Sunday, July 11, 2010

Zombie NeoCon

As a result of the Iraq fiasco, the direct influence of neoconservatism has clearly waned. But nearly two years into the Obama era, it has become clear that its most lasting legacy is not a set of policies or strategies, but a reframing of debates about American foreign policy around a number of neoconservative assumptions. To a surprising degree, those assumptions – among them, that the current threats facing the US are unprecedented; that, in a time of war, military strategy must guide diplomacy, and not vice versa; and that even modest compromises with opponents would call America’s “credibility” into question – continue to dominate the agenda in Washington and the mass media. The last decade has shown, again and again, the failures of this line of thinking – and yet it continues to haunt American discourse, a zombie ideology that refuses to die.
- Justin Vogt, via Sullivan

1 comment:

MT said...

Let's try to remember that Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda terrorism, which Clinton and Clark already viewed as an unprecedented kind of threat--quite plausibly, it would appear--even before the word "neocon" began buzzing in connection with Iraq and Gitmo. Also the world has changed in ways besides terrorism since Clinton, if it's even fair to call him pre-neocon--the cold war no longer looks so over, for example, and economic prosperity doesn't look so formulaic or assured .