. It may take a decade, however long it takes we will win. And President Bush will too be proven right. The fact of matter is our national interests now have a global dimension. What has changed since 9-11 is we will no longer wait for an enemy to attack us; when a danger to our country appears we will take it to the enemy and destroy him wherever he can be found. It not about pursuing Wilsonian dreams of democracy that animates mainstream conservatives; its about keeping the United States Of America the one indispensable and preeminent nation on the planet that is at the heart of our philosophy and we make no apologies for it.

Good, thoughtful article reflecting the positive and negative sides of neo-conservatism, rather than a knee-jerk, tribal reaction one way or the other. It looks like non-neo-cons haven't been able to get things together enough on foreign policy to present alternatives yet. Perhaps loyalty to President Bush inhibited them. And no, utopian Rockwellite anti-state emotionalism isn't a realistic alternative to neo-con imperialism.

"Does this intimate that the neoconservative movenment is an advocate of expanded government? I think it does."

Absolutely. They believe that an ever expanding government is inevitable and welcome. They believe in a large benevolent government. They beleive that the welfare state should assist downtrodden citizens, within limits and careful management.

I am amazed- an article that looks at neoconservatives from the view of an old-school traditionalist conservative and does so without misstating neoconservatism and does so without being overwrought. Although, the bit of changing Kristol's statement about making "a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy" into [making] "the world "safe for democracy"" just to tie in Woodrow Wilson (and thereby say he is a neocon idol, when Kristol suggested no such thing) was a stretch.

Weyrich's views here, other than that, are pretty much my own. I would like our troops out of Bosnia. I think Liberia is not something we want to be involved in (although I will say that just the few hundred we have there now is not too bad, especially since it got Taylor out of power, if they are not there for more than a few months tops). I think Iraq was good in that our national interests were involved (ok, here I am more hawkish than Weyrich since I think it is clear they were and he says that they may still be shown to have been involved). Other than that, bring home our people from Bosnia. Get out of Kosovo. Don't get sucked in to Liberia.

.........it was no less than Ronald Reagan who had no qualms about intervening any time and any place in the world to bring down the Soviet Union.

A Nation must defend it's Sphere of Influence.
At the start of the Nation we were so peripheral and insignificant that we had no Sphere of Influence, and had no business getting involved anywhere, as Washington observed.
By the time of Thomas Jefferson our Sphere had expanded to Sea Trade and required defeating the Barbary Pirates and maintaining a fleet.
Our sphere soon expanded via the Monroe Doctrine to include all of this hemisphere.
After WW II our Sphere included all of the free world and we defended it as necessary.
With te collapse of Communism, our Sphere of Influence became the entire planet.

We can either defend our Sphere and, if we wish, rule it, but any warfare or terrorism on this planet is now directed one way or the other at us. We must fight it overseas or we must fight it at home.

So9

[Mr. Kristol] says that although neoconservatism is not a movement as such, its purpose is to "convert the Republican Party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy."

Neocons are the liberals of the 1960s and were chased out of their Democrat party by New Left traitors who control the Party to this date IMO.

Mr. Kristol says neocons "politely" ignore Goldwater. They didn't ignore Goldwater as liberals in the 1960s. They trashed and smeared Goldwater and modern conservatism. I've hated them ever since. They are still at it. Some neocons openly call for a purge of "paleocons."

I do not question their patriotism. It is real and Mr. Weyrich's praise cites their real contributions. IMO their stomachs are in conservatism but clearly their hearts are in 1960s liberalism. The Democrat Party used to be a patriotic, traditional political Party. Neocons should return it to where it belongs and leave conservatism alone.

In general, and because of 9/11 and Islamofascism, I tend to support neocon's methods of defending our Nation. It's what FDR would do.

Neo conservatives are nothing more than disaffected liberals who fled the Democrat party after it was highjacked by the Democratic Socialists. Now the neocons are trying to do the same thing to the social conservatives, shove them out of the way. The only thing that these liberals have in common with the social conservatives is their love of capitalism.

We ARE conservatism. We have brought to it an appealing image, clarity, and resoluteness. Something the Democrats all lack. I have yet to see one disgruntled conservative join the other party. That speaks volumes about the future of the conservative movement in America. Its always marching forward, never looking backwards, never consumed by bitterness and hate, and always sunny and optimistic about the greatness of America.

As an ex-neo who is now simply a conservative, I plead guilty to a love of capitalism and the marvelous opportunity it affords the American people. What do the Democrats have to offer in its place? Torching SUVs? Some point! You see we know where we are going. Our friends on the other side are building their famous bridge to nowhere.

You may be too young to remember Vietnam. Reagan was successful because the US pursued its goals carefully, cautiously and let time do its work. Now we are back with that old confidence and spirit and the belief in our own invincibility that we had after WWII. It's good to be confident, but hubris (excessive pride and overconfidence) inevitably leads to nemesis (downfall).

It not about pursuing Wilsonian dreams of democracy that animates mainstream conservatives; its about keeping the United States Of America the one indispensable and preeminent nation on the planet that is at the heart of our philosophy and we make no apologies for it.

Time will show whether recklessly squandering our resources and goodwill in reckless interventions is the best way to do this. Every empire overextends itself and grows tired of constant sacrifices in the end. Best to prudently conserve our resources and use them only when it's really necessary.

In general, and because of 9/11 and Islamofascism, I tend to support neocon's methods of defending our Nation. It's what FDR would do.

The neo-com's support 'Uncle Joe' just like FDR, they also back 'Free Trade' and globalism. Does anyone have the link to the Karl Marx quote regarding 'Free Trade'?

We're not guilty of imperial "overstretch." We're not acquiring nor are we interested as a country in gaining territory for the sake of territory as the European colonialists did. What we come with is a powerful idea that terrifies the daylights of our enemies and warms the hearts of oppressed peoples every where. We're making the world more secure for America. I invite our critics and enemies to take issue with it for if this isn't another American Century, the world will be back at war. Nuh Uh, ever again!

Unfortunately, we're inadvertently making the US less secure by our invasion and occupation of Iraq. We've got entirely too much of our Army tied up in Iraq with absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel. Financially, Iraq is proving a financial black hole and, since it's easy to sabotage the pipelines and other facilities, that condition seems certain to continue indefinitely. The Army, already stretched to the limit, is being redesigned to make it possible to intervene around the globe more efficiently and pursue additional fool's errands. In enhancing our ability to wander around the globe looking for dragons to slay we're making the Army lighter instead of ensuring it's heavy enough to prevail in a major land war against a determined enemy with heavy forces.

None of this terrifies our enemies, it encourages them. We've got our Army stretched to the limit and hard pressed to respond if a real emergency appears. We'll be pouring money into Iraq for the foreseeable future - money which should be put into rebuilding our Navy to ensure we can project the power we need anywhere on the globe against a determined conventional adversary.

Some of us were around during that time and remember it well. Whether it will be forgotten is one thing, whether it will be forgiven, is highly unlikely. I can tolerate the "Neo-Cons", as long as things go well. However, I have no compunction regarding their purge from the Republican Party, if things don't go well.

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