Neocons Are Down But Might Not Be Out

March 9, 2007

---

(CBS) By CBSNews.com's David Miller

---

The political cost of the war in Iraq has already been high: President Bush's approval ratings have plummeted as opposition to the conflict has grown, and Republicans lost their majorities in the House and Senate when war-weary voters sent them home last November.

The war has also dealt a serious blow to an entire political philosophy: neoconservatism.

Born out of former Democrats disaffected by their party's embrace of the anti-war left in the 1960s, neoconservatism for decades operated as one of many intellectual cliques in American politics. Placing relatively little emphasis on domestic policy, it counted hawkish Democrats and Republicans among its followers.

But not until President Bush took office in 2001 did neoconservatives see their philosophy become the guiding force of U.S. foreign policy.

The tenets of neoconservatism — using pre-emptive military force, spreading democracy, rebuffing international organizations and acting unilaterally — were hallmarks of the run-up to the Iraq war.

Once seen as bold action in the face of terrorism, it has, in the eyes of many, become associated with hubris, arrogance and foolhardiness. Even the word "neocon" has taken on the connotations of a slur.

The neoconservatives who once helped guide policy at the Pentagon have since gone on to other things. Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz now heads the World Bank. Douglas Feith, who led the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, teaches at Georgetown University. Richard Perle, former chair of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, now focuses on think tanks and writing.

Even those who are still working in politics have taken on a different tone. Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for Sen. Joe Lieberman and a prominent neoconservative who has a reputation among reporters for being a human sound-bite machine, merely wrote, "I will have to take a pass" in an e-mail when asked for comment.

Other "neocons" — Wolfowitz, Feith, Bill Kristol and David Tell of the Weekly Standard magazine, a favorite of hawkish wonks — declined comment or did not return calls or e-mail.

Perle did talk to CBSNews.com, but said he rejects the entire idea that the war in Iraq, much less American foreign policy, was guided by neoconservatism — or any other overriding philosophy.

"These are not questions of philosophy; they're questions of how you deal with specific situations at the time," he said. "A great deal is attributed to neoconservatives or neoconservative thinking that I don't recognize. It became a label used by opponents of bringing down Saddam Hussein's regime."

"Neoconservative" is now is a label no one is embracing. But it is unclear if this political philosophy is on its way to the dustbin of history, or whether it could have surprising staying power, even if the faces associated with it are long gone from the upper echelons of government.

Some have already delivered a death sentence. "I don't see neoconservative ideas playing out very strongly," said David Brady, a political science professor at Stanford University. "They're in disrepute."

But Jonathan Clarke, a scholar at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank who co-authored "America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order," believes American foreign policy will continue to be based on some neoconservative ideas, even if they aren't labeled as such. "Military strength as an instrument of American foreign policy is very embedded," he said. "It's not if you should use military force, but where."

However, there are some signs that neoconservatism, if not dead, is on the wane.

North Korea's nuclear ambitions were dealt with through multilateral diplomacy. The White House also recently announced that Syria and Iran would be included in talks among Iraq's neighbors over bringing stability to the Middle East. All of these moves represent a shift from a previous foreign policy known for such terms as "with us or against us" and "axis of evil."

An increased reliance on diplomacy reflects practical realities and the post-Iraq political environment, said Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who once supported the Iraq invasion but has since changed his mind.

"I think you're clearly seeing, in public opinion, much more skepticism among most Americans about America trying to remake societies in our image," he said. "America's ability to resort to military force is going to be severely restrained in years to come. … You can thump your chest as much as you want, but the only opportunity America has is the opportunity to eat crow and do things diplomatically."

The rhetoric of the 2008 presidential hopefuls may offer a further glimpse at neoconservatism's future. Leading Democrats have put criticism of the Iraq war at the center of their campaigns, yet they also refuse to rule out the use of pre-emptive military force against Iran. Republicans are quick to attack the Bush administration's execution of the war, but none say the actual invasion was a mistake.

While candidates will still employ tough talk on terrorism, they are unlikely to articulate a foreign policy that seeks to change the world — especially Republicans seeking to distance themselves from President Bush, Brady said

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani — who, perhaps more than any other candidate, comes closest to holding neoconservative views on foreign policy — would be better off, Brady said, advocating a greater role for diplomacy and international cooperation.

"You could back off on that and just say, 'Look, what we're doing here is not giving up those policies, but we're going to be more multilateral,' " he said. "There's got to be an easing off of that notion and the notion of democracy as the driver of all of this."

However, Brady is not advising Giuliani or any other candidate, and he said many neoconservatives are still active as advisers and consultants, particularly in the Republican Party, which could give the philosophy some staying power. "Most of the stars in the Republican array are still neoconservative," he said.

That situation does not apply to the Democrats, even though their party and neoconservatism have not always been mutually exclusive — the late Democratic Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson is a hero within the movement. But Democratic success in the 2006 elections and the anti-war leanings of the party's primary voters will force candidates to adopt a less aggressive stance, Beinart said.

"I think you're going to find that in the Democratic Party, even the talk is not going to be as tough as it once was," said Beinart, who predicted a similar leftward shift for the general election. "It's going to be more about diplomacy, more about improving America's image. I think it's going to be a more dovish debate."

Whether the foreign policy debate in the election will predict the behavior of the next president is impossible to predict — in the 2000 campaign, Bush spoke of a "humble" foreign policy and rejected nation-building. Perle said whoever succeeds Bush, regardless of party, will likely be driven by circumstances, not abstractions.

"Will people make independent judgments about the Iranian situation, or will they take the view that because things went bad in Iraq, we will never again use military power? I'd be surprised if we stopped judging specific situation in terms of the merits of those situations," he said. "By and large, we tend to elect presidents who are at the center of American thinking. They tend to be pretty centrist and pragmatic."