According to Bob Woodward's most recent book State of Denial, Dick Cheney confided to him (Woodward) in the summer of 2005: “I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and I guess at least once a month, Scooter [Libby] and I sit down with him.” [Page 406.] Woodward goes on to state: “The president also met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making the former secretary the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.” Now why could this be? Isn't realpolitik contrary to the ideology driven neocon foreign policy? Aren't the neocons war-crazy madmen intent on pursuing their exclusive ideology? I would argue that they are not. Not only was Henry getting Dick and George's ear every couple weeks, it was Henry's boy Paul Bremer who went to Iraq in 2003 and served as the colonial overseer long enough to get the Iraqi constitution written so that it would facilitate every single one of the goals Washington had set for the invasion. Before his Baghdad assignment, Mr. Bremer was Managing Director of Kissinger Associates, Inc. for more than a decade.
Which brings me back to the point I really want to make. The neocon policy is not a neocon policy. It is the policy of Washington. It is not George Bush or Richard Perle. It is Washington and Wall Street. It is Boeing and Bank of America.
But, someone might say, Al Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Yet, Bill Clinton and Al Gore attacked Iraq several times, maintained an illegal flyover program on the country that bombed the country almost daily, and enforced sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. All of these policies along with others not mentioned created the situation George Bush and his administration found themselves in in March 2003.
The rise of the neocons is related to the historical situation the ruling class in the United States finds itself in. Economically weaker in terms of its debt and industrial output than at any time since WW II, Washington has been on a course of more frequent and greater use of military force to get its way in the world. Their hold on the controls of US power are being contested by other power elites but the other elites have been unable to maintain a successful challenge. Why? It is my opinion that this is because the other power elites in the US do not have a viable option to the aggressiveness of the neocons--at least not one that can achieve the goals all factions desire. In other words, the power elites that oppose the neocons methods still share their goals--the goals that the neocons have nicely titled the Project for a New American Century. The ongoing battle in Congress and between Congress and the White House over Iraq funding and withdrawal is the prominent battlefield in the struggle over how to achieve this era of hegemony.
While the crisis that the capitalist US finds itself in has certainly been exacerbated by the neocons hold on power, it would have come about sooner or later. Even if the neocons fail to get their man (or woman) into the White House in 2008, their strategy and approach will be ever present in whatever any neoliberal administration undertakes.
In a 2006 essay by Jacob Heilbrunn titled “Neocons in the Democratic Party,” it was written that a new generation of Democratic “pundits and young national security experts” are trying to revive the Cold War precepts of President Harry S. Truman and apply them to the war on terror. “The fledgling neocons of the "left" are based at places such as the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), whose president, Will Marshall, Their political champions include Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman and such likely presidential candidates as former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).”
So, the neocons may disappear from the White House, but they will not disappear. While we should certainly celebrate the fall of Wolfowitz, Feith and the rest of the neocons who don't currently rule, we should be forewarned that they will be back and so will their proteges throughout the establishment. Besides their actual personages, their goals for the US are no different than the goals of the rest of the the Washington establishment. Only their means differ at times. They will continue to have a lot of input at the Pentagon, where various powerful officers adhere to the philosophy of neoconservatism and they will continue to run the think tanks that so often offer their spokespeople to the media--a media that is all too willing to accommodate their opinions and proposals and report them as fact. Their continued presence at the university level and in the rising ranks of the Republican and Democratic parties will also insure their presence at the table of US policy. Furthermore, they have begun to expand their presence in U.S. government-funded and supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA), al-Hurra, and Radio Farda.
The neocons are a cancer that may be going into remission. However, their particular form of cancer will most likely be back should the circumstances require it. It is up to those opposed to US imperialism in all its cancerous forms to ensure that there is no recurrence.
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