Krauthammer and other neocons also are back to baiting Democratic
war critics for supposedly living in “a state of denial” and refusing
to acknowledge President George W. Bush’s wisdom in dispatching more
than 20,000 additional U.S. troops for a “surge” under Gen. David
Petraeus.
“Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus' new
counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained
emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq,
reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving,”
said Sen.
Joe Lieberman, a neoconservative Independent from Connecticut, in a
Nov. 8 speech.
After nearly five years of carnage – the deaths of almost 3,900
American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – the neocons
finally see vindication for themselves, at least within the Washington
news media where they maintain a powerful influence.
Though the neocon comeback may prove ephemeral if the Iraq War drags on
and the U.S. position continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the neocons still can claim to be in a stronger political
position vis a vis the election of the next president than they were in
2000 and 2004.
On the Republican side, the frontrunners in the presidential race are
even more hawkish about fighting “World War III” against Muslim
militants than Bush has been.
While Bush at least rhetorically calls for closing the Guantanamo Bay
prison,
former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said “we ought to double
Guantanamo” and use it as a place to hold Islamic militants while
denying them legal rights.
Not to be outflanked on the right, former New York Mayor
Rudolph
Giuliani has advocated “aggressive questioning” of terror suspects and
has refused to label as torture “waterboarding,” a simulated drowning
technique that dates back to the Inquisition.
The Hillary Question
On the Democratic side, frontrunner Hillary Clinton has tried to avoid
offending the neocons as much as possible. She followed their line on
Iraq from 2002 to 2006, before shifting into cautious opposition to
appease the anti-war fervor of rank-and-file Democrats.
Then, after building what appeared to be a safe lead in Democratic
polls, the New York senator tilted back in the neoconservative
direction, voting for a Lieberman-sponsored resolution that urged Bush
to take a harder line against Iran by labeling its Revolutionary Guard
a terrorist entity.
Though many grassroots Democrats suspect that Sen. Clinton is a “closet
neocon” or “Lieberman-lite,” some Inside-the-Beltway Democrats see her
more as a triangulator who simply wants to dilute the intensity of
neocon opposition to her candidacy.
Similarly, after winning the White House in 1992, President Bill
Clinton gave the job of CIA director to neocon James Woolsey. One
well-placed Democratic source told me the move was a patronage plum to
the editors of The New Republic, an influential neocon-leaning magazine
that lent support to Clinton.
If Hillary Clinton does win the Democratic nomination, the neocons
would almost surely side with the Republican nominee in the general
election, but the neocons might be less hostile toward her than they
were toward the two previous Democratic nominees.
In 2000, though Al Gore put Lieberman on the Democratic ticket, most
influential neocons resented Gore’s emphasis on multilateral solutions
to international problems, from global warming to the Middle East
conflict. They liked George W. Bush’s assertion of a muscular U.S.
unilateralism.
In 2004, the neocons viewed Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry with deep suspicion, despite his vote in favor of the Iraq War.
As for Election 2008, the neocons see potential political gain if they
can solidify the image of progress in Iraq and transform this emerging
Washington conventional wisdom into an opinion shared broadly by
American voters.
If the neocons can do that, the benefits could spill over into the
presidential race, helping Republicans who advocate aggressively
fighting “World War III,” while undermining the Democratic candidates
who have been the most critical of the Iraq War.
To that end, the neocons are back to portraying Iraq War critics as
“defeatists” who favor "surrender" and who are betraying “the troops.”
Public Doubts
Still, the neocon strategy faces major obstacles, particularly public
concern about the heavy toll that the Iraq War has taken on the U.S.
military and the U.S. Treasury.
While an open-ended occupation of Iraq and renewed belligerence toward
other unfriendly Muslim countries might be appealing to the neocons,
the notion of endless war at whatever the cost has lost much of its
allure to the American people.
As the U.S. dollar sinks, as domestic needs go unmet, as investors from
Abu Dhabi bail out Citigroup and as communist China gets a stranglehold
on U.S. debt, the neocon dream of an imperial America bestriding the
world as a military colossus looks less and less sustainable.
More and more Americans also are growing leery of other tradeoffs
implicit in the neocon plan for an imperial system – the acceptance of
an all-powerful Executive, the elimination of inalienable rights for
individuals, and the eradication of the Republic as envisioned by the
Founders.
Though given short shrift by the national U.S. news media, this
grassroots pro-Republic sentiment is reflected in the surprising
support for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas on the Republican side and the
growing doubts about Sen. Clinton on the Democratic side.
As the United States heads into Election Year 2008, the neocons may
need all their media clout for making their case and all their skills
at exploiting the fears of Americans to ensure that one of their
favored candidates again lands in the White House.
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