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We Are All Neo-Cons Now
“If Obama is pursuing policies similar to those taken by George W. Bush, why do we not see any giant protests against him from the Left, of the kind regularly seen during the Bush years?”
by Ron Radosh – PAJAMAS MEDIA
Recently, some of our most able pundits have been arguing that neoconservatism is dead.
As usual, The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart leads the pack. He could not have stated his case more clearly than here: “the ideology that 9/11 made famous — neoconservatism — has died.” Beinart is certain of this. His evidence? Al-Qaeda is finished; not only Osama bin Laden is dead, but now his second in command, Abd al-Rahman, has been killed by the U.S. No longer is jihadism a major threat, “a threat on par with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union,” he argues. It is “sliding into irrelevance,” leaving the U.S. with quite a different challenge — that of China’s authoritarian capitalism. What killed al-Qaeda, he says, is “exactly the narrow targeted policies that neoconservatives derided.”
Obama has gained his ends through intelligence and drone strikes, Beinart argues, and any resulting democracy in the Middle East comes not from the United States, but from the local rebellion of young Muslims. He also argues that Republican candidates are not attacking the president along neoconservative lines; instead, they largely avoid the issue, since they “have little appetite for the neconservative agenda of continued war in the Middle East.”
He implies that we should get out of Afghanistan, because it is not worth the cost of American lives, and because we can’t afford it. Right or wrong, the money is not there, something he says neoconservatives never paid attention to. America, he says — sounding like a conservative — must pay attention to limits, and we must hold in our grandiose ambitions.
Is Beinart right? First, let us point to a factor he pays little attention to: that despite a confused and ambivalent doctrine in foreign policy, President Obama is pursuing much of the same “neo-con” policies advocated by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in their administration. No one has made a stronger case for this than Walter Russell Mead. Obama’s defenders, he writes,
must also squirm; in general, President Obama succeeds where he adopts or modifies the policies of the Bush administration. Where (as on Israel) he has tried to deviate, his troubles begin.
He writes the following:
The most irritating argument anyone could make in American politics is that President Obama, precisely because he seems so liberal, so vacillating, so nice, is a more effective neoconservative than President Bush. As is often the case, the argument is so irritating partly because it is so true.
President Obama is pushing a democracy agenda in the Middle East that is as aggressive as President Bush’s; he adopts regime change by violence if necessary as a core component of his regional approach and, to put it mildly, he is not afraid to bomb.
And finally, the heart of Mead’s case:
In many ways we are living through George W. Bush’s third term in the Middle East, and neither President Obama’s friends nor his enemies want to admit it. President Obama, in his own way and with his own twists, continues to follow the core Bush policy of nudging and sometimes pushing nasty regimes out of power, aligning the US with the wave of popular discontent in the region even as that popular sentiment continues to dislike, suspect and reject many aspects of American power and society. And that policy continues to achieve ambivalent successes: replacing old and crustily anti-American regimes, rooted deeply in the culture of terror and violence within and beyond their borders, with weaker, more open and — on some issues at least — more accommodating ones.
In Libya, as we have seen, a humanitarian effort became, in reality, a use of force to promote regime change. True, he moved too slowly, and casualties may have been avoided had he promoted his real aim from the start. And in Syria, he began by proclaiming Assad a “reformer,” only to finally, in the past few weeks, call for the Syrian dictator to step down. Yet, as Mead concludes, “half way through President Obama’s tenure in office, we can see that regime change and democracy promotion remain the basis of American strategy in the Middle East — and that force is not excluded when it comes to achieving American aims.” So Mead writes — somewhat I think with tongue in cheek — “the Bush-Obama agenda marches on.”
Writing in the Washington Post Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz present more arguments similar to those invoked by Mead. As they put it:
President Obama used American power to liberate a Muslim people. Like George W. Bush, Obama came into office with a narrower, “humbler” conception of America’s interests abroad. In his first visit to the region, he confused the majesty of Islam with the dignity of Muslim potentates. Sept. 11, 2001, transformed Bush. We must wait to see whether the Great Arab Revolt has permanently changed Obama.
The final answer is not yet in, but these authors argue that the reasons for supporting the Syrian opponents of Assad are as great as those used by Obama for wanting to save the people of Benghazi, whom Qadaffi had threatened. Aligned with Iran, and headquarters for Hezbollah, Syria is a greater threat to the U.S. and the region than was Libya. Forcing the end of the Assad regime may be easier. Rather than use military resources, it can be done with tougher sanctions, along with arm twisting of European allies. And, they point out, the U.S. can now give funds to the united Syrian opposition, which includes striking auto workers. It can also provide communications hardware, including wi-fi equipment.
The authors conclude:
Barack Obama is the son of an African Muslim and an American woman who dedicated her life to the Third World. He is tailor-made to lead the United States in expanding democracy to the most unstable, autocratic and religiously militant region of the globe. The president obviously hasn’t seen himself as that kind of “friend of Islam.” But the Great Arab Revolt is transforming the way Arab Muslims see themselves. It may do the same for Barack Obama.
This means, as Michael Ledeen points out on his PJMedia blog today, the Syrian regime is the main danger to our interests, along with Iran, and as he writes, “if it’s right to intervene in Libya to stop the carnage, is there not even more reason to stop the greater carnage in Syria and Iran?” And the means to help them is the same taken by the Reagan administration, of which Ledeen was a part, when it gave overt aid to the anti-Communists Solidarity members in Poland. It does not have to be via bombing or troops, but through the kind of support and aid that Ledeen has long advocated.
Finally, I offer some thoughts on an obvious problem. If Obama is pursuing policies similar to those taken by George W. Bush, why do we not see any giant protests against him from the Left, of the kind regularly seen during the Bush years? Where are Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, the anti-war marches on Washington, the condemnation of Obama for killing civilians in drone attacks, for keeping Guantanamo open, for using rendition, and for giving up on civilian trials of terrorists and proceeding with military tribunals?
All of these were brought up day in and day out against the Bush administration, and now we have nothing but silence. Does the Left really think that all they screamed about is now good, because this time it is being carried out by an African-American president whom they supported?
Of course, the Left was always wrong when it condemned Bush and Cheney. While the president may himself reevaluate his position and move from where he started out, as Gerecht and Dubowitz hope he will, the organized left wing will not. I think that their quiet is motivated only by one thing alone — to attack President Obama is to, in essence, attack their own cadres, whom they pushed to do the hard work in 2008 to get Obama elected. To reevaluate openly is to harm their own credibility, so they prefer to remain silent and hope that no one will notice.
At least we know one thing now. At our present historical moment, contrary to Beinart, Jacob Heilbrunn of The National Interest, and others, we are now all neocons.
Ronald Radosh is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute, and a Prof. Emeritus of History at the City University of New York. He is the author or co-author of 14 books.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=137218
Posted by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat on Sep 3 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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The Establishment “Left” and the Establishment “Right” ( both controlled by the same cabal ) have gotten everything wrong incl 9-11…Gen Stubblebein sd that “the media is being told what to say about 9-11..” The fact that it was engineered by Mossad and the assets that they’ve been cultivating in this country for decades at DOD,CIA,FAA, on the ground in NYC…control of media, etc is off limits..for now..Reading the articles that you cited reminded me why I cancelled my subscr to the Charlotte Obserever..which recently ran Max Boot on their op-ed page!
I doubt that any change will ever be made in the US as long as the situation in Washington with regard to the stranglehold over the US President, the US Congress and every influential institution in America by the Israel Lobbys, AIPAC and the Zionist owned mainstream media do not change.
I quote Gordon Duff from his opinion piece at : http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/08/29/911-video-of-missile-hitting-pentagon-leaked/:
“…What can we assume from this? Is, in fact, the President of the United States no longer Commander in Chief? Did our government hand itself over to “shadow” rule with Bush or did it happen earlier, after President Reagan’s dementia made him unable to manage the cabal that surrounded him? How long have we been operating under no Constitution at all?”
Excerpts from Earlaiman’s opinion piece, an 85 year old American veteran, titled: A Veteran’s Assessment of Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America, Commander in Chief of the Armed forces, As He Voices His Intent To Run Again In 2012.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/07/a-veteran%e2%80%99s-assessment-of-barack-hussein-obama-president-of-the-united-states-of-america-commander-in-chief-of-the-armed-forces-as-he-voices-his-intent-to-run-again-in-2012/
“… But, were I to give up hope completely and abandon Obama for the parrot and puppet I suspect he is, I would sob and cry in hopelessness at the idea of the alternative, John McCain and Polly, or Real Estate swindler Trump and some feather-brained Dolly, from the streets of Atlantic City….
“This is the view point of Obama as seen by almost every veteran I know. These are the things which he and his people do not want us veterans to discuss with currently serving men and women.
“This is what Gordon Duff’ , and his website is all about.
“And, I would be astonished to discover that Barack Obama really did not know which side of the bread his butter was on until those suits sat him down in the office and briefed him like they did Jesse Ventura. Jesse was an actor and a wrestler for most of his adult life and may have been naive when he went into politics for all of the right, but losing, reasons, which you can read about here.
“I find myself marveling at myself, and my romantic naiveté, still holding out hopes that Barack Obama might yet be the man I once thought he might have been. I have called others damned fools for less!”
Debbie,
We all look for information. Why do the Zionists hate him but 78% of American Jews vote for him?
Recently, the government under Obama filed suit against 16 major banks for illegal acts that crashed the mortgage markets.
Little was reported of this.
However, this small story shows more honesty and courage than the last dozen republican presidents combined. Obama took on the banks, named them as criminally culpable in wiping out the economy, efforts the republicans tried to blame on “acorn” and poor black people, and has put in place an effort to hold the worst of Wall Street criminally culpable for billions stolen.
These things, not seen by the ignorant, are what make a president.
Failures?
This is a huge win for the American people and none know of it.
g
Why is “this big win for American people” not reported on VT’s Front pages Gordon?
Why are we being bombarded daily on the Veterans Today’s front pages by NATO’s war on Libya instead ?
Gordon, I tire of repeating myself but here goes again…
There is a Federal crime in the US called “treason,” which is defined as “giving aid and support to the enemy.” All it requires is that the enemy be defined and identified.
In this past 3 years there are more people taking names, along with dates and places, and their ass-kicking day in court will come sooner rather than later.
This is America, where they can be depended upon to do the right thing, after having tried all else and failed!
You speak in circles. Almost all Jews support Israel and that means, contrary to your “logic”, almost all Jews are Zionists.
The American Jew supports Obama because they believe he has Israel’s best interests in mind. The people you refer to as Zionists, do not.
Why don’t you just man up and admit you don’t like Jews?
the war mongers,military industrial complex,arms profiteers,etc. work strongly on behalf of continuing wars for profit and advantage.obama would like to withdraw the troops from the war torn areas,but hes up against very powerful interests that have long been involved in creating wars for profit.obama talks abount removing troops and war mongers like mccain and powerful generals etc.raise a hue and cry about national defense and our vulnerability to terrorism.most of these mongers of war are strictly on the rightwing and obama does something good for libya and they scream not enough,or threaten impeachment. the war criminals are republican congressmen and senators who consistently clamor for more bloody wars to suit their vested interest,not obama.
Please do not put Cindy Sheehan in the same category as Michael Moore. She has protested Obama’s foreign policy and the continuation of the ‘war on terror’. She is not getting msm coverage anymore.
No group protesting these wars are getting covered. We have a demonstration every Sat. morning in my city and its never covered. There have been thousands arrested outside white House over the sand tar pit in Canada and that horrific carbon pollluting oil that will come through Canada. You guys dont get it. There were 250,000 people demonstrating last summer in DC, against these wars, against Wall street and noone covered it. They did cover a small tiny meeting of teabaggers in fact some people there said there were more reporters covering the baggers than covered the huge demonstrations in DC at the same time on the same day. Corporate media is so in bedded with corporate america, they dont cover the stories for prime time. Look at Wisconsin for weeks there were hundreds of thousands and other than MSNBC covering it, we wouldnt even know about it. We must have a massive demonstration in DC and have a million people there, so they cant ignore us. But who will organize it? We have been calling for this demonstration for over a year. Most people think they will just be arrested like the thousand arrested in the last few days. They ignore our massive petitions, our phone calls and emails. They dont give a damn about what we want…they only pay attention to the money holders…both parties are corporate owned, along with the media and the government is zionized so what are we to do.
Debbie: You getting bombarded every day re: Libya and Nato because we believe Gordon is wrong on this issue. This has been a zionist campaign along with DC neo cons and zionists for a long time. The slaughter of black africans in Libya by the “rebel forces” speaks volumes to the fact that this people were migrant labor working in Libya and got caught up in the civil war with no escape. Now the “rebels are killing them like flies”. This is and was a civil war…but its too easy for Israel, US/UK, France and Italy to steal Libyas oil which is why Nato is there bombing the country to stoneages. We dont agree with Gordon on this, we believe the US , Israel and those Nato nations planned the whole damn thing. There are documents found on the floor of Gaddaffis minister which proves the CIA was in there delivering all the help the rebels needed to overthrow him. Well, it aint over yet, and the people of Libya fear both sides as their country is turned to rubble. They even destroyed the man made river/lake project delivering water all over Libya. You guys better listen to Minister Farrahkan on this issue…he has a whole different take.
Wait a minute. Some of those rebel forces were black Africans. It’s a wonderful to think that only migrant labor got caught up in the fighting, but it’s not true. Africa has become a continent of corruption and poverty. That’s why you have pirates in the waters off Somalia and rich presidents while the people still live in poverty. It’s why medication is stolen and sold on the black market. Let’s not forget that just because of the color it doesn’t mean some people aren’t there for different reasons. I would like to hear what Farrahkan has to say though.