ZED!

Jacob welcome to the Lake.

Greetings all — This is Steve Clemons and my first time with FDL’s famous book salon. Look forward to hosting an exchange between readers, interested policy wonks, and Jacob Heilbrunn

Jacob — Thanks so much for being here. And thanks for the great intro Steve.

Hopefully we’ll have Jacob saying hello here shortly. While we are waiting, it would be interesting to know to what degree FDL readers fear a resurgent neoconservatism in a McCain presidency — and also to know what levels of neocon-lite activity that they suspect might be part of a Hillary Clinton or Obama presidency.

Hi Steve,
glad to be wading into these neocon waters :). I was glad to see that you picked up on something that Ted Widmer did not, or recoiled at, which is that a good deal of culpability for the Iraq escapade stems from the illusions, fostered by the use of air power in the Balkans, as Andrew J. Bacevich of Boston University has shown, that first developed in the 1990s about American omnipotence abroad.

Thanks to you Christy — and also to Jane Hamsher, Bev Wright, Pachacutec, and others — I love the other book discussions you’ve had and which I’ve been reading today. I’ll be a regular participant down the road.

Three in a row! Sorry, Jacob and Steve, and, Hi!

One of the most disturbing things in your post, Steve, is your description of the war-mongering faction in the Democratic Party. Any thoughts about which people from this wing would be likely to serve in Clinton and/or Obama administrations?

Just wanted to say that that is me above, Jacob, under the “Gladstone” moniker. I’m a British empire buff.

Welcome, Steve. Welcome, Jacob. So good to have you both here today.

Good question Steve, you know if I was going to ask somebody how much neocon lite was going to show up in the various campaigns, it would be YOU. So I guess I will. What particular advisors are you worried about?

;)

And thatnks so much for hosting here today.

McCain is a disaster, but I’m also worried about both Hillary’s militarism and Obama’s feel-good, know-little interventionism, like his recent escapade in Keyna to the benefit of his cousin.

I’m going to be interested to see how the Holbrooke/Anthony Lake divide develops. Lake has always been more of a Jimmy-Carter style liberal (though he apparently wanted to do more in Clinton’s first term, as national security advisor, than Clinton was prepared to undertake). Holbrooke, by contrast, is firmly in the camp of Democrats who aren’t, for lack of a better term, gunshy.

On behalf of the FDL franchise Jacob, welcome. On your point about Ted Widmer’s review in the Washington Post, I think that there is a blindspot that some don’t get when knocking what the neocons briefly achieved.

And that is that a lot of the narrative has been recast now to say that Madeleine Albright “got regime change right.” You seem some of this impulse embedded in Peter Beinart’s famous New Republic essay, “A Fighting Faith,” and also in various foreign policy essays of the DLC/PPI.

Jacob (Gladstone), it’s a perfectly timed book. The argument that the neocons are working against the interest of Israel is one that needs to be made right now. And especially with what’s happening with the McCain campaign — have you been watching what’s happening and looking at things like it’s the perfect storm to release your book in?

But Jacob, I hope you will share a little bit about how you wrote this book. You thank people like Michael Lind and me — as well as Norman Podhoretz and John Bolton. . .within like a few words of each other. I find the near placement intriguing — and wonder if both sides of your book are still speaking with you.

The irony is that my book’s fortunes are tied to those of the neocons. What has surprised me most is the staying power of the movement. It’s clearly not going to go away. John McCain is clearly very sympathetic to the neocon outlook. One thing that hasn’t been picked up in the media is the extent to which McCain’s emphasis on valor mirrors the neocon belief in manliness, the title of a recent book by Harvard Professor and neocon Harvey Manfield. In short, the neocons believe that the battlefield is the greatest test of manhood. So does McCain.

Steve–I haven’t heard as much from the neocon side, so I can’t speak with a great degree of confidence about its reception. Of course they should appreciate the fact that it ratifies their importance. Whether they do is another matter.

Jacob….what do you think about the neocons jumping ship from Rudy and joining the Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran campaign of John McCain?

Welcome, Steve & Jacob –

In response to your Gladstone tribute, one of my great history professors way back when specialized in the evolution of English Constitutional Government.

Dr Simon contrasted the misguided American approach to foreign policy as Moralistic and Ideological — as compared to Enlightened Self Interest as the most effective guiding principle of British Internationalism.

Hi Steve,

Re:

it would be interesting to know to what degree FDL readers fear a resurgent neoconservatism in a McCain presidency

I’m more of an FDR Democrat than anything. So fear is not the word I would use to describe my anger at the indecency of the inability of the American people to curb the most loutish imperialists among us. It’s as if our society has perhaps reached the pinnacle of perfection for predatory capitalism, with sociopaths and psychopaths controlling our corporations and with malice aforethought seizing the reins of power in Washington, D.C.

As Chalmers Johnson, Peter Dale Scott and many other fine intellects agree, this is going to end badly for the American people, just as the hubris of Germany in the 1930s ended in a national nightmare for the delusional Deutschelanders.

I’m not living in fear. I’m living with the idea that we are going to be going through some very hard times ahead, with brutishness, the decline of culture, the rise of pernicious and pervasive violence and general madness being our fate for the next decade at least.

As seen by a fool on hill…

And not to bombard you with questions — oh, why not — can you talk about your own conversion, and what motivated it? I think folks would be interested.

Well, it would be nice to think that the British were always acting in the spirit of enlightened self-interest, wouldn’t it? But were they? Lord Palmerston, if I recall correctly, almost trumped up a war with Greece over its supposed mistreatment of a British subject during the Don Pacifico affair. The blunt fact is that the U.S. isn’t all that unique. It just has the military power, at this point, to act on many of its impulses. The British can’t pull it off any longer, so they don’t try.

The alpha male writ large. Here’s the bible on the subject: King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership by Arnold M. Ludwig. He studied all leaders of all countries in the 20th century & alpha male is the short version. Of all leaders, only 2% were women, and of those, 3/4 were daughters of or wives of. It’s the reason why Hillary is so militaristic. She has to prove herself in the alpha male sphere. (Ditto Thatcher, who was one of the few who wasn’t a wife or daughter of.)

I think your point about tests of “manliness” and “valor” fit the grooves of the “national greatness” campaigns that folks ranging from Bill Kristol to Marshall Wittman and Ken Silverstein at the Hudson Institute were pushing over the last several years. You get into the national greatness campaign in the book — and wonder if this sense of having to prove oneself — almost like an adolescent trying to prove that he or she has become an adult — is bound to get America into more significant messes. It just strikes me as entirely emotional — with very little rational, empirical assessment of our national objectives and how to reach them.

RayDuray — thanks, and I agree with you. Both Jacob Heilbrunn and I are also somewhat closely entangled with much of Chalmers Johnson’s work and intellectual evolution. I share his worries about falling over the precipice — although Chal thinks it’s too late pretty much, and I still have some hope for turnaround. Jacob, too, without putting words into his mouth, is hopeful — and that seems to be most clear in his postscript, the last chapter of “They Knew They Were Right”.

Jacob — Speaking of the British, I never thought I would see a government that made the decisions of the British Raj at the height of their hubris look like brilliant long-term strategists, but the Bush Administration and the neocons have really done just that in their horrible buffoonery on the world stage.

Would love to hear your thoughts — and Steve’s — on the long-term foreign policy implications we are all going to have to be cleaning up for generations after these folks leave office. It seems to me that just reviving basic diplomatic in-roads is going to take months for the next Administration. What a mess…

Ah, my conversion. The truth is that I was most hardcore in my neocon convictions in college. After that, I was somewhat ambivalent–sympathetic but never able to muster up the kind of confidence that Robert Kagan or William Kristol felt, and continue to feel, for the neocon program. At the New Republic I felt even more uneasy about the championing of the neocon worldview–I wrote articles skeptical of missile defense, for example, and was not a China-basher. However, I was certainly overly beguiled by the neocon crusade for democracy abroad. This is why I flinch a little when I look again at Madeleine Albright’s rhetoric about the “indispensable” nation. Hubris, or even megalomania, seems more like it.

Greetings Gladstone,

So nice to have you here. But I’m wondering if you can confirm this tale about your namesake, the original William Gladstone, Prime Minister to Vickie Windsor…

A lady-at-court said it:

“I’ve had the pleasure to dine with both Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. The differences between the two could not be more stark. For you see, when I dined with Gladstone, I came away with the impression that he certainly thought of himself to be the most important, powerful and influential man on the planet. But when I dined with Disraeli, I came away with the impression that I was the most fascinating, beautiful and intriguing woman on the planet…’

Summary of McCain Feb 8, 2008 offering:

Republican presidential pre-candidate John McCain again misused the occasion of the annual, early February, International Munich Security Conference as a platform for hawkish propaganda against Russia, Iran, Syria and other “rogues” (as he calls them). He also calls on NATO to show more military muscle in the world. In an article he wrote for a conference supplement in today’s edition of Sueddeutsche Zeitung, McCain calls for “a common line of the West against a revanchist Russia,” for the G-8 to “include India and Brazil but close Russia out,” and for the formation of a “League of Democracies” to “complement the United Nations.”

Jacob was a former Senior Editor at The New Republic and once snuck me into an editors encounter with Ahmed Chalabi that Martin Peretz orchestrated.

Where were you then Jacob on the sliding scale between neocon spear-carrier and chastened realist?

One thing that hasn’t been picked up in the media is the extent to which McCain’s emphasis on valor mirrors the neocon belief in manliness, the title of a recent book by Harvard Professor and neocon Harvey Manfield. In short, the neocons believe that the battlefield is the greatest test of manhood. So does McCain.

The mainstream media has no incentive to criticize this absolutely insane motivation for war-mongering. This is because (1) its “journalists” are, themselves, mostly drinking the masculinity cool aid, and (2) war is great for the media business.

I was certainly overly beguiled by the neocon crusade for democracy abroad. This is why I flinch a little when I look again at Madeleine Albright’s rhetoric about the “indispensable” nation. Hubris, or even megalomania, seems more like it.

Ding ding ding.

Completely removed from reality to think U.S. can reshape other countries in our own image.

Interestingly, John Dean is on CSPAN2 talking about R authoritarians. Ties right in.

re the Iraq debacle — it may be too soon to debunk point 5, given the resurgence of violence in recent weeks. If it escalates more, Iraq might rise in the concern list and the ’success of the surge’ prove itself just another misconception.

Christy–here’s the real question: will we be cleaning up the mess? Or will we in fact be compounding it with a John McCain presidency? McCain is making bellicose noises about Iran. In my view, this saga is far from over. In 2004, a number of pundits, including the astute Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy, said that neoconservatism was dead. They were wrong. Caution is in order today.

I think your point about tests of “manliness” and “valor” fit the grooves of the “national greatness” campaigns that folks ranging from Bill Kristol to Marshall Wittman and Ken Silverstein at the Hudson Institute were pushing over the last several years.

excellent point – that helps me understand how some people have been confused enough to equate a rejection of this view with “anti-americanism”

At the end of the Cold War, the arch-realist George H.W. Bush relegated them to the sidelines; then the triangulating Bill Clinton seemed to deprive them of their biggest foreign and domestic policy issues. If they came back from that, they can come back from anything.

it is really bizzare how much they can get away with, and that anyone at all presents them as some kind of authorities, they rise more times then the pheonix, more lives then a cat;

to wit, the following was known long before the Iraq war, long before we allowed cheney to be vice president, long before we allowed rumsfeld to be secretary of defense

we knew they were liars, we knew all they wanted was war;

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are at it again.
Last week, Rumsfeld told the press we should be preparing for “the Long War,” saying of the war this administration has stirred up with its attack on Iraq that, “Just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away.”

The last time Rumsfeld talked like this was in the 1970s, in response to the danger of peace presented by Richard Nixon.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called “détente.” On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said:

“Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world.”
But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford’s Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated? And how could billions of dollars taken as taxes from average working people be transferred to the companies that Rumsfeld and Cheney – and their cronies – would soon work for and/or run?

Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort – first secretly and then openly – to undermine Nixon’s treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear.

They did it by claiming that the Soviets had a new secret weapon of mass destruction that the president didn’t know about, that the CIA didn’t know about, that nobody knew about but them. It was a nuclear submarine technology that was undetectable by current American technology. And, they said, because of this and related-undetectable-technology weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work or have businesses relationships with.

The CIA strongly disagreed, calling Rumsfeld’s position a “complete fiction” and pointing out that the Soviet Union was disintegrating from within, could barely afford to feed their own people, and would collapse within a decade or two if simply left alone.

all you can say after reading that is’

“holy crap, how could we let them do that to us again”

and not only did we allow them to do it again in Iraq, we are allowing them to do it yet again in Iran

these are some sick people, they are maniacle members of a sice fraternity we know now is the pnac

they are sickos and we allow them to go forward time and time again

Christy — In my view, the neoconservative movement has been the unstable part of America’s foreign policy DNA and highly destructive because it can so easily morph and ally with other parts of the national security political spectrum here. Jacob Heilbrunn gets into this nicely in his book — and he makes clear that there is no “there” there — and that the ideological predispositions of the group depend on what it takes to dominate, to pugnaciously provoke, and move “their people” forward into positions of prominence and influence.

I think that this needs to be understood as one of the first steps in curing the problem of neoconservative influence.

Novista is correct. Professor Bacevich, to whom I referred above earlier, had an excellent piece in the Washington Post a few weeks ago noting that the surge is being spun by the Bush administration. The bottom line is: where is the Iraqi government? Does it exist? Or is it, in fact, composed of various factions that will never unite? Until there is a viable government and an Iraqi security force capable of maintaining order, Iraq will remain a mess.

Thank you Steve for bringing this timely subject to the lake. Welcome, Jacob!

NeoCon Lite has been my concern for a long time. My main question to candidates concerns the think tanks and advisors they seek as well as the background of their appointees.

How do think tanks and consultant firms like the Manhattan Institute and AEI as well as the Cato Institute get to play such a prominent part in key positions, not to mention the Foreign Policy Board? I see the same cast of characters over and over.

I don’t care what ideologues it is, too many of like mind produces distorted, incestuous results. I wouldn’t want all Quaker advisors and think tanks, either.

Andrew Bacevich also said that Dems and Republicans in Congress have allowed President Bush to seduce them into a debate about tactics and not strategy.

The neocons did not do this – but it is a similar tactic that was well-deployed by Bill Kristol in wrapping the prestige of the neocon movement around Petraeus and the so-called “surge.”

Dems have been complicit in this charade….and I have to admit that it was Richard Lugar who basically spit on the hearings that Petraeus and Crocker participated in. We need to realize that empirical analysis about objectives and the military and diplomatic resources we focus to achieve them is something that both Republicans and Democrats are moving away from.

We need to fix that.

Sometimes I have the feeling that Steve understands my book better than I do! He is correct about the neocon ability to, in essence, repackage the product. Part of what makes it such a tricky phenomenon is that there is a genuine streak of idealism in the movement allied to militant nationalism. In essence, the neocons have fused the impulses of left (morality) and right (militarism).

The new spin on Iraq is that going local govt is where it’s at to create a stable country. According to whoever I heard say this (can’t remember) that’s why Petreaus is being so successful, working with the locals.

Meanwhile Sunnis are accumulating weapons that we’re providing them, content to wait to use them against Shias once U.S. leaves.

Even so, I’d be surprised if the lid stays on Iraq all the way to the election.

My professor’s point wasn’t that the British were particularly high minded in their foreign policy — it’s that Moralism and Ideology as guiding principles of foreign policy leads to unwise interventions.

I.e., Wilsonian Moralism led to Central American and Caribbean banana republic interventions; Anti Communist Ideology led to Vietnam.

Enlightened Self Interest de-emphasizes American Exceptionalism and the fetishization of Freedom and Democracy — which would help avoid catastrophic policies like the Iraq invasion.

it seems to me it is sort of a paper tiger manliness,even for McCain…dropping bombs from 30 thousand feet or however high up,isnt exactly jousting..and the rest of the neo-cons all chickenHAWKS

QuakerGirl–yup, it is the same cast of characters. Steve points out in his invaluable blog that former CIA director and uber-neocon James Woolsey has now signed on to the McCain campaign. So has John Bolton. But let’s be fair–it’s not all that different on the Democratic side. Susan Rice, a former Clinton, is advising Sen. Barack Obama; Holbrooke, Hillary Clinton.

I would say that Ds are too dumb to live, but I’ve been chastised here before for saying it too often. So I won’t say it.

“going away”, “defeated”, “discredited”, “repentant”…these are ludicrous notions when speaking of neocons. neocons are about fear and violence – period. It doesn’t matter what you call them or what the latest cause – celeb is, if there is violence to be had and fear to be spread, neocons are there.

they’ve been with us since the dawn of civilization and will be with us for another millennium – they aren’t going anywhere. They are the result of a sick psychosis that hungers for blood and thrives on the spread of fear. They manipulate, lie, deceive, whatever it takes to get their war on…they must spread violence and fear – this is what neocons are.
.

im not sure,its dumb,more like imo,they KNOW their place.and wont make waves

There was an author on CSPAN2 today who talked about sissy Americans, and bombing from 30,000 feet and thru drones was a prime example.
Sissy Nation: How America Became a Culture of Wimps & Stoopits
Author: John Strausbaugh

The Chicken Hawks gets into an interesting question: do you have to have served in the military in order to comment upon it? Samuel Johnson said that you don’t have to be a carpenter to judge the quality of a piece of furniture. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that the fervor of the neocons for personal conflict seems to be confined to waging battles with their pens from comfortable Washington offices.

Why is it that all the minds here seem to agree that either neocon, or neocon lite (in both parties) is not in the interests of the U.S, yet we don’t hear much of any of this from the candidates, or the media. Why can’t/isn’t the truth behind the disconnect with American interest spoken? Who is pushing the inherently fallacious script that virtually all politicians seem to follow?

This is why I flinch a little when I look again at Madeleine Albright’s rhetoric about the “indispensable” nation. Hubris, or even megalomania, seems more like it.

yes.

several years ago i read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.” and while i think he’s brilliant, i see plenty of “the borg” is in views to concern me. is there anywhere in the foreign policy establishment that these views (we have the right to rule the world for it’s own good) are not strong?

i’ll say it for you.

Steve,

Re:

although Chal thinks it’s too late pretty much, and I still have some hope for turnaround. Jacob, too, without putting words into his mouth, is hopeful — and that seems to be most clear in his postscript, the last chapter of “They Knew They Were Right”.

I did see Mr. Heilbrunn on BookTV this weekend. Haven’t picked up the book yet. I would love to believe that there is hope of putting the imperialist genie back in the bottle, but my rational side says there is simply too much momentum built up on the side of corruption and self-dealing for the game to be constrained. Especially when our “champions” happen to be waffling, ineffectual, pandering putzes like Princess Nancy and Prince Harry.

I see the decline and fall of the U.S. to be essentially along the same lines by which the USSR has been re-organized. Economic failure is our future. Before the game is up, we shall have consolidated all actual power in Washington into the hands of a nominally elected but actually perpetual aristocracy. The Congress and the court system are well on the way toward subjugation, and that thrust continues unabated.

What will finally break the nation down will be the ever increasing profligacy of the executive in its mad dash for all the cash. Austerity isn’t a word known to the conniving greedheads in the Pentagon and the ever-ballooning private military they surround themselves with. It’s going to take a lot more frozen cadavers across the fruited plain and a lot more Interstate bridge collapses before people are going to wake up from their corporate induced stupors.

As I said earlier, we’re in for a rough decade ahead. It’s not going to get any prettier before it gets worse for those of us who refuse to be blind to imperialism’s ugly realities and are not craven enough to join that fraternity from Hell.

I found Zbig’s most recent book drubbing Clinton and George W. Bush for their hubris to be quite enlightening. He now seems to believe that America’s most important role is to act as a moral leader rather than bludgeon other countries militarily. He’s advising Sen. Obama.

Steve -

There are NGOs on the ground dealing with the results of the surge as well as the policy of invasion of other countries, in particular, Iraq. There are fewer people left in Iraq since millions are either dead, maimed beyond stability, or desperate refugees in Syria or Jordan.

I never hear from the NGOs. Instead, I get the insanity spewed by the NeoCons. I love C-SPAN but AEI gets the lions share for making its case. Can you shed some light on this? How did so many get sold such a bill of goods?

QuakerGirl — one of the realities in our past is that a small set of specialists basically dominated most of US foreign policy and national security decision making. America’s Soviet experts were high priests — and frankly, for return on effort, influencing the direction of America’s security superstructure was fairly easy as most Americans sort of “check out” when it comes to foreign policy.

Thanks to blogs like FDL, TPM and others, it’s clear that there are more and more players in foreign policy — so the think tank linked intellectuals are losing some of their edge, but not all. It’s still a world that is too easy for a small group to dominate — frankly, on both sides of the aisle.

One of the reasons that I love Heilbrunn’s book is that it demystifies one of the most successful self-annointed foreign policy cabals in American history. And gives us knowledge on how to deconstruct it, protect ourselves from these kinds of “takeovers” in the future — and to assemble efforts to do battle with such groups in the future.

This book is incredibly invaluable in understanding the dynamics of policy competition in the future.

“Everything changed after 9/11″

That is, national militarism is never very far from the surface, especially in a powerful country. Any excuse is good enuf, which is why W found it so easy to convince U.S. to do an unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

i remember the major ebulient applause during shock and awe,when they saw through the infared glasses they hit a target….I WANTED to scream out loud….do you even KNOW what you hit? Apocolypse Now was on teebee the other nite…I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNIN,when they are wipping out villlages/villagers..@#$%^&*(@#$%^&arghhhhhh

I can rely on you. *g*

There is a case to be made that America’s on the ropes–and it was made most recently in the New York Times Magazine. Debt, military overstretch, a worthless dollar–not a pretty picture, is it? But the problem here is that we don’t know if we’re confusing short-term with long-term woes. Adam Smith noted that “there is a lot of ruin in a country.” Maybe America’s about to test that proposition.

What did you think of Obama’s role in Keyna in favor of his cousin, the prez challenger?

I don’t think you have to be a vet to comment on Chicken Hawks but In think it is not correct to describe Mc Cain’s record that way. Flying jet fighters in Vietnam with all the stupid restrictions put on the pilot’s was certainly dangerous work and A-6’s are attack aircraft and not high altitude bombers.

pretty recent occurences….imo

The New York Times Magazine that Jacob Heilbrunn/Gladstone refers to above is “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” by New America Foundation/American Strategy Program Senior Research Fellow Parag Khanna, one of my colleagues. His new book, “The Second World,” will be out in March of this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01…..=permalink

Does “the New Great Game” factor into this?…I only recently became aware of it, and as I understand it, there was already some kind of coalition put together prior to 9/11 to invade Afghanistan. I also was told, but cannot substantiate it that Bush had signed the go on an invasion to occur in October, prior to 9/11.

Also, you are right that the US policies are not in Israel’s interest.

well,its not exactly hand to hand combat,and i really have no idea what drives that man…but it seems to me to be blind ambition

As a former forecaster of the U.S. economy, I’d suggest that things take much longer to develop than people with foresight can possibly imagine. So while I liked how the NYT framed the decline of the U.S., I wouldn’t advise holding my breath while waiting for it to happen.

Steve has picked up on an important point in my examination of the neocons. I do indeed try to demystify the phenomenon, to explain how and why a small cadre of intellectuals managed to exercise so much influence upon American foreign policy, not just during the Bush era, but since the 1970s. In each debate about American foreign policy–the Soviet threat, the Balkans, and Iraq–the neocons have been a vocal contingent. They have done this, I believe, by creating a parallel counter-establishment, based at AEI, the Hudson Institute, and other organizations. The first person to grasp this was Sidney Blumenthal in his still-valuable, The Rise of the Counterestablishment.

eCAHNomics — I am researching the Obama/Kenya story and will be writing a long-ish essay on it soon. I think that Obama is getting exploited by his so-called cousin Odinga. But that said, I think Obama’s judiciousness in how he approached the issues in Kenya may be in question and may have been just a bit naive. But I’m not even sure that is right because few people saw that Kenya could so quickly tilt into the kind of violent convulsions it has. I’ve seen and read a lot of the material out there on Obama and Odinga — and some of it has merit and most not. But I’ll zap you a note when finished.

I doubt that Bush “signed off” on an invasion of Iraq before 9/11. But he certainly was keen to polish off Saddam Hussein even before he became president.

Sorry, A-4 Skyhawks. And when they dragged his ass out of the lake it sure was hand to hand combat.

The reason why neocons’s ugly heads keep popping up is because a powerful nation cannot resist the use of force. And every time that happens, the neocons are there.

this may be WAY off,but i postulated that the NAZI holocaust made them feel that as Jews they would take the offense,and come out swinging

eCAHNonomics is probably right. It will take more than the Bush administration to ruin the American economy.

im sure he NEVER expected that,but i have great empathy for his days at the HH

Thanks. Naive. D’ja think?

I don’t think you’re way off, sadlyyes. There’s a good of truth to it.

Afghanistan.

sort of we will NEVER let this happen to us again

Gladstone -

I appreciate that the Dems are just as guilty at investing in NeoCon Lite. I make it clear that the only reason I am a Dem is because I think, and I may be completely wrong, I have a better chance of influencing. Putting a president in office is nothing more than a beginning to hold his/her feet to the fire. I can’t trust Dems to make wise decisions. They don’t.

If not the NeoCons, there will end up being some other ideologue cult doing something just as bad.

For 25 years I called Henry Kisinger the most evil person of the 20th century. Here he is entrenched in the 21st century. His war crimes are second to none. So, why is this guy still around and used by both parties? He certainly is no expert on other cultures.

Jacob, great to have you here. Please feel free to ignore this as I don’t know how much political traction it has.

IMO the folly of the neocon’s Middle East strategy is layed most bare when compared with “Bloody Kansas,” and Reconstruction. Butchers on both sides were hired thugs, which is exactly what we do in the Middle East. It was ex-Confederate Democrats who got Posse Comitatus passed in 1878. The neocons falsely claim to want “Democracy,” but they don’t want any part of “Posse Comitatus” in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thanks for all your work.

McCain is a war hero. Period. He is a courageous man. Trying to drag him down for his conduct in Vietnam is as off-base as the absurd attacks on Sen. John Kerry.

How much of the neo-con ideas of conflict is built on the belief that we “lost” Vietnam and that Jimmy Carter was “spineless” in dealing with Iran in the late ’70s?

I ask this as I think Carter not going bat-sh*t crazy and attacking Iran unilaterally after the storming of the embassy was in fact showing a tremendous level of strength whereas when I see McCain do his “bomb bomb bomb Iran” and see Kristol and Podheretz and others pushing Iran invasions it seems they’re still trying to assuage some feelings of insulted national honor.

Jacob — one of the more interesting but little noticed events in NeoconLand was the split between Francis Fukuyama and his ideological brethren. Fukuyama, and I should acknowledge that he is a member of my board of directors at the New America Foundation, had a spat with Charles Krauthammer that you write about in the book. The two fought it out for quite a while. . .and once at the Nixon Center, Fukuyama said “I am the real neocon. I was as much at Irving Kristol’s knee as any of them — and they are getting it wrong today.”

Eventually, Fukuyama divorced himself from the neocons and the realists — via a major Atlantic Monthly article, a book, and the creation of a spinoff journal from the National Interest called “The American Interest.”

Do you think Fukuyama is essentially setting up a rival neoconservative church of sorts? Will his followers be a future wave of neocons that have become somewhat connected to the realist establishment in a kind of new hybrid?

Well, QuakerGirl, I may have a slightly more optimistic take on the Dems than you do. There is a chasm between the two parties today, and Al Gore would not have invaded Iraq.

i still dont know what a war hero is…iknow one must never question ones mission,however since,i dont believe in illegal wars of aggression ,i would never VOLUNTEER for such an enterprise

There are a number of points in your treatise that I have personally experienced. The use of character assassination as a tool of defeating adversaries, and resilience in the face of setbacks another. There is also the utter lack of shame or even willingness to accept responsibility for their fiascos.
My own view, which I have articulated on any number of occasions is that we must not allow them to go to ground and wait out an unfavorable administration. They and their approach must be totally discredited. The trouble is they have a penchant for survival that is stronger than the will of those who would carry the fight to them. So the realists, Scowcroft, Zbig, Zinni, Baker, and even me go away after a while, and the neocons remain. I, for one now carry a pocketful of wooden stakes in my back pocket, just in case I come across one.

I was an intern at the State department long ago — long before “DC intern” became a dirty word. I’ve been following the undercurrents of discontent at State for the last couple of years, and wonder how much pent-up frustration with the neo-cons is waiting to be released.

Steve and Jacob, how do you see the career professionals at State reacting to the rise of the neo-cons that the book recounts?

But the problem here is that we don’t know if we’re confusing short-term with long-term woes

what concerns me most is not just that the neocon and neocon-lite world view has us focusing our attention and resources on projects that are inherently destructive (both to ourselves and others) although extremely advantageous to the minority that benefit from them.

my big concern, is that we are doing this at a time when we are on the precipice of inducing a global climate change of unknown proportions – but it could be (and seems likely to be) very bad. we are undermining our ability to deal with other issues in fundamental ways… including the destruction of democratic institutions and practices that we need to help us find solutions to real issues.

once again i am reminded of the the big take away lesson from jared diamond’s book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed” – that when elites do not suffer from their bad decisions, when they can insulate themselves and there is no accountability – bad decisions are taken, even to the destruction of entire cultures.

Steve–full power to Fukuyama, but I’m skeptical that he can signlehandedly turn things around. He’s a brilliant intellectual and superb writer and commentator. But organizer of a movement? I doubt it.

Re:

In essence, the neocons have fused the impulses of left (morality) and right (militarism).

Perhaps, but only in the most warped sense of the word ‘morality’. For the neocon, it is more of a talking point used in an Orwellian sense. Eg. saying that the U.S. needed to eliminate Saddam Hussein for the sake of “morality” is the foreign policy equivalent of saying we need to cut down all old-growth forests for the sake of a “Healthy Forests” initiative. Or to allow perpetual exceptions to utilities regarding air pollution for the sake of a “Clean Skies” initiative.

I do concur however, that the association of militarism with the Right is largely correct. Even in the bad old days of Soviet expansion, one could argue it was not the Marxists, but rather Russian hyper-nationalists who pushed such stupid endeavors as Praque ‘68 or Budapest ‘56.

might makes right, eh

How bout something as simple as this. It was heroic of him not to take early release and maintian solidarity with his fellow POW’s.

hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.

They and their approach must be totally discredited.

How to do? Note my comment above, that the fundamental reason why neocons live to invade another day is because use of force is so close to the surface in every country, but even more so in a “hyperpower.” Them’s hard odds to fight against.

You mean like follow your enemies handbook and outdo his own methods? That follows the same excuse like your dad beat you so you beat up on everyone else.

It could have had the opposite effect. One stops the violence.

Joe Wilson is a hero *g* and right on the money with his comment!

and yet ,i have known REAL war heroes,and they were non aggresive guys..go figure

Fukuyama, waving in the wind.

Good to see you, Amb. Wilson. Hope you and the family are well.

i agree 100% with that,that was brave

Joe Wilson — glad you are here with us today!

your so smart…that was exactly what i was eluding too…most abused kids become abusers iirc

JoeWilson–hat continues to mystify me is how so many, on left and right, continue to downgrade the importance of the neocons, even dispute, at times, that they ever had any influence. Brent Scowcroft, however, has a keen appreciation of the neocon fervor for personal invective, pointing out to me that their method isn’t to answer arguments but impugn your motives.

Seconded.

If you don’t know what a war hero is

i still dont know what a war hero is

How do you know you know some REAL ones?

neocons are very fearfull men imo

Is there enough disgruntled career State dept individuals left to put stakes into the Neocons? Similarly, the CIA? Great to see you here at the Lake!

Joe — glad to see you pop up on this thread! If you’d like to take a crack at my question at 89, I’d love to get your take on it as well as Steve’s and Jacob’s.

Jacob – perhaps you could explore with us a bit the tie in between the general neoconservative movement with the issue of Israel. This is one of the key taboo subjects you deal with very well in the book — and that many people don’t understand. As I read it, the neocons — on the whole as there are clearly neocons who are not Jewish nor concerned with Israel to the same degree they might be with China or other challenges — was a self-selecting cell essentially trying to orchestrate America’s national security posture to fit what they believed Israel needed. But you tell the story better than I can — and I think it’s an essential part of the neoconservative chronicle.

Strauss

Hi Joe. Welcome. good to see you here again.

in a war of aggression i meant,sorry…ONE must not LOVE war to be a hero…John McCain LOVES war imo

yup

Thanks. Everybody is well.
To the question of how do we totally discredit them, it will take more books like the one being reviewed today and Sid Blumenthal’s book the Rise of the counter establishment. It will take stamina on the part of the realists and a willingness to put up with the invective from the other side including slurs of anti semitism. And it will take time.
In short: solid analysis of their shortcomings, tenacity, persistence, a thick skin — and as I said earlier, a supply of wooden stakes.

The State Dept. diplomats view the neocons with loathing, for the most part. But they don’t wield much power.

Gladstone – I have a major problem with “war heroes”. There are too many heroes who don’t participate in war. Have you noticed we never say “peace heroes”. Hum! I think war heroes is part of that old primitive human unevolved nature that we continue to sport.

On my really black days, my short version of (Jewish) neocons is that what they learned from the holocaust is do it to them before they do it to us. How much is that a factor in their willingness to use power, and that is their only solution to all foreign relations problems. Anything else is appeasement.

Do you believe that if the Iraq war had actually been fought with honest brokers, and not handing out goodies to cronies who had no interest in what happened in Iraq, would the neocons have been less tarnished?

I have read in many places by those who have followed the neocons, that it was only in the tragic prosecution of the war where the neocons, and Bush’s foreign policy, was discredited. So it seems the big worry is that they try the same scenario again for the next war, but promising fewer ‘mistakes.’

That seems like a mighty slim thread to hang the demise of the neocons on.

another way to discredit them is simply …their doctrine simply does not work…the world crys out for diplomacy

“to ruin the American economy” started long before Bush&co.

The seed was planted by necessity in World War Two. And the sapling took root in the Cold War — which is why Eisenhower cautioned against the military-congressional-industrial complex in his farewell address. Oh well, that phrase was in his draft but that one key world left out of the speech. Tsk.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development initiated the ‘asset securitization’ scheme in 1970. This factor is at the heart of current mortgage/credit woes.

And of course, the Fed created in 1913 to stabilise the economy unleased easy credit in 1920 which helped bring about the Great Depression. And even thou Alan Greenspan knew and wrote accurately on this in 1966, he nonetheless played the same game when it was his turn. Expecting a different outcome? Who knows.

Surely Tricky Dick deserves some of the blame, as well!

I think that at State they will just be glad to have them gone. There is little inclination as a culture to go after them

ZACTLY (toture etc)

And if you could work in an A to my 118 at the same time, great.

You have thicker skin and a greater supply of wooden stakes than anyone I have ever known of. Thank you for all of that.

Peterr — I generally agree with Jacob’s comment/response to you at No. 116. However, Nick Burns loathes the neocons — as do most of the senior establishment there political and foreign service. What gives me hope about the climate change in the current Bush administration is the anti-neocon alliance that has evolved between State, DoD, and DNI. This is really what was missing when Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Addington, Wurmser, Bolton, Robert Joseph and others intimidated the other departments and dominates the national security decision making process. We need to try to keep the neocon crowd cornered and pass that off into whatever administration comes next — but as Jacob writes and as he quotes me in the book, “They’re gone, but they’re not gone.”

Well, you certainly get to the heart of it there… Expose, expose, expose and fight back. No fear…No giving up until we are rid of them.

Oh, yeah…and frogmarching them would be the right thing to do…right to the Hague!!!

(Neo-facist mentality, in my personal, humble opinion..}

Amb. Wilson–the anti-Semitism charge is one of the worst slurs that can be hurled, and, in my view, the neocons tend to hurl it opportunistically. To pick up on Steve’s point, I believe that there is nothing nefarious about neocon support for Israel. It didn’t really begin until the late 1960s, but it’s rooted in the conviction that there is a genuine conincidence of interests between Israel and the U.S., which, by and large, is true. However: as I try to point out in the Wash Post piece and elsewhere, the neocons have become more bellicose than even many on the Israeli right. Try and find an Israeli who believes that the Middle East can become a bastion of democracy? They will laugh at you. This gets at a further point: someone like Amb. Wilson has actually lived in Iraq and understands the region. I’m firmly convinced that for many of the neocons, Iraq was simply an abstraction. They had no understanding of the society itself. Hence they could live in their own dream palace of illusions about Iraq.

1,753 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Raven and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

“i still don’t know what a war hero is. How do you know you know some REAL ones?”

Oh Brother Raven, I have had the same conversation with so many others lo these many 42 years now…those who haven’t been there will never understand Raven, the best ya ken hope for is they think about it. But I think that the country is tired of all the boot stompin’ and the bloody shirts…unless they call Blackwater out into the streets and cancel the elction,we’re gunna be done with the blood suckin’ sons a bitches from the Nixon museum this fall.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, IF YA DON’T KNOW WHAT TA DO WITH IT THEN GIVE IT TA ME!!

one must also reflect on how WELL PAYING it is to be a neocon…still cant get rid of torn socks Wolfowitz

Re:

But the problem here is that we don’t know if we’re confusing short-term with long-term woes.

America has long been a nation run on a cheap energy policy. Today, we produce less than 40% of the petroleum we consume. As Herb Klein, Reagan’s Economics advisor famously quipped, “if something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” This is the new reality we face with $100/bbl. crude oil and the assets of the U.S. continuously slipping into the hands of those who can supply us with oil. As to the other natural resources, natural gas is in short supply, no new hydro will be developed, corporate/DOD impediments to development of wind or solar power continue to frustrate the clean energy crowd.

In 1944, due to the war, victory gardens were planted across America. For a very brief period about 2,000 calories of food value were extracted from every Calorie of fossil fuel applied to the land. Today, it’s estimated that for every single calorie of food served on the Ameican table, about 10 Calories of fossil fuel are consumed.

To reiterate, if something can’t go on forever, it won’t. No matter how many wars for energy the Fearless Fosdicks in Federal-land cook up for their amusement and profit.

Nick Burns is gone, n’est pas? Or do I have the wrong Burns? And, Steve, you would know, why did the DPRK Burns leave? I viewed that (from afar) as a defeat of reasonable foreign policy.

eCAHN — My sense is that friends of mine in Israel on all sides of the political spectrum will never allow themselves to become the victims that they were in WWII. I don’t think that translates into a desire or passion for “doing others” first. I think, however, as a rallying cry for political power, the neocons exploit what they can, much like ideologues elsewhere in the Muslim world might.

Brent and I had this discussion on a number of occasions.

I think one of Clinton and the Democrats mistakes in 1993 was to let Iran Contra slide. If there is a Democratic administration in 2009, one way to get at this would be to investigate every misdeed for which there are credible suspicions. I like Fitz for the National Security or Public Integrity post at Justice.
But that won’t be accomplished if Congress isn’t aboard and there is a willingness not to let bygones be bygones. One of the things that has kept us strong has been the self correcting mechanism of accountability. The argument against accountability is that, like the impeachment of Nixon, it engenders revenge from the other side. Funny how that only seems to apply if a Republican is under the gun.

Thanks. Hope all is well with you.

maybe one should try to avoid wars ,and wars of aggression in all possible ways

Nick Burns is stepping down in March as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. William Burns, current US Ambassador to Russia and former Asst Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs, will be succeeding him. Bill Burns is as anti-neocon as Nick Burns, but perhaps — ultimately — more ruthless than Nick in getting his objectives met. I like both of them.

Yea, I mean I don’t mean to excuse the stand that Mc Cain is taking on Iraq but that doesn’t diminish what he did. There are plenty of “peace hero’s” evem if the phrase is not used. “Unsung” may be more like it but that is an important element in heroism as well. Some people do it an are never recogized. . .that makes it more heroic IMHO.

Aha. Another Q. I haven’t read your book (it’s in my shopping cart, so next time I click on “purchase”) but on BookTV I heard something about how neocons’s financial ties with military complex not well explored. Care to elaborate, Mr. Heilbrunn?

I meant “March” not “Marcy” in response 137.

One of the challenges to eradicating the NeoCon infestation is that ideology can muster more potent arguments than reality based policies. Reality is messy and complicated; Ideology is pure and forceful.

After the fall of China, the Asian experts (Old China Hands) were scapegoated and driven out of the State Department by the McCartyites. The result was that in the Vietnam crisis, no Asian experts were around to counterbalance the ideological interventionists.

Steve, Amb. Wilson–let me throw one back at you. Where are the realists? Brent Scowcroft, whom I admire profoundly, is no spring chicken (though he’s in increible shape). Nor is James Baker. Where’s the younger generation? Where’s the realist (neither Democratic nor Republican, but bipartisan) equivalent of the Weekly Standard?

On Friday, ABC News posted a 10 page memo from Manuel Miranda to Ryan Crocker, blasting him specifically and the State Dept in general for screwing up Iraq’s reconstruction:

In a confidential memo, a long-time Republican operative who has served in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for the past year says the State Department’s efforts in Iraq are so poorly managed they “would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal” if done in the private sector.

“We have brought to Iraq the worst of America — our bureaucrats,” writes Manuel Miranda in the memo, which was addressed to U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and cc’d to “ALCON” or “all concerned” at the State Department.

Miranda is the former counsel to Bill Frist, who got canned for pursued other opportunities after passing along confidential Democratic strategy documents taken off of Democratic office computers on the Hill. I read this memo while in the midst of reading “They Knew They Were Right,” and thought that it is a perfect concrete illustration of the book. You can read the memo [pdf] for yourself, as it might give you a sense for how they neocons are thinking about Iraq at the moment.

To me, it appears to be some preemptive NeoCon pushback, as they prepare for Bush’s departure from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

want a war hero…Gen Smedly Butler,who blew the whistle on the warmongers/profiteers

Jacob — in the end, I couldn’t make the event that AEI hosted for your book (but about which there was serious internal angst and even efforts to have your appearance cancelled).

How did that go? Any surprises?

No, really?

LOL. We get used to typos in threads & I would guess most of us figured that out.

The problem is not typos but when your fingers outrace your brain.

Jacob, Steve: Do you see McCain taking a serious risk by tying his entire national security credentials to the Iraq surge and Petraeus’ change of tactics? He’s taken ownership. It’s not just that the whole Awakening strategy could backfire; it’s that the strategic decision to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq had costs with respect to Afghanistan/Pakistan, not to mention what we can’t afford to do here. An AP poll showed increasing numbers of Americans linking the US recession to the continued occupation in Iraq. If the neocons are now attaching themselves to McCain, and McCain to “success” in Iraq, is there not a likelihood both will be totally discredited by November?

The neocons’ ties to the military-industrial complex? No, I don’t go chapter and verse into it. My discussion is more on the policy/intellectual level, but I do allude to Richard Perle’s dealings. To be honest, I don’t think the neocons are in it for the money. If they were, they wouldn’t go down the road of being policy advocates.

Richard Perle,has a fabulous Villa in the South of France,from all his evil gains

the anti-neocon alliance that has evolved between State, DoD, and DNI

This is exactly what I was thinking about. The NIE on Iran, for instance, had to have been supported and pushed hard by the professionals in each agency/dept — and knowing they had the support of their counterparts would make it easier to stand up to their own neo-con superiors.

Steve–the AEI event went well. It was “off the record,” as the saying goes, but I thought it was a good session. I enjoyed sparring with Michael Ledeen, who has his own unique take on Iran and Iraq.

The analogies of being against Israeli neocons to anti-semitism are exactly the same as the analogies of being against Christian neocons to being anti-christianity.

Israeli neocons and Christian neocons are religious-free…their policies fly in the face of any religious teachings.

They are vile people who adopt “nicknames” to fool the masses while they go forth in the world in order to dominate regions by force and by shock and awe. Period.

Spit. No religion there, so no anti-religious slurs for them to rail against.

They are dangerous to us and they are dangerous to Israel and the rest of the world.

Jacob — the realists and liberal internationalists were asleep at the switch when the neocons were gathering their numbers and cultivating acolytes (like you, in earlier days). As you know, I’m working hard to revitalize a new realism — an ethical realism and/or progressive realism — and have tried to look at the Washington foreign policy turf like I would a game of “go” — the Japanese game. I think that those of us trying to link up and create a new counterforce to the neoconservative movement have taken considerable territory from the other side — but we have much further to go. And replenishing the ranks is part of this strategy.

Glad you asked. ;-)

what im getting at, trials..Nuremberg,
.when does one quetion his mission?

Or, they can choose to do the opposite. We are connected with several peace groups in Israel and their goal is to administer kindness. They actively object to aggression against others perceived to be enemies.

People choose. They aren’t totally the result of their experience. I think that’s why I always have so much difficulty connecting NeoCons and Jews. I know too many Jews who are opposed to the NeoCons. A lot of non Jews are also NeoCons.

Bill Kristol choose to be the person he is. He could change. Naaahhh! He loves to wallow in his nasty self.

1,753 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citzen Joe Wilson:

Thank you Brother Wilson, you and your wife have made me proud to be an American again…please keep on keepin’ on, those of us out here in the boonies jest need a jolt of yer courage once and awhile…we ken take these bastards down once and for all if the next Democratic administration doesn’t bury the evidence and give these fascist bastards a pass like with Iran Contra.

KEEP THE FAITH, ALL THEY GOT IS OUR MONEY AND IT AIN’T WORTH NUTHIN’ ANYWAYS!!

His personal habits are rather sad…but the results of his policies have been devastating to more than a million human beings, and that is sad too.

well said,like Little Boots talks to God

Having been called an anti semite myself (despite the fact that my two older kids are Jewish and Valerie is the great granddaughter of a rabbi) I am familiar with how opportunistic the slur is, like so much of what the neocons do.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting Israel’s right to exist and to serving as the guarantor of its territorial integrity and national security. It has been one of the two pillars of our policy for a generation atleast; the other pillar being the broker between Israel and its neighbors.
the policies pursued by the administration have weakened that second pillar while compromising Israel’s medium and long term prospects as it is seen as an easier target that continental US for those who would want to avenge Iraq and the Wall.
It should be remembered that the neocon axis is not with Israel perse but rather with a political party in Israel. It reflects a view that Israel’s national security interests are better served by walls than by confidence building measures that grow moderates and isolate fanatics on all sides.

It is instructive that Iraq was done despite Israeli and Sharon misgivings.
Finally, my experience is that Israelis don’t so much laugh off the neocons as they are dismissive of them.

QuakerGirl–good point. The truth is that the neocons are a heretical offshoot that don’t really represent the mainstream of American Jews. But they know that. In fact, they like to condemn liberal Jews as feckless and so forth.

In my case, skiing out here in the west.

Yes, I do see this as a risk for McCain — but only if others exploit it. When Obama tries to posture as someone who will take knee jerk reaction and bomb al Qaeda or other terrorists without some level of consultation with the sovereign state involved, I worry that McCain is drawing the Dems into a battle of toughness the Dems shouldn’t want to and can’t really win. I worry about IRGC votes and mistakes made in the past because Dems fear that they need to convince Independents in the nation that they can be trusted to deploy force. So, yes McCain’s position on Iraq is an incredible opportunity that I hope will be exploited…but I have my doubts about the Dems doing this well (hope to be wrong though).

And who is in your camp on Hillary’s and Obama’s teams, if anyone? If no one, give us some names to track for the future.

LOL!
Welcome, Mr. Ambassador. Love to the family.

there is NO word that can describe how sad it is for every Iraqi,man woman,child,dog,cat,canary,tree,fish ,why the very air ,and water itself

Walls=failure.

He did, and like many including Jim Webb,

Rather than accepting America’s defeat in Vietnam as a humbling one and a fitting end to an arrogant and vainglorious exercise of military power, McCain considers the war in Vietnam to have been a “noble cause,” whose loss might have been avoided but for the timidity of America’s political leaders. Like many Vietnam-era military men, McCain believes that the war could have been won had America sent ground forces into North Vietnam and launched a strategic bombing campaign using B-52s. “That,” says Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam-era Defense Department official who leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, “is an incredibly discredited point of view.” McCain appears unworried by concern that such actions would have led to enormous US casualties and perhaps caused either China or the Soviet Union to enter the war.

JoeWIlson–the anti-Semitism charge is something I raise in the book. The irony, of course, is that by using it so promiscuously, the neocons devalue it. But it’s been lodged at James Baker and others. To me, the greatest sin of the neocons has been helping to assist the settlement program, which many Israelis now recognize as an outright disaster.

thank you for ALL you do sir,and it is high time somebody suggested these people (neo cons) are just UN HINGED

Yes, of course Brother Raven…the point I thought you were makin’ is that “war hero” is an oxymoron. I had a couple a real good talks with my Dad and Grandfather about this very topic…we know what we know and that’s why we won’t let ‘em use the blood of those left behind to cover their betrayal of humanity.

Yea, I got that too. I’m just as confused as the next guy.

eCAHN – I so hate to go public with lists of names advising these teams that I have access to or like because it produces internal dynamics that may get them squeezed out. I may go into names at a later time — but essentially, I’ve worked hard to get very good relationships with some of the top foreign policy advisors in both the Obama and Clinton camps.

But suffice it to say that these candidates are franchises with many people around them — and many conflicting opinions. There are some serious, useful divides in perspective around Hillary Clinton and around Barack Obama. They both have realists, liberal interventionists, global justice folks, and neocon-lite types around them. If we began outing all of these folks now, those I am trying to support will be punished in various ways – and that’s not helpful.

I think Joe Wilson may agree with my take.

my dad was a WW2 hero,he was an MD,and saved thousand of lives ,i cant go into now….

More seriously, a lot of them have been driven from the public square by the personal attacks of the other side.
Two former ambassadors with whom I worked in the first Gulf War, for example, were in the debate on Gulf War II, until the organizations they worked for were threatened with loss of funding if they continued to make the arguments they were making. My own consulting business in DC was destroyed by those who found my client list and I have had a number of speaking engagements cancelled because right wing funders threatened to stop funding. Valerie had a speech canceled for the same reason, except that there was a stronger funder in favor of her speech who reacted and got the speech rescheduled.
So there are costs associated with standing up. The other side seems not to suffer the same threats. Indeed they are well funded within their group.
I supsect that with a change in administration they will reemerge, and be afforded space in newspapers and magazines.

Ahmen, Brother Raven…the “real heroes” need our voices and our boots ta make war on the war makers so their souls ken rest.

john dean uses research from robert altemeyer. recently i heard a speech given by him in canada. in a university setting he divides a students into two groups according to their beliefs, authoritarians and others. each group simulated that they were managing the globe. the authoritarian group destroyed the world. they were told what they had done and were given a 2nd and 3rd chance to save themselves. needless to say, they destoyed the world over and over again. once was not enough. good luck everybody. whatever you do, don’t follow the masses.

I understand what you’re saying from their & your POV. But what about my (i.e., voter’s) POV? Why should we not know who the advisors are and what they represent? How in the world could we make informed choices if we don’t know? I’d call your A a Washington Bubble answer, but I don’t want to imply anything pejorative.

I am firmly in the realist camp of foreign policy…and in Hillary’s camp. And there are good debates going on, as they should in a campaign. The various groups are not as cohesive as the neocons and there is a tendency in the debate across the political divide to give some credibility to the arguments of the other side even if they do not hold water (Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran comes to mind). And that is where the neocons make their case. Repeat an argument often enough that it gains traction, however ridiculous it is

JoeWison–that is sobering to hear.

i concur,and what is WORDSE imo…he has learned NOTHING from the experience

worse!

I’m not one for outing anyone, but today’s campaign advisers become tomorrow’s “unnamed Senior Administration Officials” — and it makes it hard to support realists or oppose “neocon-lites” if we have no names.

Steve, I appreciate the knowledge you gain from your insider access to various groups and the “off the record” conferences you attend, but at some point, having people like yourself say “trust me on this, but I can’t tell you why” gets old.

“I worry that McCain is drawing the Dems into a battle of toughness the Dems shouldn’t want to and can’t really win.”

Ummm…I don’t think so…

Idjiot behavior by the Yosemite Sam Republicans like McCain are exactly what has destabilized the Middle East, ruined the United States of America’s moral standing, and left the Democrats with a hornets’ nest to deal with. Zero intelligent diplomacy…Zero intelligent military policies…

9/11, the anthrax attacks, the illegal war in Iraq, the erosion of trust of the United States in the world; is the result of stupidity coupled with ignorance and arrogance….all under the watch of the Bush Administration and their minions.

Democrats are not weak on security, and they are not weak on diplomacy…quite the contrary.

McCain is a man whose policies are misdirected and extremely suspect.

Osama is a brilliant human as is Hillary Clinton. McCain has met his Peter Principle…awhile back.

NeoCons need to be deprogrammed like any other cult. Once someone is in a cult they can’t even see the harm in the coolade or the reality that there is no spaceship out there to pick them up once they discard this body.

I don’t think NeoCons can save themselves. They will keep doing the same thing over and over and over. Cultism hardwires.

JoeWilson–I was referring above to the issue of funding. Viz. Iran: to a certain extent, the newspapers also like to have competing views. I was astonished, for example, to see Norman Podhoretz quoted in a Wash Post piece as an authority on bombing Iran. I supposed you could argue they only contacted him because Cheney is pushing for an attack, but the article didn’t put it that way. It just referred to NP respectfully.

authoritarian= extremely skeeeeeeeeerd person

Also there was recently an article in the Weekly Standard on the 75th anniversary of Hitler’s ascension to power that began with–what else?–Iran and the threat to civilization. There is a drone-like quality. Arguments are simply repeated ad nauseam, as Amb. Wilson points out.

Never underestimate the ability of the Republican attack machine to villify even the most sainted among us.

So, back to the important fundamental Q. How can we get rid of the neocons (and their ilk) as a force in U.S. foreign policy? JoeWilson sez persistence, which involves taking all the lumps they deal out. I fear that is the only recourse. Gladstone, Clemons, any other tactics, strategies? You know them better than we do.

I understand — and I may change my opinion about this later. But I’m not just a blogger/journalist on these matters — I’m an activist who wants to see better US foreign policy developed and deployed. Sometimes, that means I need to give the good guys some room to run. But I may reconsider as I also believe in transparency for the most part.

Let’s see. It was right for Britain, France and the United States to establish the state of Israel in 1948 with all attendant rights, and it is right to deny the Palestinian people the same considerations today.

Darth Cheney can be described in one sentence…He breaks the wings of the farm raised birds he kills by the hundreds in his canned hunts.(real manly man)

Amb. Wilson has it right. Mitt Romney’s statement about dropping out because he didn’t want to aid the terrorists should be a red flag–this is going to be a brutal 2008 presidential contest in which the GOP vilifies the Dems as cowardly appeasers unable to stand up for American national security.

I know, but we just have to fight back and counter attack every single time. They are ruthless and relentless, and so are we!

Israelis are white. Palestinians are brown. Get with the program. /snark

On the “anti-semitism” ploy:

So who, or what combination of factors, will pierce the veil of this ruse with enough salience, force, and stature to overcome the guilt-by-association so many respond to? Its the elephant in the room that that is untouchable.

one must throw cold water on these insults to reality…if the surge was working,we could turn Iraq back to the Iraqis after 5 years and 3/4 of a trillion dollars

Jacob — your editor was Adam Bellow, son of Saul Bellow who himself was one of the stars in your chronicle. I think that your book was remarkably fair and judicious in reporting about the roots of the neocon leadership — and also in your reporting on the generational change from Kristol, Podhoretz, Bellow, Himmelfarb, and others to the next generation — some of whom have the same names, but not all.

I know that Adam was also comfortable with the stories told in the book — but would Saul have been. Clearly, I’m asking you to speculate.

I think it’s important to note that one founder of the Committee on the Present Danger – and a Scoop Jackson Democrat, Peter Rosenblatt, said publicly at the Nixon Center talk you gave — that your book was very fair to the history of the neoconservative movement.

It’s the elephant because there is, in fact, a history of American anti-Semitism. I hope that my book provides a detached view that might cause people to examine the topic of neocons, Israel, and American foreign policy in a spirit of inquiry.

hows this Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi,and a pascifist

Mitt wasn’t merely slandering the Dems; he was slandering the majority of Americans who, in his scenario, would have made the Dem candidate President. What Mitt was saying is that the American people cannot be trusted to elect a President — our course, it becomes an interesting argument when you think about Bush.

Steve–I can’t really say, regarding Saul Bellow. I simply don’t know.

The problem with competing views is that there has to be some judgement as to whether there is any merit in a view being presented. Just because somebody says it doesn’t mean it has merit. What are Podhoretz’ foreign policy credentials? What has Ann Coulter, Laura whatever her name is, or Sean Hannity done to merit expert status in anything other than the wearing of brown shirts and jack boots.
I agree that we arrive at better decisions when there is open discussion, which is why I got into the debate on Iraq in the first place. I thought that Americans might benefit from a point of view based on first hand experience in Iraq and with Saddam.
By the way, contrary to the myth that the war was inevitable after the October Use of Force Authorization vote, I was in the debate till March, 2003, the eve of the invasion. Zinni was in it till December 2002, and Brent was with me all the way through as was Zbig. So those who now spout the revisionist history of that time either weren’t there or have conveniently forgotten.

1,752 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Peterr:

“…at some point, having people like yourself say ‘trust me on this, but I can’t tell you why’ gets old.”

Yes indeed…REAL old like in dinosauer old…like in “trust me, they wouldn’t do that again” old. If every reporter and analyst and historian over the last 50 years who knew which decision-makers were thinkin’ what and kept it from us had exposed the bastards, we wouldn’t be in this fuckin’ mess and 55,000 of my brothers and sisters (not to mention thousands in this God damned war)would still be alive.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, KEEPIN’ THE TRUTH TO YERSELF IS THE SAME AS LYIN’!!

selected

When is it appropriate for the US to use military force against another country? When its interests are harmed? When it is actually attacked? When it is humanitarians (should the US intervene in the next Rwanda?)

Where is the bright red line?

Democrats are not weak on security, and they are not weak on diplomacy…quite the contrary.

I agree with that premise, but, I see that notion as a classic Repug strawman, that has been regurgitated since Reagan if not earlier. Which has no basis in reality other than being constantly spewed by the Repugs…

You are preaching to one who is out there every day doing just that, as is Valerie

I respect that — but I was using a sneaky technique to let folks who are reading this now and in the future know that there are some fascinating vignettes of Saul Bellow and other well known intellectuals in the page-turner on neoconservatism you have written.

I am generally interested in what Saul Bellow’s ghost would say — and I think he’d admire the book.

that is the trully remarkable ,almost laughable problem isnt it…i think Hannity was a plumber,or electrician iirc

JoeWilson–agreed. What I was trying to say is that the media has a propensity for offering these competing views, even if one side is nonsense. Same happens with scientific issues, where they’ll dredge up some quack who will contest what 99% of scientists know to be true.

I’m not preaching to you, I’m right behind you! You go. I’m with you guys!

I have this quaint (to coin a word) view that it’s my right as a voter to know about what candidates for office are being advised.

Perhaps a novel approach to helping matters (peace) in the Middle East would be to solve the Israeli-Palestinian “problem”. Or am I being naive?

Steve–I hope you’re right!

When is it appropriate for the US to use military force against another country?

also, when is it NOT appropriate. in general, i am not a big fan of wars that require lying to the american people in order to gin up support.

Also the media seem to like to repeat the conservative memes, like “liberals are weak on national security”.

it dilutes the truth,and becomes confusing to the average American

Kiddo–it sure wouldn’t hurt.

Your expectation is reasonable. I could easily publish all the lists of advisors. It’s just that many are opaque on what they really believe or want to be held accountable for. Washington is not full of Joe Wilson types. Most are risk averse — and even some of the risk averse types have great ideas and policy proposals but lay low until they get into government.

This is one of the reasons that Jacob Heilbrunn’s expose on the neocons is so important as he exposes the notion that “aggressiveness” in and of itself is a technique to easily rip through a town of others who are fearful of that kind of pugnacious self-confidence and purposeful aggression.

Sorry late … always late ;-)

I haven’t read the book … yet

But do you mention anything about the Progressive Policy Institute and their neocon ways?

Or

You probably don’t mention this but most people are unaware of — The Pentagon’s New Map — where the author talks about an expanded US imperialism in order to support a neoglobalism. I mention this because these are the type people I think you’re speaking of in your book

One thing is certain. Until the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is resolved, fairly, there will be no peace in the Middle East.

I think what we haven’t said on this forum, in regards to when it’s appropriate to go to war, is that that the Iraq war was a “willed” one–there was no provocation. It was a preventive war. Bush stepped into new territory here.

That’s exactly the point I was making at 208, it is a strawman….

On Israel-Palestine relations, you are correct — but there is a status quo preserving industry in both parties that must be outfoxed and competitively beaten if the US part of this equation is going to matter. Just my view, not necessarily Jacob Heilbrunn’s.

but guess what the PEOPLE are getting it

http://ap.google.com/article/A…..wD8UMCQAO1

AP Poll: Leaving Iraq Will Help Economy
By JEANNINE AVERSA – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The heck with Congress’ big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession — and most people think we’re in one — is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

I have to run. Thank you Jacob for writing such an important book. I hope all American read it.
As to your comment about American anti semitism, I am on the Board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. We sue the military every time we catch officers proselytizing on behalf of one religion while in uniform.
We have learned in our research of the growth of the power of the evangelicals in the military is that anti semitism is a growing and dangerous phenomenon.

I advise Hillary

Seems as if neo cons are a sort of one trick pony foreign policy wise. They have policy recommendations for the middle east and not much else- is that the case?

Drive-by comment as it is late here and I need to get some sleep. (And I haven’t read the book.) One of the writers on our site is a 17 year old Iraki living in Baghdad.

He posted this today:

“Ana Iraki.” “I am Iraki.” Like the majority of Irakis my tribe is a mix of Sunni and Shia. One of my parents was Sunni one was Shia. I live in Baghdad. Our neighbourhood has Sunni and Shia Arabs, Sunni and Shia Kurds, we have some Christian neighbours such as the goalkeeper in my football team. On the nights that it is my turn to help man the checkpoint to keep the latest set of American funded death squads from my home and the homes of my neighbours I try to team up with him – did I mention he was Kurdish? My good friend and loyal Iraki comrade Basil is Kurdish. We have Shabaki, Turkmen, and Yezhidi in our neighbourhood also.

Enjoy your failed surge losers and have a nice day.

He also has some sharp comments about genocide and the inherent racism of most American “dialogue” and policy actions towards Arabs.

Dubhaltach

Good to have you with us today Joe Wilson.

Your expectation is reasonable. I could easily publish all the lists of advisors. It’s just that many are opaque on what they really believe or want to be held accountable for. Washington is not full of Joe Wilson types. Most are risk averse — and even some of the risk averse types have great ideas and policy proposals but lay low until they get into government.

This is one of the reasons that Jacob Heilbrunn’s expose on the neocons is so important as he exposes the notion that “aggressiveness” in and of itself is a technique to easily rip through a town of others who are fearful of that kind of pugnacious self-confidence and purposeful aggression.

Very well said
reply

Sign in Cambridge, MA in the 1970s (pass the word here, didn’t see it & don’t have a link):

If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.

Many thanks! I appreciate the kind words immensely.

It was a preventive war.

Actually, wasn’t it Preemptive, rather than preventive…?

Thanks for “outing” yourself. *g*

thank you Dubhaltach.

I guess I was thinking in terms of World War I, where Germany launched what it called a “preventive” war. I don’t think there is a huge difference here.

i love you dearly
hahahahahahahahaha

But do you mention anything about the Progressive Policy Institute and their neocon ways?

By that I mean in National Defense & Homeland Security postions

My father volunteered to be a WWII bomber pilot. My uncle flew Marine One for two tours (and had two tours in Vietnam, as well). My first girl friend’s father was a spotter pilot for the Air Force in Vietnam – he was permanently unhinged from his witnessing of the civilian carnage inflicted by US airpower…including the carnage inflicted by A-6 pilots in “close air support”.

I honor all three men’s willingess to serve their nation, and their patriotism.

Yet the US war in Vietnam was illegal and obscenely immoral.

I fail to comprehend how McCain’s willingness – nay, eagerness – to operate high tech aircraft in order to drop napalm and high yield explosives in an illegal war could possibly be construted as consistent with the status of “war hero”

Then again, I’ve never lived in the Beltway or aspired to positions of power in a government that – since WWII – has repeatedly threatened non-nuclear powers (many of them democracies) with massive destruction for the “Crime” of attemping to repatriate their natural resources from US multinationals.

I guess I’m old fashioned: I believe that starting a war of aggression and deliberately targeting civilians – both causes for execution when the Allies tried German and (I believe) Japanese leaders and commanders are war crimes when committed by America and her uniformed soldiers.

As Nuremberg established, following illegal orders is not an excuse.

But again – I’ve never gone through the ideological filters required to join the US foreign policy establishment, so there must be something I’m failing to grasp that explains why it’s a crime when the Nazis and Imperial Japan did it, but not when we did it.

I thought the same sort of relativistic ethics is what we describe in the acronym “IOIFYAR” (It’s OK if you’re a Republican).

Again, I’ve never lived in the Beltway, so I’m probably just missing something.

Strangely, those outside of the US seem to have missed it as well.

How can so many people around the world fail to perceive what is apparently clear to those in America’s foreign policy establishment?

Is this the true meaning of “lonely at the top”?

If so, perhaps the Straussians have been right all along: we proles just aren’t capable of perceiving the higher truths.

excuse me…what the H—- were we preventing?

To pick up on Steve’s point, I believe that there is nothing nefarious about neocon support for Israel. It didn’t really begin until the late 1960s, but it’s rooted in the conviction that there is a genuine conincidence of interests between Israel and the U.S., which, by and large, is true.

See now, this is where I depart from many in the foreign policy establishment. In pure realpolitik terms I can’t see very many interests which coincide between Israel and the US which are well served by being a strong ally of Israel.

In fact being a strong ally of Israel serves to isolate the US from countries with whom it has a much greater need for good relations. It also makes solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem essentially impossible, and failure to solve that problem will eventually destroy Israel as a Jewish state.

The extremely strong US/Israeli alliance serves the needs of neither Israel nor the US.

Progressive Policy Institute is neocon-lite. Neocons also exist abroad, by the way, in Britain, Germany, and France.

It was not a preventive war it was a preemptive war against a militarily toothless regime concocted on the basis of a pack of lies.

Amen.

Would the Arab states be friendlier to the U.S. absent our support for Israel? Unlikely. In fact, Israel’s existence may make them more eager to curry favor in Washington and counter-balance Israel.

Folks — we have about a minute left, and as the MC of sorts for the evening, I want to extend my thanks to Jacob Heilbrunn for two hours of high octane commentary on one of the most impactful and destructive ideological movements in US foreign policy history. I have read the book thoroughly and think that it is the definitive treatment of neoconservative principles, players, methodologies, and objectives today — and we just need to know the stuff that Jacob Heilbrunn brilliantly reports and analyzes.

But thanks also to all of you and to the FireDogLake governors and proprietors. I’ve had a great evening and found this to be a mind-stretching discussion.

Buy the book! It’s essential reading.

yup…what the hell were we preventing come on

Preventive in theory! Yes, it was a preemptive war. The Germans thought they were launching a preventive war in 1914. They were wrong.

In either case, it still begs the question of international legality… Do you foresee any action by the IC and the Hague over the policy?

The only point I raised in relation to something heroic he did was when he declined to be released before his fellow POW’s. I know that is debatable as well. Many of us accepted our responsibilty in an unjust war many years ago.

Gladstone thank you for coming to the Lake and sharing your time with us.

Sorry if this was asked: Any comment from our guests on Ari Berman’s article in The Nation about the candidates various advisers?

Thanks, Steve, and everyone else who participated! This was a terrific discussion.
best,
Jacob

I am complete agreement with Jacob on this point — but I don’t want to see any false choices promulgated between American relations with Israel and the Arab world.

Have to run — thanks again to all.

Steve Clemons

it wasnt really even preempting anything
IT WAS PURE AGGRESSION imo

We (the United States) remain the world’s pivotal bully. Our High Noonism approach to foreign policy continues intact. Sometimes the enemy of our enemy in not necessarily our pal.

Raven I completely agree that was a heroic act.

Well, U.S. joined at the hip with Israel certainly doesn’t serve U.S. mid-east interests which (in realpolitik terms) are oil, oil, and, then again, oil.

Demockcracy in the middle east? 707.

And the U.S. as a peace broker between Israel & Palestinians? Even in a D admin. Cynicism is to mild to characterize that meme.

ok if what we were preventing was Sadams changing oil $$$ into Euros …then that is what was meant

Thanks again to all….I will assume that Bev Wright or other FDLers will figure out how to archive and draw the online discussion to an ending punctuation point.

I’ve got to run — or will be in big trouble at home. ;-)

Kudos to Jacob Heilbrunn for an excellent book.

best, steve clemons

Wow thank you guy so much for being here. What a great book salon — one of our very best. I hope you’ll both be back again, we would love to have you.

And yes, buy the book!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/03855…..QZ4P1NMCK&

Mahalo, Steve and Jacob for being here at the Lake and answering our questions! It has been most informative…

You know political thinkers in Washington seem to have gone sadly downhill. There was a great American who said of another countrys leaders as they stood in the dock that they were not being tried for losing the war they were being tried for starting it.

You could try looking it up and learning the lesson.

thank you jacob, steve, joe, ecahn and everyone. very interesting discussion, and i’m definitely putting the book on my list.

Steve, thank you for hostinig – and Jacob, thank you for your work and effort to open the neocons up to sunshine. May it prove a powerful disinfectant for our body politic.

60 million men,woman ,children,millions of pets,all dear life slautered in WW2 …seems the Europeans dont have the taste for war,that we do

Well, in case you drop back in let me say that I’d love to hear why it’s a false choice. Every poll I have ever seen on the subject shows that the biggest problem the US has in the Middle East amongst the population (which the non-democratic elites occasionally have to bow down to) is US support for Israel.

I’d also like to hear what the US’s shared interests are with Israel. Because most of the ones I hear always seem rather forced to me.

US strong support for Israel is one of those things that players of the game can’t admit is wrong, because it’s an unforgiveable sin. But it makes no sense in Realpolitik terms that I can determine and on moral terms let’s just say that the case is at very best mixed.

Bravo Jacob!! Another fabulous book to read.
Bravo Steve Clemmons!!

Perhaps that’s because we’ve learnt our lesson. I’m married to a woman whose grandfather was a Jew smuggler. When the Germans eventually caught up with him they slammed him into Neuengamme and told him that as he loved Jews so much they were going to treat him like one.

I can just about barely remember him. He always looked like a walking skeleton, couldn’t speak above a whisper, and he had a number tattooed on his arm.

Racism is always racism, war crimes are always war crimes, and you don’t need concentration camps to commit genocide. Bombing the water treatment plants followed by sanctions followed by “shock and awe” followed by a savagely brutal occupation does the trick quite nicely thank you.

Ian –

The Passionate Attachment by George Ball sheds light on the origins of our pro-Israel tilt.

http://www.amazon.com/Passiona…..0393029336

Combined with the AIPAC zero tolerance for deviation from any politician, it’s a tough nut politically.