The Neocons, Undaunted

They're looking to make a comeback after the elections

By Justin Raimondo

"You have to give the neoconservatives credit for tenacity. Any other political or ideological group saddled with their record would crawl off into the shadows to expire without fanfare. Not the neocons. Vampire-like, they rise from the crypt of Bush's "global democratic revolution," fangs extended and hungry for fresh blood. There isn't enough garlic in the world to deter them – I doubt that even a pointed stake in the heart would suffice. The War Party, it seems, is immortal – like evil itself.

Instead of changing their names and getting as far from the crime scene as possible, the neocons – or, at least, some of them – are not only lingering, they're openly proclaiming their intention to visit fresh disasters on us. The most explicit such statement comes from Joshua Muravchik, a former leader of the Young Peoples Socialist League who now inhabits the heady heights of that neocon Olympus over at the American Enterprise Institute. Muravchik, author of Exporting Democracy, a pre-9/11 polemic in which he outlined what was to become the Bushian policy of "global democratic revolution," is as pure a neocon as exists outside of Michael Ledeen's study. Undaunted by the massive failure of the democratist crusade, he writes in Foreign Policy magazine of "Operation Comeback," in the form of a memo to his partners in crime. The subject line is: "How to Save the Neocons." Which raises the question: save them from what – public obloquy? The penitentiary? A lynching?

Muravchik boasts "our ideas have influenced the policies of President Bush" and avers "that does feel good." I'll bet. As I have pointed out before, the most powerful man in the world is the world's biggest, most fanatical neocon, and that is the ultimate prize in Washington's power game, now isn't it?

Unlike Richard Perle, who now despises George W. Bush for supposedly abandoning the War Party, Muravchik argues that the neocons should stick by the president. Bush is, after all, a politician, and, by the way,

"The administration made its share of mistakes, and so did we. We were glib about how Iraqis would greet liberation. Did we fail to appreciate sufficiently the depth of Arab bitterness over colonial memories? Did we underestimate the human and societal damage wreaked by decades of totalitarian rule in Iraq? Could things have unfolded differently had our occupation force been large enough to provide security?"

The neocons, however, are not really interested in Iraq any longer: that, after all, was yesterday. But tomorrow belongs to them, as a very similar political movement once put it. Iraq is in ruins, the credibility of the U.S. as a force for good in the world is at an all-time low, and the body bags are coming home at an increasing pace – yet Muravchik, willfully blind to all this, is recommending that we:

"Prepare to Bomb Iran. Make no mistake, President Bush will need to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities before leaving office. It is all but inconceivable that Iran will accept any peaceful inducements to abandon its drive for the bomb. Its rulers are religio-ideological fanatics who will not trade what they believe is their birthright to great power status for a mess of pottage. Even if things in Iraq get better, a nuclear-armed Iran will negate any progress there. Nothing will embolden terrorists and jihadists more than a nuclear-armed Iran."

The Israelis are reportedly blackmailing us into a strike by declaring that they'll do it if we don't. And that's what this is all about. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are quite correct in noting that Israel's American lobby is in the forefront of the "let's bomb Iran" contingent, just as they were in the case of Iraq, and Muravchik's analysis perfectly reflects the Israeli perspective. His contention that Iran will "dominate" the Middle East leaves out one important fact: Israel already has nukes, at least 400. An Iranian nuke would end Israeli dominance and strike a balance of power in the region. By eliding this strategic reality – and the fact that Israel is somehow exempted from "the global nonproliferation regime" Muravchik supposedly seeks to uphold – Israel's amen corner in the U.S. hopes to scare us into war. "