A Neoconservative Manifesto?
Contra David Brooks's assertion that such a thing does not exist (and more in line with the middle-of-the-road both-sides-are-wrong view that we put out earlier this week) apparently a book has come out by David Frum and Richard Perle that purports, according to Lawrence Kaplan, to "provide a useful primer on the neoconservative world view." The book, called An End to Evil is available right now. An article in this morning's Forward situates it against the backdrop of Powell vs. the neo-cons:
Yet "An End to Evil" and the initial responses to it also expose the deepening rift between pro-interventionist neoconservatives and old-line conservatives battling for control over White House policy. In recent weeks, the latter group, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, appeared to be winning the fight, as the Bush administration has softened its position toward North Korea and Iran — in direct opposition to Frum and Perle's advice.
"We were with them on Iraq," said Helle Dale, a foreign policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, an old-line conservative think-tank in Washington. "But if you have any sense of military constraints, you would know further calls to military action right now are a little ill-timed."
Both Frum and Perle are Washington insiders who have been closely connected to the more hawkish elements of the Bush administration, particularly in the Donald Rumsfeld-led Defense Department.
For the first two years of the Bush administration, Perle served as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises the Pentagon, and Frum worked as a speechwriter in the White House, where he was most famous for helping to coin the term "Axis of Evil." Each of them, though, left their positions during the last year, and "An End to Evil" conveys their disappointment with the course of Bush administration policy since then. "We can feel the will to win ebbing in Washington," they write.
I'm surprised that this is the first I've heard of this thing - it sounds like its a bombshell. Apparently, Frum and Perle are very, very grumpy. Money teasers include:
Rather than open with an attack on a foreign enemy, the book starts off with a harsh critique of elements of the Bush administration that have resisted additional military action since Iraq. "At the State Department," the duo writes, "there is constant pressure to return to business as usual, beginning by placating offended allies and returning to the exaggerated multilateral conceit of the Clinton administration."
On top of a complete reform of the State Department, Frum and Perle advocate firing George Tenet, director of the CIA, and relieving the FBI of the "counter-terrorism job it has bungled." About all these groups, Frum and Perle write, "We have wanted to fight, and they have not."
On the domestic front, Frum and Perle advocate more intense policing of immigrants and citizens alike. They cite approvingly a few Portland, Ore. residents who reported a neighbor to the authorities after he grew a beard, donned traditional Arab garb, and started attending a mosque. To help keep track of suspicious behavior, they call for all Americans to carry a "national identification card" with information including "retinal scans or DNA."
Washington insiders speculate that Frum did most of the writing work for the book, and his unequivocal style is evident, never more so than in the line, "There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust."
Frum and Perle argue that "we must destroy regimes implicated in anti-American terrorism," and provide a list of potential targets, including North Korea, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
"We must move boldly against them. . . . And we don't have much time," they write.
The paleo-cons are at least nervous that this book will take off:
The increased involvement in international affairs advocated in "An End to Evil" already has drawn public censure from some conservative isolationists. In an editorial in the Miami Herald, Pat Buchanan critically wondered whether President Bush will "heed the neoconservatives' non-negotiable demand that we overthrow all Arab and Islamic regimes."
In all of the conservative foreign-policy debates, said Tod Lindberg, editor of the Washington-based Policy Review and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, "Frum and Perle may take the bolder, more radical vision" to expand the terms of the debate.
But most of the neo-cons are ecstatic:
In many other hives of neoconservative activity, however, few are distancing themselves from the platform outlined by Perle and Frum.
"The political prescriptions contained are terrific," said Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute — where both Frum and Perle are resident fellows — a think-tank that is widely considered the nerve center of neoconservatism. "This is a very thoughtful articulation of how to fight the battle ahead of us."
Political observers say that, in fact, none of the proposals in the book are particularly new, and most of the ideas have been discussed by administration officials before.
"An End to Evil" has taken a new step, though, in putting all these positions together so that the full panorama can be seen in one sweep.
A couple of things. First, we may debate about whether or not any, let alone most, criticism of "neoconservatives" works in part by rhetorically mobilizing anti-Semitic canards. Things get especially thorny when it is a group of neo-conservatives themselves who are self-identifying as such. However, we can at least all agree that when Pat Buchanan uses the word "neoconservative," he means "Jew." Right? Don't believe me? I went out and tracked down the full context for this Buchanan quote:
Or will he heed the neoconservatives' non-negotiable demand that we overthrow all Arab and Islamic regimes that do not democratize, disarm and terminate support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Arafat?
In Iran, fanatic mullahs will fight any rapprochement – as will Ariel Sharon in Israel and his fifth columnists in the United States.
Now do you believe me? It's all there - the idea that the Bush administration has been transformed into a vehicle for Israeli military interests over US strategic interests; the implication that Jews are a fifth column trying to destabilize an otherwise good and wholesome nation-state; the reduction of Frum and Perle's book, which includes critiques of the State Department, North Korean appeasement, and Europe diplomacy, into an blueprint for solving Israeli concerns. So Brooks is not completely wrong - there's at least one person in American politics who, when he says "neo-conservative" (or, as Buchanan puts it, "friends of Perle" - because you know we all know each other) means "Jew."
Second, would somebody please explain to me why it is controversial to say that a united Europe is a diplomatic, if not a strategic, threat to the United States? In what way is this not patently obvious? The Rhineland countries stood in the way of the US invasion of Iraq (don't forget: they didn’t just abstention - they actively expended diplomatic capital, and in some cases – most egregiously with Eastern Europe – political and economic blackmail, to try to thwart our initiatives) not because of any pacifism, but rather because they sought to counter us geo-politically. Now, the hegemony-good folks have always maintained that even a preponderance of US power would not trigger counter-balancing alliances because we could always use divide-and-conquer strategies to drive wedges between potential adversaries. It seems that Frum and Perle are simply recommending that we implement the strategies that our political science scholars have been developing for the last half-century.
Finally, and most importantly, the so-called neo-conservative agenda (which used to be called "enforcing human rights" back when there was a Democrat in office) is one that history will either judge us favorably for fighting for or terribly for abandoning. The post-9/11 world is only beginning to take shape. The coming years will witness waves upon waves of radical Islamofacism breaking against the walls of civilization. The coming battles will be defined by more than our ability to secure our borders or to prevent another major terrorist attack. The words that President Bush said in immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the clarity created by the horror of that event made them seem self-evident, still hold: "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."
UPDATE:Chris Matthews interviewed Frum and Perle on Hardball tonight (do you see how timely we are here at dejafoo?) I'm getting this off of lexis, so I can't provide a link, but if you have a way to track it down, I highly recommend you do so. Some highlights:
MATHEWS: Don't we need a carrot out there, as well as a stick for the Arab world?
MATTHEWS: What it that carrot?
PERLE: Well, the carrot is, we won't use the stick.
And to remind you what's at stake in the next election:
Let me ask you about the role of advisers. There was an amazing statement made the other day -- in fact, I'm not sure I buy it at all -- by Governor Dean. He said, when somebody said, you're too far left, you don't have any foreign policy experience, he said, that's OK, because we Democrats all have the same pool of advisers. So no matter who wins, he's basically saying Richard Perle -- not Richard Perle -- Richard Holbrooke is going to be secretary of state. ...
PERLE: No, I think it's -- actually, there are real choices involved. And this president turned to people who were closer to Ronald Reagan, in many ways, than to his father.
MATTHEWS: Is there a real policy difference between Bush I, Bush II, Bush 41, Bush 43? Jimmy Baker, Brent Scowcroft, the former president himself, were they more cautious in foreign policy than President Bush, advised by folks like you?
FRUM: President Bush had to deal -- this President Bush had to deal with an unprecedented disaster. And it was a disaster that was incubated by bad decisions made over a number of years, some of them going back into the administration of his father.
It’s gotta feel good for Frum and Perle to be able to get their shots in at the Bush I/Baker crowd, too.
Yet "An End to Evil" and the initial responses to it also expose the deepening rift between pro-interventionist neoconservatives and old-line conservatives battling for control over White House policy. In recent weeks, the latter group, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, appeared to be winning the fight, as the Bush administration has softened its position toward North Korea and Iran — in direct opposition to Frum and Perle's advice.
"We were with them on Iraq," said Helle Dale, a foreign policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, an old-line conservative think-tank in Washington. "But if you have any sense of military constraints, you would know further calls to military action right now are a little ill-timed."
Both Frum and Perle are Washington insiders who have been closely connected to the more hawkish elements of the Bush administration, particularly in the Donald Rumsfeld-led Defense Department.
For the first two years of the Bush administration, Perle served as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises the Pentagon, and Frum worked as a speechwriter in the White House, where he was most famous for helping to coin the term "Axis of Evil." Each of them, though, left their positions during the last year, and "An End to Evil" conveys their disappointment with the course of Bush administration policy since then. "We can feel the will to win ebbing in Washington," they write.
I'm surprised that this is the first I've heard of this thing - it sounds like its a bombshell. Apparently, Frum and Perle are very, very grumpy. Money teasers include:
Rather than open with an attack on a foreign enemy, the book starts off with a harsh critique of elements of the Bush administration that have resisted additional military action since Iraq. "At the State Department," the duo writes, "there is constant pressure to return to business as usual, beginning by placating offended allies and returning to the exaggerated multilateral conceit of the Clinton administration."
On top of a complete reform of the State Department, Frum and Perle advocate firing George Tenet, director of the CIA, and relieving the FBI of the "counter-terrorism job it has bungled." About all these groups, Frum and Perle write, "We have wanted to fight, and they have not."
On the domestic front, Frum and Perle advocate more intense policing of immigrants and citizens alike. They cite approvingly a few Portland, Ore. residents who reported a neighbor to the authorities after he grew a beard, donned traditional Arab garb, and started attending a mosque. To help keep track of suspicious behavior, they call for all Americans to carry a "national identification card" with information including "retinal scans or DNA."
Washington insiders speculate that Frum did most of the writing work for the book, and his unequivocal style is evident, never more so than in the line, "There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust."
Frum and Perle argue that "we must destroy regimes implicated in anti-American terrorism," and provide a list of potential targets, including North Korea, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
"We must move boldly against them. . . . And we don't have much time," they write.
The paleo-cons are at least nervous that this book will take off:
The increased involvement in international affairs advocated in "An End to Evil" already has drawn public censure from some conservative isolationists. In an editorial in the Miami Herald, Pat Buchanan critically wondered whether President Bush will "heed the neoconservatives' non-negotiable demand that we overthrow all Arab and Islamic regimes."
In all of the conservative foreign-policy debates, said Tod Lindberg, editor of the Washington-based Policy Review and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, "Frum and Perle may take the bolder, more radical vision" to expand the terms of the debate.
But most of the neo-cons are ecstatic:
In many other hives of neoconservative activity, however, few are distancing themselves from the platform outlined by Perle and Frum.
"The political prescriptions contained are terrific," said Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute — where both Frum and Perle are resident fellows — a think-tank that is widely considered the nerve center of neoconservatism. "This is a very thoughtful articulation of how to fight the battle ahead of us."
Political observers say that, in fact, none of the proposals in the book are particularly new, and most of the ideas have been discussed by administration officials before.
"An End to Evil" has taken a new step, though, in putting all these positions together so that the full panorama can be seen in one sweep.
A couple of things. First, we may debate about whether or not any, let alone most, criticism of "neoconservatives" works in part by rhetorically mobilizing anti-Semitic canards. Things get especially thorny when it is a group of neo-conservatives themselves who are self-identifying as such. However, we can at least all agree that when Pat Buchanan uses the word "neoconservative," he means "Jew." Right? Don't believe me? I went out and tracked down the full context for this Buchanan quote:
Or will he heed the neoconservatives' non-negotiable demand that we overthrow all Arab and Islamic regimes that do not democratize, disarm and terminate support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Arafat?
In Iran, fanatic mullahs will fight any rapprochement – as will Ariel Sharon in Israel and his fifth columnists in the United States.
Now do you believe me? It's all there - the idea that the Bush administration has been transformed into a vehicle for Israeli military interests over US strategic interests; the implication that Jews are a fifth column trying to destabilize an otherwise good and wholesome nation-state; the reduction of Frum and Perle's book, which includes critiques of the State Department, North Korean appeasement, and Europe diplomacy, into an blueprint for solving Israeli concerns. So Brooks is not completely wrong - there's at least one person in American politics who, when he says "neo-conservative" (or, as Buchanan puts it, "friends of Perle" - because you know we all know each other) means "Jew."
Second, would somebody please explain to me why it is controversial to say that a united Europe is a diplomatic, if not a strategic, threat to the United States? In what way is this not patently obvious? The Rhineland countries stood in the way of the US invasion of Iraq (don't forget: they didn’t just abstention - they actively expended diplomatic capital, and in some cases – most egregiously with Eastern Europe – political and economic blackmail, to try to thwart our initiatives) not because of any pacifism, but rather because they sought to counter us geo-politically. Now, the hegemony-good folks have always maintained that even a preponderance of US power would not trigger counter-balancing alliances because we could always use divide-and-conquer strategies to drive wedges between potential adversaries. It seems that Frum and Perle are simply recommending that we implement the strategies that our political science scholars have been developing for the last half-century.
Finally, and most importantly, the so-called neo-conservative agenda (which used to be called "enforcing human rights" back when there was a Democrat in office) is one that history will either judge us favorably for fighting for or terribly for abandoning. The post-9/11 world is only beginning to take shape. The coming years will witness waves upon waves of radical Islamofacism breaking against the walls of civilization. The coming battles will be defined by more than our ability to secure our borders or to prevent another major terrorist attack. The words that President Bush said in immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the clarity created by the horror of that event made them seem self-evident, still hold: "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."
UPDATE:Chris Matthews interviewed Frum and Perle on Hardball tonight (do you see how timely we are here at dejafoo?) I'm getting this off of lexis, so I can't provide a link, but if you have a way to track it down, I highly recommend you do so. Some highlights:
MATHEWS: Don't we need a carrot out there, as well as a stick for the Arab world?
MATTHEWS: What it that carrot?
PERLE: Well, the carrot is, we won't use the stick.
And to remind you what's at stake in the next election:
Let me ask you about the role of advisers. There was an amazing statement made the other day -- in fact, I'm not sure I buy it at all -- by Governor Dean. He said, when somebody said, you're too far left, you don't have any foreign policy experience, he said, that's OK, because we Democrats all have the same pool of advisers. So no matter who wins, he's basically saying Richard Perle -- not Richard Perle -- Richard Holbrooke is going to be secretary of state. ...
PERLE: No, I think it's -- actually, there are real choices involved. And this president turned to people who were closer to Ronald Reagan, in many ways, than to his father.
MATTHEWS: Is there a real policy difference between Bush I, Bush II, Bush 41, Bush 43? Jimmy Baker, Brent Scowcroft, the former president himself, were they more cautious in foreign policy than President Bush, advised by folks like you?
FRUM: President Bush had to deal -- this President Bush had to deal with an unprecedented disaster. And it was a disaster that was incubated by bad decisions made over a number of years, some of them going back into the administration of his father.
It’s gotta feel good for Frum and Perle to be able to get their shots in at the Bush I/Baker crowd, too.
