MESSAGE
| DATE | 2010-01-23 |
| FROM | Paul Charles Leddy
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Neocons RETURN
|
Watch "Arguing the World", the movie.
Good lead, thanks.
Who was dumb enough to announce the death of neoconservatism? It rules
the world. Duh.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 7:33 PM, Ruben Safir wrote:
>
>
> Gee - I've been right here all along..
>
> http://www.newsweek.com/id/232053
>
> The Return of the Neocons
> Neoconservatism was once deemed dead—'Buried in the sands of Iraq.'
> But it persists, not just as the de facto foreign-policy plank of the
> Republican Party but, its proponents assert, in Obama's unapologetic
> embrace of American military might.
>
> By David Margolick | NEWSWEEK
>
> Published Jan 22, 2010
>
> From the magazine issue dated Feb 1, 2010
>
> For all his eminence—or maybe because of it—the funeral for
> Irving Kristol this past September was an understated affair. Some
> thought Dick Cheney might show up, but neither he nor any other
> Republican leader did; it seemed almost ungrateful, given Kristol's
> extraordinary contribution to the GOP—how he'd brought intellectual
> legitimacy and heft to what he himself had once called "the stupid
> party." None of the Republican congressional leadership was there, nor
> any of the would-be candidates for 2012—not even Sarah Palin, whom
> Kristol's ubiquitous son, Bill, had helped turn into a political
> phenomenon.
>
> The assemblage of about 200 people wasn't exactly small, but in the
> gargantuan sanctuary of Adas Israel Congregation, built at a
> time—1951—when American Jews of Irving Kristol's generation
> wanted to proclaim they'd finally arrived and planned to stick around
> awhile, it was dwarfed by its surroundings; the burgundy back benches
> were empty. Adas Israel is Washington's most powerful Conservative
> congregation, the one to which every Israeli ambassador to the United
> States in history has belonged. Instead of the usual parade of celebrity
> eulogists, though, only two people—the rabbi and Bill
> Kristol—spoke, and briefly at that. In 40 minutes or so it was over.
>
> But the strength of neoconservatism, the intellectual and political
> "persuasion" (as he once called it) that Irving Kristol launched and
> led, has never been in its numbers but in its firepower and ferocity.
> And had the elder Kristol—whose shrouded coffin sat inconspicuously
> below the stage, nestled between the American and Israeli flags—been
> able to survey the crowd, he'd have been pleased. For filling the pews
> were his progeny, not just biological but intellectual, and they were an
> impressive lot.
>
> They came from the publications that neoconservatives either run, like
> Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard, or work for, like The Washington Post
> and The Wall Street Journal. Others came from the think tanks where
> neocons congregate, particularly the American Enterprise Institute
> (AEI). There were faces from the Iraq War, with which the neocons are
> inextricably linked, like former deputy secretary of defense Paul
> Wolfowitz (making a rare public appearance) and the former civilian
> administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer. Charles Krauthammer, the impassioned
> and highly influential neoconservative columnist at The Washington Post,
> and the political scientist Francis Fukuyama (a rare lapsed and
> repentant neocon) hadn't spoken to each other for several years—ever
> since Fukuyama had taken exception to the roseate view of the Iraq War
> Krauthammer had offered in the American Enterprise Institute's 2004
> Irving Kristol Lecture—but Kristol's death had briefly brought them
> back together, albeit in different parts of the synagogue. The more
> traditional wing of the Republican Party, the one the neocons had
> arguably routed, also paid homage: George Will, who'd come to view the
> Iraq War as an enormous mistake, took his seat respectfully. In his
> uncharacteristically apolitical, even gentle, eulogy, Bill Kristol
> couldn't help but gloat over the proliferation of neocons: "scores,
> legions—hordes they must seem to those who disapprove of them," he
> said.
>
> Like Bill Kristol, some of those on hand had inherited their right-wing
> beliefs rather than adopted them (as Irving Kristol, a longtime
> Democrat, once had). Technically, there is nothing "neo" about
> conservatives like Robert Kagan, the historian and another Washington
> Post columnist, or John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary; each is a
> son of one of neoconservatism's founding fathers. Indeed, no strain in
> American politics is so dynastic. It is akin to the right-wing Likud
> Party in Israel, whose religion and politics, world view, and succession
> rituals the neocons often share. The definitions, and analogy, are
> inexact, but both groups have recent ties to Europe and are haunted by
> the Holocaust, which has left them feeling wounded, suspicious, and
> sometimes bellicose, determined never again to be naive or to trust the
> world's good intentions. Both spent decades in the po-litical wilderness
> before miraculously acquiring power; both begat "princes" who defied the
> normal generational tensions and allied themselves with their kingly
> fathers. When Bill Kristol rose to praise Irving that morning, he was
> really picking up his scepter.
>
> Had you Googled "neoconservative" and "death" that day, four days after
> the 89-year-old Kristol expired, you'd have found lots on their
> long-rumored—and for some, much-anticipated and -savored—demise.
> On both the left and right, neoconservatism was deemed a spent force.
> Its ideas, Foreign Policy magazine had pronounced, "lie buried in the
> sands of Iraq."
>
> But obituaries can be premature. At the moment, in fact, the neocons
> seem resurrected. One of their own, Frederick Kagan of AEI (Robert's
> younger brother), helped turn around the war in Iraq by devising and
> pushing for the surge there. More recent-ly, President Obama—whose
> foreign--policy pronouncements (nuanced, multi-lateral, interdependent)
> and style (low-key, self-critical, conciliatory, collegial) were a
> repudiation of neoconservative assertiveness—has swung their way, or
> so they believe. First, he's sending an additional 30,000 troops to
> Afghanistan, nearly as many as leading neocons had sought. Then came his
> Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which, with its acknowledgment of the
> need for force, its nod to dissidents in Iran and elsewhere, and its
> talk about good and evil, was surprisingly congenial.
>
>
>
> You can read the rest of it on line
>
> Ruben
>
|
|
