I have to assume that Paul Mirengoff has read PNAC's 1997 statement of principles, and so his assertion that neither Cheney nor Rumsfeld are neocons rings hollow, since both signed that document.
When he says that:
The argument that the strong-willed Cheney and Rumsfeld were brainwashed by neoconservatives in lower levels of the current administration is too implausible to entertain. Thus, one of two things must be true: Either they switched to the neoconservative approach in response to the events of 9/11 ("mugged by reality," as Krauthammer would have it) or the administration's approach is not distinctively neoconservative.
It is therefore simply not true. And he must be aware that it isn't. The PNAC are the arch-neocons, the very pinnacle of the breed - as is evidenced by their statement of principles. Mirengoff is too good to be ignorant of all this and so must be deliberatly misdirecting his readers (i.e. lying). Since his entire point is to play down the importance of neocon thinking in the foreign policy of the current administration one must needs think that his misdirection has the point of hiding the extent of that influence from, most probably, non-neocon conservatives.
Even so, Mirengoff's latest article in the Weekly Standard, which is edited by the Project for the New American Century's current Chair, Bill Kristol, is a reasonable erudite piece, albeit carefully crafted to downplay the neocon influence by conveniently forgetting some key events.
He looks at four major events to dissprove the neocons supposed stranglehold on foreign policy:
Let's test the latter proposition by considering the four major policies and decisions at the center of Bush's foreign policy response to 9/11: (1) Going to war in Afghanistan; (2) Going to war in Iraq; (3) Attempting to achieve democracy, rather than merely stability, in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq; and (4) Adopting strong and universalist pro-democratic rhetoric that identifies the spread of freedom as the central principle of our foreign policy.
The first decision--war in Afghanistan--was virtually unopposed when made, and even today receives little second-guessing. No one can seriously contend that neoconservative thinking was necessary to reach that decision.
Well no, neocon thinking wasn't needed to reach that decision. That simply proves that everyone agreed on the subject, not that the neocons were the ones with the decision-making power.
Next though, for number two:
perhaps Bush and his advisers didn't believe that Saddam had WMD in 2002, and lied about this matter in order to invade Iraq for neoconservative purposes...Bush knew that we would eventually occupy Iraq and that, if no such weapons were found, it could cost him reelection. Similar thinking applies to others within the administration. They would have realized that peddling a view with respect to WMD that they knew to be false would eventually end their influence, and probably their careers. The claim that the administration is the captive of neoconservatives would be much more persuasive if its proponents could point to evidence that President Bush (not this or that adviser) would have invaded Iraq even if he had thought Saddam possessed no WMD.
Well no again, I'm afraid. Bush knew nothing of the sort - his administration seems to have been confident of muddying the waters enough to have created a reasonable doubt. In a perfect Scooby-Doo moment it looks very like the administration expected to get away with it and would have, if it hadn't been for those pesky British intelligence leaks and the Downing Street documents. Those documents have a chance of ending careers and rightly so.
Number 3?
What of the decision to attempt to bring about a democratic Afghanistan and Iraq after toppling the Taliban and Saddam? In Iraq, for example, we could have tried to install a strongman in the hope of quickly ending the chaos and promoting stability. Instead, we have advanced a difficult democracy-based agenda consistent with neoconservative principles.
There goes that deliberate misleading again. I am certain someone as well-informed as Mirengoff is well aware that the current administration tried to twart democratic elections in Iraq until forced into them by the Shia majority there. Had they gotten their original wish, then the Bremner provisional authority would still be in control - something even more in keeping with neocon stated principles.
Finally, to number 4:
The final prong of President Bush's foreign policy is the use of powerful universalist pro-democratic rhetoric. But as Charles Krauthammer points out, while President Bush talks like a "democratic globalist" he makes policy like a "democratic realist," maintaining cozy relations with various autocracies including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and sometimes Russia (and taking criticism from liberals for doing so).
Bingo. This is utterly true and merely shows that Georgie and his administration speak out of both sides of their mouths at the same time. It doesn't exactly help the case Mirengoff is trying to make.
The article's primary impact, to my mind, is to show how Bush has been a weathervane for the various conflicting movements within the Republican party - happily mouthing rhetoric which will please each one in turn but trying to stride along the fence whenever taking sides would cost him support and votes. We have seen it before in the secretly taped comments on the Christian right. We have seen it in the reports of intercine feuds between oil company interests and neocons over Iraq. We have seen it in his refusal to accept neocon demands for an increase in the size of the military by at least 100,000 troops. We have seen it most recently in Georgie's careful choice of rhetoric over Supreme Court nominees. Bush's strength has always been that he can be, strives to be, all things to all conservatives. Few have yet realised that he succeeds mostly in being a supporter of none.
And yet, there are two important lessons for politics watchers in Mirengoff's article. Lessons you would think we had all learned by now.
The opposition are never as monolithic as their extreme detractors would like you to think they are - and professional politicians are more likely to be acting for what they think will get them votes than for a well-defined political ideology.
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