Revolts shattering the foundation of Arabian world have undermined the theoretical grounds of American neoconservatism, which used to be a cornerstone of Bush-Cheney’s foreign-policy. Or should we rather say Cheney-Bush? Dogmatic compliance with that doctrine since 2000 till 2008 resembled the reverent attitude of Soviet leadership to the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
In 1979 Jeane Kirkpatrick published her famous essay called “Dictatorships & Double Standards” in Commentary, which editor-in-chief at the moment was Norman Podhoretz — one of the neo-con father-architects. This essay caught an eye of Ronald Reagan, who was impressed by the ideas of 53-year-old “Iron lady” and invited her to his elections staff and afterwards appointed her ambassador to the United Nations. Despite the common opinion, it was Kirkpatrick — not Margaret Thatcher — who was the first woman to be honored with such title. In this essay she denounced U.S. President Jimmy Carter and claimed that he had hustled the Shah of Iran and the leader of Nicaragua — who headed, putting it mildly, not the most democratic regimes ever — out of office. Both Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi and Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza were far from democratic ideals, yet both were pro-American. The results of their overthrow were disastrous. Friendly authoritarians were gone; true totalitarians were taking over in both places. While authoritarian regimes of the right could mellow over time into democracies, totalitarians ones of the left would not. Anyway, it required "decades, if not centuries," Kirkpatrick observed, for "people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits" to create a viable democracy.
In 1997 one more prominent neocon Robert Kagan published his “so long and farewell” to Kirkpatrick in the same magazine — his article was called “Democracies & Double Standards”. Kagan was having none of her postulates. He trumpeted a new neoconservative doctrine: away with the cold, amoral realism of the Kirkpatrick school and in with a boisterous championing of what amounted to liberal interventionism, promoting democracy, the very "essence," as he put it, of American nationhood. Kagan bemoaned the fact, as he saw it, that both the right, out of despair at what it viewed as the cultural degeneration of America during the Clinton era, and the left, out of reflexive hostility to military intervention, had come to embrace the Kirkpatrick doctrine. He praised Bill Clinton's readiness to send the Marines to Haiti and condemned a "mood of despair" that had overcome many foreign-policy experts. In Kagan's view, America had to push Middle Eastern regimes to become more democratic, not settle for a cozy embrace with ruling elites. "We could and should be holding authoritarian regimes in the Middle East to higher standards of democracy, and encouraging democratic voices within those societies," he announced, "even it means risking some instability in some places."
Arabian revolutions that stirred up an entire Middle East have once again flared up that dusty academic dispute, which has seemingly become irrelevant long time ago. Already Egypt and Tunisia have seen their pro-American regimes toppled. Colonel Gaddafi — not entirely adequate politician, but the one who managed to reconcile with the West — is also down the wind. Yemen is at the verge of unrest. Hardly anyone would risk predicting the future of Jordan or Saudi Arabia in a situation like that. “Will the revolutionary regimes steer an anti-American and anti-Israel course?” That is the question that makes anxious not just a bunch of theorists but also the pragmatic guys from the U.S. State Department. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a neoconservative thinker who leans toward realism, wrote the following on the 4th of February:
"Yes, the Egyptian revolution is broad-based. But so were the French and the Russian and the Iranian revolutions. Indeed in Iran, the revolution only succeeded — the shah was long opposed by the mullahs — when the merchants, the housewives, the students and the secularists joined to bring him down. And who ended up in control? The most disciplined, ruthless and ideologically committed -- the radical Islamists. This is why our paramount moral and strategic interest in Egypt is real democracy in which power does not devolve to those who believe in one man, one vote, one time."
It’s not entirely clear, what is the concept of true democracy according to Mr. Krauthammer, if fair elections do not make its integral part. For good measure, he announced that having former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei in power would be a "disaster." Meanwhile, well-known patron of democracy Dick Cheney echoes him, declaring that Hosni Mubarak was "a good man."
Apparent split is maturing in the neocon camp: for fellow neocon travelers William Kristol, Elliott Abrams, and Paul Wolfowitz, by contrast, the Middle East tumult is cause for bliss and a new dawn, nothing less than the vindication of the Reagan (and George W. Bush) doctrines of spreading freedom whenever and wherever possible. Writing in the Weekly Standard in a Feb. 14 editorial titled "Stand for Freedom," Kristol thus denounced the conservative doomsayers who see an inevitable rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the region. The ouster of Mubarak is not a replay of Iran in 1979, Kristol concluded:
"The Egyptian people want to exercise their capacity for self-government. American conservatives, heirs to our own bold and far-sighted revolutionaries, should help them."
On the 23rd of February in the Washington Post, Kristol decried Obama for his "passivity." And in the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page has advocated bombing Libyan airfields, Wolfowitz declared:
"The U.S. should come down on the side of the Libyan people — and of our principles and values. The longer the current bloodshed continues, the worse the aftermath will be."
So is the neocon house about to crack up? Will the split between the movement's realist and idealist wings sunder its unity over what's best for Israel and America?
Probably not. Krauthammer is representative of an older neocon school that has largely been overridden by the democratizers. Indeed, the overwhelming sentiment among neocons has been that the events in Egypt are a good thing. Perhaps the most powerful case has been made by Abrams in the Washington Post, who tried to claim credit for George W. Bush. He drubbed President Barack Obama for being too slow to support the protesters.
“Far from being an exception to the democratic wave sweeping around the globe, Arabs are ready to embrace it” — Abrams believes.
"It turns out, as those demonstrators are telling us, that supporting freedom is the best policy of all" — he continues.
But is it, at least where Israel is concerned? Already Hamas leaders are anticipating that they can develop new ties in Egypt that will strengthen their hand. Mahmoud Zahar told the Los Angeles Times:
"Israel is the big loser in recent events ... This is a new era. They should fear."
Freedom and human rights were terms that the earlier generation of neocons viewed with considerable skepticism. Neocon godfather Irving Kristol, in a lengthy article in the National Interest in 1987 (which is reprinted in a new collection of his essays called The Neoconservative Persuasion), dismissed the very idea of human rights, arguing that the term simply disguised a hidden agenda of trying to establish a "moral equivalence" between America and the Soviet Union. Irving Kristol, Kirkpatrick, and others looked askance at the idea of trying to create democracies abroad. They wanted to maintain close relations with stable — or seemingly stable -- leaders abroad who were friendly to America, whether in Central America or the Philippines.
But Reagan crossed the divide when he assented to withdrawing American support from Ferdinand Marcos in March 1986. People power was on the march in Manila. Wolfowitz played a valuable part, as James Mann's excellent “Rise of the Vulcans” shows, in helping to prod the administration to detach itself from Marcos. Similarly, Abrams correctly pushed the administration to force Chile's dreadful Augusto Pinochet to a popular plebiscite. The fall of the Soviet empire a few years later seemed only to confirm the righteousness of America's missionary impulse. Ever since, that impulse has been on the rise among a younger generation of conservatives who view America's foreign policy as a prolonged crusade.
Kirkpatrick herself recognized that her view of the Soviet Union had been too static[1], but she moved toward espousing American self-restraint after the end of the Cold War, arguing that America could now become a "normal" country. The neocons are simply reviving an old debate about America's purpose. The balance between national interests and idealism has always been a vexed one. But statements such as Abrams's provide a reminder of how far neoconservatism has moved away from its realist origins and toward unabashed democracy promotion. Were Jeane Kirkpatrick alive to hear them, she might once more be aghast.
Barack Obama then is not burdened with the neoconservative theoretical legacy. Yet, making a decision on “humanitarian invasion” into Libya he has to listen to the disputes inside of the neocon camp, even in spite of the fact that sober pragmatism of Democrats has already replaced the dogmatic neoconservative messianism. At that, reasonable voice of Robert Gates — Republican Secretary of Defense — is heard in the Barack Obama’s democratic cabinet and he says that America is not ready for invasion into Libya. Logistics is unprepared; there are not enough helicopters and not enough money. Besides, the USA simply won’t bear the third war. Afghanistan and Iraq are heavy chains that bound not only Pentagon, but the State Department along with the Treasury as well. From the other hand, domestic political situation in America pushes Obama toward the occupation option. American voters may not forgive his indecision. David Cameron is already saddling his horses but he’s not strong enough to fight this battle alone. European Union also leans towards occupation. Denial to act decisively may cost Obama the second term. Perhaps, this argumentation would be determinant for the President.
[1] She is author of the famous phrase: “We play monopoly, while Russians are playing chess. The question is whether we have time to bankrupt them, before they mate us”.
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