Neoconservatism
From RationalWiki
Neoconservativism is a particular brand of conservatism. It is remarkably different from other brands of United States political philosophy. During the George W. Bush administration, more attention has been paid to this movement than in the past. However, it is very poorly understood by the average citizen.
Its adherents are often referred to as "neocons".
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[edit] Origins
Neoconservativism first manifested in the 1970s. It started among disaffected, mostly Jewish, liberals who were upset at mainstream liberalism's unwillingness to confront the Soviet Union. Also of importance to the early neoconservatisms was the decreasing levels of support for Israel. Together, they forged a vision of an interventionist US that acted muscularly abroad to support human rights, democracy, and free markets. (The last was seen as essential in protecting the first two.) Both their interventionism and their commitment to free trade made them remarkably different from the rest of the conservative tradition.
[edit] Reagan administration
Neocon ideas were given some weight during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In particular, Jeane Kirkpatrick was made ambassador to the UN, and often had the president's ear on foreign policy. However, they did not by any means have a lock on foreign policy. Moreover, as most neocons were still rather liberal regarding domestic policy, they were not given any role in that field. (Most neocons would go on to become more traditionally conservative in this field as well as time passed.)
[edit] Clinton administration
During the presidency of Bill Clinton, the neocons worked to develop a full plan for foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. Foremost in this plan was the idea that the US, as the world's sole hyperpower, should work to remold the world in its image. This meant spreading free markets and elections. Think tanks were founded, and grand manifestos were written.[1]
[edit] Bush II administration
When George W. Bush became president, he brought many well-known neocons (Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, among others), with him into foreign policy roles. The original plan had been to provoke confrontation with China, in an effort to either push China into reforming, or else to lessen China's influence in the rest of the world, thus increasing the power of the US.
However, after the 9/11 attacks on the US, they switched priorities to the Muslim world. Neocons are credited with focusing attention on Iraq, and coming up with the plan to use a democratic Iraq to help democratize the whole region. This plan was idealistic (probably even utopian), and pursued by President Bush.[2]
[edit] A Jew and a neocon walk in to a bar...
The fact that the original neocon movement was largely composed of Jewish people has led to some interesting rhetorical and argumentative problems. Some people have been willing to engage in rank anti-Semitism in arguing about neocons and their ambitions. (This has come in the form of calling them a part of the "Zionist conspiracy" or even rude things about noses.) On the other hand, some defenders of neocons have claimed that all criticism is actually just a masked way of criticizing Jews. Both reactions have made it extemely difficult to talk about neoconservatives in an intellectually honest way.
Oddly enough, the vast majority of American Jews do not think of themselves as neocons, and are in fact very liberal. No Republican presidential candidate has ever gained more than 40% of the Jewish-American vote since the 1940s (the high water mark was 1972 and only because of the fact that Nixon gave support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War). Nonetheless, this does not stop people like Bill Kristol from occasionally claiming that Jews are or should be conservatives.
Additionally, many of the most publicly recognizable neoconservatives are not Jewish, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush.
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The most famous of these is the Project for the New American Century
- ↑ It is sometimes said that some neocons, such as Ambassador Kirkpatrick, did not really support the President's plan, or the way he conducted the war. However, none of them bothered to speak up before the war.
