Has the GOP come to grips with their party's embrace of nation-building?

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Clash of Ideas

The Iraq war was a test of the neocon vision of America. How a civil war there could shape the future of the GOP—and the nation.

By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:20 p.m. ET April 5, 2006

April 5, 2006 - There are presently two sectarian wars under way that will decide America's future: one in Iraq, and one inside the Republican Party. The issues are intimately related. If Iraq erupts into full-blown civil war or breaks up, the war within the GOP will be effectively settled. The last ounce of credibility will be drained from George W. Bush's great revolution over the use of American power. The neoconservative program that Bush adopted will instantly become an odd historical footnote, going the way of the Know-Nothings and the Mugwumps. Bush will find himself lumped in the rankings with Warren Harding, or worse. America will go through another post-Vietnam-like period of drift, overhanging debt and self-doubt. And the GOP, having exorcised the alien neocon demon that possessed it, will pretty much revert to its origins, adopting a Jeffersonian caution about world affairs that will hand the reins back to the realists (who, in truth—with the possible exception of Henry Kissinger—were never pure hard-power realists anyway; they were always the "Wilsonian realists" that pundits like Francis Fukuyama now argue they should become again).

Commentators in and around Washington are debating these issues today as if their words really mean something. Fukuyama, the "End of History" sage who is the most brilliant intellectual provocateur of our time, has inflamed the internal GOP debate by arguing, in a new book called "America at the Crossroads," that neoconservatism is already dead and buried. Joined by other conservative heavyweights such as George F. Will and William F. Buckley, Fukuyama has triggered a barrage of return fire from his former neocon allies, like Charles Krauthammer, who see only another traitor in their midst, as well as from Bush administration spokesmen like Peter Wehner, who argues that "now would be precisely the wrong time to lose our nerve and turn our back on the freedom agenda." What was simmering below the surface a year ago has erupted into hand-to-hand—or brow-to-brow—combat within the GOP. It is a vicious sectarian war between Republican traditionalists and Bush transformationalists.

What are they arguing about? Essentially everything that is novel about Bush's foreign policy: pre-emption and regime change, and the fiscal costs of this program. The Bush administration's new idea was that, in a post-9/11 world, this was no time for old-fashioned conservatism. It was a time to be bold. And America had power to spare to be bold, or so they thought. And, lo, the neoconservatives were ready with a thought-out strategy: a robust marriage of power and principle that fused America's precision-guided ability to change regimes with an evangelical belief that the only right regime was democracy. If this neocon program often seemed disconnected from the task at hand—like finding and killing the sole perpetrators of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his handful of confederates—that was because it long predated 9/11. Much of it emerged from a 1992 Pentagon policy paper, sponsored by Dick Cheney and produced by neocon Paul Wolfowitz's office, that made the case for American hegemony. That paper was deep-sixed by the "realist" Brent Scowcroft, George H.W. Bush's national-security adviser, and then ignored by Bill Clinton for eight years.

Frustrated for so long at putting their grand plans in play, in 2001 these hegemony-minded hard-liners saw Iraq as the decisive test case for their strategic vision (bin Laden was viewed as too insignificant) and for America's ability to finally cast off its Vietnam-bitten caution about the use of its military power. And after 9/11 they believed America no longer had a choice. Overcoming "the Vietnam syndrome" once and for all was necessary to winning the war on terror, which was focused on a region where strong leaders—men like bin Laden and Saddam—were said to possess an almost mythical status and where an image of weakness invited attack. Bush, who had no other particular ideas about how the world worked (no surprise after a lifetime of shunning book knowledge and ignoring his father's dinner-table conversation), embraced the program like a true believer. The neoconservative vision—it was neo-Reaganism, really—provided a liturgy and a purpose to the president's Christian evangelical sense of destiny, and imbued his Texas tough-guy persona with a historic mission.

So, in a sense, the war in Iraq was inevitable . . . continued

[kenny blankenship]

1. If Iraq is an example of Reptilican nation building

I'd sure hate to see their version of nation destroying.

[bigtree]

2. yet

there sit their juntas in Iraq and Afghanistan

[Faygo Kid]

3. It isn't about a coherent philosophy. It's about Bush and power.

I don't think Bush and the neocons give a damn anymore about the legitimacy of their "philosophy." They care about consolidating their power under the Bush banner. That's what their media allies like Fox and increasingly so-called "mainstream media" outlets are in place for. Meantime, we will see more "Adventures in Diebold." If this was ever a war of ideas, it certainly no longer is now. This is way too convoluted for the likes of Bush. Any "philosophy" is a cover for unfettered power. To call the fraud Fukuyama "the most brilliant intellectual provocateur of our time" tells me all I need to know about the author of this junk.

It's about who is buttering their bread. They are. . .

[bigtree]

4. aside from the Fukuyama love

it's a look at the divisions from a right of center perspective.

The entire Bush administration is the refuge of a banished ruling class - enriched by the selling of the influence of their positions in government - who had nursed their broken ambitions in exile, and had instinctively constructed their sympathetic webs of wealth to obstruct the remedies of the reformers and hatch the next generation of world capitalists who would inherit the patronage of the next conservative presidency.

I think what we see now is like what you get when you pile lies on top of other lies to cover up other lies. In the process of achieving the power, and in their clinging defense of it, ideolgies shift to suit, rationales bend, opportunities emerge as the opposition wanes . . .

There is a division in the GOP though. Bush has pushed moderates away, conservatives can never get enough destruction and conquest as long as they don't have to pay to clean it up. I suspect they don't want much to do with the U.N. and Iran either. They'd rather just nuke 'em and be done with it.

I think it's our sustained opposition that's forced Bush to at least mouth moderation and stress democracy. Reality on the ground has him boxed in between arguments to stay and defend their junta, or leave the Iraqis to themselves and declare victory.

The Iraq elections must be a nightmare for the right - elevating figures like Sadr, galavanting around the region on his jihad junket recently. The failure to get bin-Laden is an embarassment for hawks who want to stand atop the rubble of 9-11. The new 'security' offices have added to 'big government' and undercut their campaigns against it.

Bush is their enabler, yet, there's plenty of evidence that his supporters have come to regret getting what they asked for. Despite the warnings about the consequences of invasion and occupation of sovereign nations, this Bush regime pushed foward anyway. That's Bush's role. Not especially brilliant, but consistent with the rest of his privleged life. Gifted with enterprise after enterprise, Bush has run every one into the ground, piling on scapegoats and diversions to cover his destructive failure, scrambling his base.

But, that's the destructive reality of their agenda which has blossomed from the seeds they planted. Now they've planted themselves in place to watch their designs fester. Resources, time, politics, and outright resistance has mucked up their imperious dreams. The entire premise of their meddling is false.

Now for the scapegoating.