The neoconservative project is crashing. The "unipolar moment," the post-Cold War unilateralist utopia imagined by neocon pundit Charles Krauthammer; "hegemony," the ultimate goal projected by the September 2000 manifesto of the Project for the New American Century; an "empire" over lands that "today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets," fantasized by neocon Max Boot in the Weekly Standard a month after Sept. 11, have instead produced unintended consequences of chaos and decline. Dick Cheney's and Donald Rumsfeld's presumption that successful war would instill fear leading to absolute obedience and the suppression of potential rivalries and serious threats -- the "dangerous nation" thesis of neocon theorist Robert Kagan -- has proved to be the greatest foreign policy miscalculation in U.S. history.
The quest for absolute power has not forged an "empire" but provoked ever-widening chaos. The neocons have been present at the creation, all right. But this "creation" is not another American century, in emulation of the post-World War II order fashioned by the so-called wise men, such as Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a consummate realist, who Condoleezza Rice continues to insist is her model. Squandering the immense influence of the U.S. in such a short period has required monumental effort. Now the fog of war clears. On the ruin of the neocons' new world order emerges the old world disorder on steroids.
Friday, November 09, 2007
On the Legacy of Neo-Conservatism
Sidney Blumenthal, writing for Salon Magazine, has published an astute analysis of the legacy of the current administration's neo-conservatism. Here's a quote:
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2 comments:
This arrogant swagger worked so well for the Brirtish in the 19th century, the Dutch before them, the Spanish before them. Of course each of those had a monoply on energy sources, financial resources, industrial capacity, or some such.
Who would have ever thought such an empire would ever break down--except of course, those who study history.
The fact that our oil reserves are well past their peak, that our financial process is well past its peak, and we have been outsourcing our technological and industrial capacity at a rapid pace--all of that might even have given one who is ignorant of history enough reason to doubt that the neo-con scheme would work as advertised.
But then it likely was never intended to work as advertized. It did produce enormous profits for those in the military-industrial-energy-financial complex in the short run.
Asinus,
Those neo-con off-shore bank accounts are certainly bulging.
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