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The Neocons

Introduction

Since 9-11, a small group of "neo-conservatives" in the Administration have effectively gutted – they would say reformed – traditional American foreign and security policy. Notable features of the new Bush doctrine include the pre-emptive use of unilateral force, and the undermining of the United Nations and the principle instruments and institutions of international law....all in the cause of fighting terrorism and promoting homeland security.

Some skeptics, noting the neo-cons' past academic and professional associations, writings and public utterances, have suggested that their underlying agenda is the alignment of U.S. foreign and security policies with those of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli right wing. The administration's new hard line on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict certainly suggests that, as perhaps does the destruction, with U.S. soldiers and funds, of the military capacity of Iraq, and the current belligerent neo-con campaign against the other two countries which constitute a remaining counterforce to Israeli military hegemony in the region – Iran and Syria.

Have the neo-conservatives – many of whom are senior officials in the Defense Department, National Security Council and Office of the Vice President – had dual agendas, while professing to work for the internal security of the United States against its terrorist enemies?

– Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration by Stephen Green, 28 February 2004.

The core group now in charge consists of neoconservative defense intellectuals. (They are called "neoconservatives" because many of them started off as anti-Stalinist leftists or liberals before moving to the far right.) Inside the government, the chief defense intellectuals include Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. He is the defense mastermind of the Bush administration; Donald Rumsfeld is an elderly figurehead who holds the position of defense secretary only because Wolfowitz himself is too controversial.

Others include Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff; John R. Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell in check; and Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy at the National Security Council.

On the outside are James Woolsey, the former CIA director, who has tried repeatedly to link both 9/11 and the anthrax letters in the U.S. to Saddam Hussein, and Richard Perle, who has just resigned his unpaid chairmanship of a defense department advisory body after a lobbying scandal. Most of these "experts" never served in the military. But their headquarters is now the civilian defense secretary's office, where these Republican political appointees are despised and distrusted by the largely Republican career soldiers.

– How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War by Michael Lind, 10 April 2003.

The so-called neo-cons, or neo-conservatives are a compact group, almost all of whose members are Jewish. They hold the key positions in the Bush administration, as well as in the think-tanks that play an important role in formulating American policy and the ed-op pages of the influential newspapers. […]

For many years, this was a marginal group that fostered a right-wing agenda in all fields. They fought against abortion, homosexuality, pornography and drugs. When Binyamin Netanyahu assumed power in Israel, they offered him advise on how to fight the ArabsThe immense influence of this largely Jewish group stems from its close alliance with the extreme right-wing Christian fundamentalists, who nowadays control Bush's Republican party. The founding fathers were Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority, who once got a jet plane as a present from Menachem Begin, and Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition and the Christian Broadcasting Network, which help to finance the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem of J.W. van der Hoeven, an outfit that supports the settlers and their right-wing allies.

Common to both groups is their adherence to the fanatical ideology of the extreme right in Israel. They see the Iraq war as a struggle between the Children of Light (America and Israel) and the Children of Darkness (the Arabs and Muslims).

– The Night After: The Easier the Victory, the Harder the Peace by Uri Avnery, 10 April 2003.

Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

The Project for the New American Century is arguably the most influential right-wing advocacy group since the Committee on the Present Danger in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Established in 1997 by two leading neocon figures, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC aims to put the United States back on a course toward "global leadership" and to promote a "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." […]

More than an advocacy outfit, PNAC serves as a revolving door for administration officials, congressional aids, up-and-coming neoconservative wonks, and corporate players from such esteemed institutions as Lockheed Martin. […]

Signatories to its statement of principles included future Bush administration officials Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paula Dobriansky, I. Lewis Libby, Peter Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Paul Wolfowitz. Other signatories included Gary Bauer, William Bennett, Jeb Bush, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Norman Podhoretz, Steve Forbes, Eliot Cohen, Fred Ikle, and Dan Quayle.

– Project for the New American Century from Right Web.

Organizations

The following organizations are part of the Neocon network. The links are to entries in the Right Web database.

• American Enterprise Institute (AEI): “Since the Bush administration took over in 2001, more than two dozen AEI alums have served either in a policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions--like the Defense Policy Board, which until early 2003 was chaired by AEI all-star Richard Perle.”
• Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINA): “The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs describes itself as "the most influential group on the issue of U.S.-Israel military relations."”
• Project for the New American Century (PNAC) “is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.” [PNAC website]
• U.S. Committee on NATO: “Among USCN's first board members were Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Stephen Hadley. Hadley, who serves in the Bush administration as deputy national security adviser to Condoleezza Rice, was a partner in the Shea & Gardner law firm, whose clients included Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
  Until 2002 Bruce Jackson was planning and strategy vice president at Lockheed Martin, where he served as the advance man for global corporate development projects. One prominent neocon described Bruce Jackson as "the nexus between the defense industry and the neoconservatives. He translates us to them, and them to us."”
  
  See also North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)/Expansion into Eastern Europe.