Useful Clever People
Baron YoungSmith remarks on the fact that the very same neoconservatives who argued themselves hoarse that the election of Barack Obama would lead to imminent dhimmitude at the hands of a Sino-Islamo-Fascisto-Cuban alliance are now seeming remarkably supportive of an Obama policy agenda whose content—take troops out of Iraq and put a smaller number of troops into Afghanistan while not acting like a jerk on the world stage—is exactly the same as the one they hated during the campaign.
It’s important to understand that this isn’t a softening of neocon madness, it’s exactly what they did in the 1990s. After spending the George H.W. Bush administration in their customary role as the “totally insane” faction of conservative movement foreign policy thinking (key episodes being the insistence that Bush should have marched on Baghdad and commenced an occupation of Iraq, and the 1992 defense planning guidance draft) they spent the 1990s being the less partisan faction of the movement with regard to Clinton’s foreign policy. Basically any president sometimes orders military action somewhere, and whenever Clinton did so neocons would applaud and call politely for even more forceful action while criticizing those Republicans who asked questions. By making themselves useful to Clinton and his supporters, while maintaining an appropriate level of critical distance, the neocons were able to elevate their status within the conservative coalition and emerge as a more influential faction in the W. Bush administration than they’d been in the H.W. Bush or Reagan administration.
Going back to these tactics is integral to neocon plans to regain power. And I think it’s working. When PNAC 2.0 was launched, John Nagl head of CNAS spoke at the debut event, and Fred Kagan is speaking at CAP today. Neocons are out of power, but they’re not being banished to the fringes of the discussion, key progressives groups have made them the preferred interlocutors on high-profile issues. In the domestic political context, in other words, neocons very clearly appreciate the tactical and strategic utility of sometimes being nice, of accommodating the interests of others, and of strategic restraint. If only they could figure out a way to apply these lessons to foreign policy.
26 Responses to “Useful Clever People”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
This post seems a bit conspiratorial for my tastes. People like Kristol are certainly motivated by a partisan desire to regain the White House, but not every self-described neo-con is a partisan hack. They simply sincerely believe that using military force to impose American hegemonic control is in the country’s long-term interests. They’re dead wrong, but that doesn’t mean they also have to be accused of hackery.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:18 am
I’d agree with Braden. It doesn’t seem tactical to me so much as clearly ideological. You wrote: “Basically any president sometimes orders military action somewhere, and whenever Clinton did so neocons would applaud and call politely for even more forceful action while criticizing those Republicans who asked questions.” That seems like the beginning and the end of it, to me.
They just like war! So they’ll talk up war wherever and whenever they can, and look for venues with which to do so. Why the rest of us go along with this arrangement is the problem.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
By making themselves useful to Clinton and his supporters, while maintaining an appropriate level of critical distance, the neocons were able to elevate their status within the conservative coalition
How does being useful to Clinton elevate one’s status in the conservative coalition? Yikes
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Trotsyite, I calls it. I don’t know about Kagan’s background, but Podhoretz and Kristol are addicted to this kind of deviousness.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:35 am
In the domestic political context, in other words, neocons very clearly appreciate the tactical and strategic utility of sometimes being nice, of accommodating the interests of others, and of strategic restraint. If only they could figure out a way to apply these lessons to foreign policy.
Classic.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Kyle, by keeping their names out there in the washington establishment as ’sensible’ conservatives. That takes a lot less actual effort for Republicans than it does Democrats, who have to turn their backs everybody in the party but the big-money boys to achieve a similar position.
Senators are part of a community in washington. Not being particularly strong people, and often being very weak people in constant need of adulation to feel good about themselve, Senators are very susceptible to socialization techniques. You might know it as ‘Peer-pressure’. Those influences don’t really end with childhood like many of us pretend.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
I also think the recent Obama-friendliness of the neocons is less a matter of tactics and more a matter of genuine affinity with Obama, both personal and ideological. For one thing, neocons like moderate University of Chicago law professors who went to Columbia and Harvard a lot more than they like the plebian yahoos, Christianist kooks and backwoods Palinites who rule the conservative squawk-boxes these days. Though slightly more to the right on economics than Obama, neocons are much more comfortable with centrist, neoliberal economic policies than they are with the economically illiterate stew of populist foolishness and uber-laissez faire, no-government extremism that the wingnuttery is so taken by these days, and that brings tears to the eyes of a contemptible bulvon like Glenn Beck.
And neoconservative are not that conservative. Yes, they are hawks. But there are hawkish liberals too, and the neocons come from Scoop Jackson camp of the Democratic Party. Their economic policies pointed rightward and Chicago-ward from the welfare-statism of the 60’s and 70’s. But they are not as totally off the wall as the ruinous idiocy that is peddled by Boehner and company these days. Beyond that, they get their kicks from hating on Muslims, loving on Israel, and grooving on war drums. Those personality tendencies are not particularly “left” or “right” by historic standards.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Braden, neoconservatism is not driven by ideas. But Arvon, Leon Trotsky did not invent opportunism.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The Right is a strange and toxic brew these days.
I mean, imagine Glen Beck and Richard Pearle sitting down for a spot of tea. Pearle would gnaw his fingers to the bone, thinking, “Beck’s insane.” Beck would gnaw his fingers to the bone because, well, Beck’s insane.
Sanity aside, they are equally sinister fellows, who for the most part, manage to keep their sinister message tight.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Speaking of “dhimmitude”, did you see the deep bow from the President of the United States to the King of Saudi Arabia? That is dhimmitude. Holding hands (Bush) was enough to make me gag but at least it is a sign of friendship. Bowing is a sign of subservience.
Q: How many churches, temples and synagouges are there in Saudi Arabai?
A: Zero.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Holding hands? More like frenching, which aptly describes not only the embrace depicted, but the Bush-Saudi relationship writ large.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
What neoconservatives are primarily interested in is heading off any possible diminution of support for Israeli right-wing politics on the part of the U.S. government. Lieberman, therefore, has become their new hope, not Obama. But they need to be around to “mediate” Washington’s reaction to Israel’s imminent bombing of Iranian production facilities, which they cannot do if they are purely in an oppositional stance. By building cause with the progressive foreign policy community (which itself allows itself to be seduced by all this talk about building “civic society” and other such pablum, thus rendering it susceptible to neocon foreign policy paradigm), they hope to be able to take advantage of Israel’s action as a fait accompli and use it to ram through further support for interventions of various kinds. Any talk of “democracy-building” as a mode of organizing foreign policy, however, remains pure whitewash for protecting Israel’s freedom of action.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Gasp! Just like Nancy Pelosi’s head scarf!
Still at is with this crap? Awesome.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Why exactly does CAP have an all-hawk Afghanistan panel being put up exactly?
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Ben, I call it Trotskyite because back in the days when the Neocons were lefty social progressives there was a strong Trotsky influence that made itself felt around the old Partisan Review crowd, which included both Kristol’s and Podhoretz’s fathers. Trotskite tactics included infiltrating labor unions or political groups in order to either take them over or fracture them. I’ve sensed an affinity for this kind of politics ever since the Neocons came on the scene. Indeed the very existence of the neocons as a ‘conservative’ outfit exemplifies this. They aren’t really conservative, but pretend to it in order to have influence in that quarter.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I think whenever we see the neocons coming, hit them with a massive barrage of their own Iraq quotes. There has to be a point where massive, unprecedented incompetence in your supposed are of expertise is a disqualifier from being taken seriously going forward.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Sorry, Matt, despite your attempt to be witty, the original phrase works better.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
So, you are saying the neocons aren’t really motivated by Republican ideology or partisanship.
What, then, are the neocons motivated by?
Maybe Stephen Hawking could drop whatever he’s doing an research this extraordinary, seemingly insoluble mystery. It would certainly take a brain of his caliber to figure it out.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
“Kyle, by keeping their names out there in the washington establishment as ’sensible’ conservatives.”
And since when does the conservative coalition care about being considered sensible?
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
What, then, are the neocons motivated by?
I think the claim is that they’re motivated by a host of things, including an interest in power and job security. They have been the connective tissue between the Southern conservatives and the Northern establishment. A David Brooks loathed by the NYT readership is not a David Brooks of much use to the Republican party, and is therefore a David Brooks with less influence and less income. So as the establishment rejects the Southern conservatives, it’s important that Brooks be familiar and friendly to those people and, as necessary less friendly to the Republican base. Seems right to me.
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
And neoconservative are not that conservative.
That might be true, but they’re perfectly comfortable staking out and defending a host of very conservative positions. Wasn’t there recently a host of posts linking neocons in the 90s to gay panic as a means of appeal to the Republican base after the USSR fell? I think Yglesias is saying they’re comfortable with what they need to be comfortable with to advance themselves and their primary goals.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Yes, Tim, but what are their primary goals and why are they their primary goals?
What motivates the neocons is truly, deeply a profound mystery that will continue to baffle human understanding.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
The Mandarins of neoconism suffered mightily from hippie disrespect in days of yore. How could young people no longer sit in awe at the feet of Barzun and Trilling? Lese majeste. Barbarians at the gate. The precious game was up.
Far more important, the neocons are simply the intellectual wing of AIPAC. Research any of them and you find the Likud. Feith’s family, for example, represented the Uzi machine gun company. Generally speaking, neocons have little investment or interest in the larger conservative agenda. They appear to subscribe to it merely to be more marketable in Republicak circles.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I think the point that is totally missed is that despite all the campaign rhetoric for “change,” Obama is essentially exerting the exact same post-Cold War policy as Clinton and Bush II, which the neoconservatives supported. What most shocked me about liberals was their utter inability to recognize George W. Bush’s policies as the absolutely logical continuation of a foreign policy instituted under Clinton. If the liberals’ wish had come true, and Gore ascended to the presidency in 2000, he would have had Joe Lieberman as his Vice President and would also have been the much more hawkish president on Iraq than Bush, Jr. It is of course convenient for Matt and his liberal internationalist ilk to blame all of the foreign policy blunders of the past eight years on a cabal of neoconservative nitwits without having to atone in the least for the complete complicity in such a foreign policy.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is more than I expected when I stumpled upon a link on Digg telling that the info is awesome. Thanks.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is more than I expected when I found a link on SU telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks.