Democracy for the Middle East: Who's Neocon Now?

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Democracy for the Middle East

December 15, 2004

Who's Neocon Now?

Franklin Foer surveys the current thinking among neocons about Iran and calls it as "a moment of indecision that exposes the limits of neoconservativism."

For decades, a near-limitless belief in U.S. power has bridged neocon foreign policy thinking. That's why it is stunning to hear so many neocons ultimately express pessimism about the Bush administration's prospects for preventing the Iranian bomb. "The horse is ninety percent out of the barn," says Donnelly. "They're going to get the bomb unless we invade. That's not an option. So, I'd say, the time to stop this from happening has pretty much passed. Now, the question is, what are you going to do about it?"

And there's no surer sign that neoconservatism has been chastened than the manner in which neocons describe themselves when discussing Iran. Where many of them once unabashedly self-identified as members of an intellectual movement, they now deny that such a movement ever existed. They refer to neoconservatism in quotation marks, as if the term were merely a concoction of overactive left-wing imaginations. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, told me, "This really is an example of what academics call essentialism. Hostile critics invent this thing called neoconservatism that unfailingly favors unilateral military force. But, when the so-called 'neoconservatives' examine Iran and don't advocate the use of unilateral military force, the critics feel like a dirty trick has been played upon them." Denial may be the first step on the path to recovery.

You heard it here. The American decapitation of the mullah regime will be the most ambitious sneak attack since September 11th.

Home . Posted by Editor at December 15, 2004 09:05 PM . DFME's new internet address is www.dfme.org

Comments on this post:

Sounds like wishful thinking on the liberals' part. The fact that the Iran challenge is complex, or that there are multiple schools of thought about it among neoconservatives, hardly indicates that the neocon movement is falling apart. Regime change advocates have always recognized that Iran is not Iraq and that a different approach may be called for.

The worry about the US fighting a "two-front war" seems a bit odd, since that is precisely what the mullahs will be doing, given that they are currently sandwiched between American troops on two borders (Iraq and Afghanistan). This geographical novelty can hardly have gone unnoticed by Pentagon planners.

I don't know what the White House has planned, but if the President had some plans for Iran - perhaps including covert as well as overt actions - I would expect him to be quiet and cagey on the subject of Iran. Exactly as he is now.

Sad to see TNR in the final stages of its intellectual meltdown. They still manage to get a good article out every now and then, but I find they're no longer worth the wait.

Posted by: asher at December 16, 2004 03:51 AM