Neocon dreams

Robert Novak’s column, in yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times, might have been on the order of a bomb shell. On the first reading, it’s straight-forward enough, but, on a few moments of reflection and after going back for a second read, there are a few explosive nuggets in there. Robert Novak is well-connected and doesn’t make idle speculation. He knows things. And, so, to begin—he said:

Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.

This prospective policy is based on Iraq’s national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement. Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein’s quest for weapons of mass destruction.

So much for the neoconservative dream, he seems to be saying. Iraq was a failed experiment and only the most blockheaded would fail to recognize it. And it’s interesting that Novak finally spits out the unvarnished neocon dream that was Iraq: building democracy in the Arab world. Unfortunately for them, the neocons in charge screwed it up. Badly. But they can always hang on to the thought that they did it to preserve the world from Saddam’s quest for weapons of mass destruction. Since there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. Wasn’t that why, we were told, we went to war against Iraq? Remember all those stockpiled weapons that could be deployed within 45 minutes (we had proof, by God!) that William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kagan, Norman Podhoretz, et al pedalled to all the Sunday talk shows in the run-up to war? Turns out WMD were only a quest. A dream similar to the neocon’s dream—one without a lot of ‘can do’ backing it up. A lot of people have been butchered in the name of dreams. But it’s over. Pulling out of Iraq is the last nail in the neocon dream’s coffin.

Novak goes on to say:

Well-placed sources in the administration are confident Bush’s decision will be to get out. They believe that is the recommendation of his national security team and would be the recommendation of second-term officials. An informed guess might have Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz as defense secretary and Stephen Hadley as national security adviser. According to my sources, all would opt for a withdrawal.

Getting out now would not end expensive U.S. reconstruction of Iraq, and certainly would not stop the fighting. Without U.S. troops, the civil war cited as the worst-case outcome by the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate would be a reality. It would then take a resolute president to stand aside while Iraqis battle it out.

Now there’s a mouthful. Bush really, really is planning to get out of Iraq (while keeping options and funding open for Halliburton). And to help him implement the plan we will have Condi as Secretary of State; neocon Wolfie in charge of all the guns, missiles, and tanks; and neocon Stephen Hadley as national security advisor. The same ones who foisted this neocon dream on us in the first place. It’s the new paradigm in America: We reward failure.

But wait. Now that the world is safe from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction-related program activities, it’s okay to let Iraq go to hell in a handbasket, which it already is anyway. We failed at creating democracy, so now all we can do is stand aside and let the Civil War ensue. What a Resolute President it will take to stand aside while the already war-ravaged Iraqis clean up the mess that the neocons created and completely failed at. What a crock. Somebody in the White House clearly understands that the best way to put a positive spin on “no other option but to get out, stand by and wring our hands while Iraq battles it out, and hope to hell that when the dust settles it’s not a hostile Islamic fundamentalist state” is to call it Resolute. A pathetic characterization, if not criminal. Funny thing is, I agree with getting out of Iraq. It’s the getting in part that I disagreed with. In retrospect, not going to war still looks like the better of the two options. Novak says that the end product would be an imperfect Iraq. Something of an understatement.

This messy new Iraq is viewed by Bush officials as vastly preferable to Saddam’s police state, threatening its neighbors and the West. In private, some officials believe the mistake was not in toppling Saddam but in staying there for nation building after the dictator was deposed.

It’s safe to say that this nugget of truth didn’t come out of Wolfowitz’s mouth. Nation building in the Middle East is the neoconservative dream. And notice that Novak avoided saying that the messy Iraq is ‘safer’, instead choosing the words ‘vastly preferable’. The flypaper theory (we’re fighting the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here) is about to gurgle down the memory hole, for the time being. I wish, too, that Novak would clarify exactly which neighbors felt threatened by Saddam’s police state. All the ones who felt so threatened that they all marched into battle with us?

And then, as he often does, Novak throws in an unexpected and glittery nugget:

In the Aug. 29 New York Times Magazine, columnist David Brooks [ed note: Brooks is also a senior editor at the arch-neoconservative rag, The Weekly Standard] wrote an article (“How to Reinvent the GOP") that is regarded as a neo-con manifesto and not popular with other conservatives.

‘’We need to strengthen nation states,’’ Brooks wrote, calling for ‘’a multilateral nation-building apparatus.’’ To chastened Bush officials, that sounds like an invitation to repeat Iraq instead of making sure it never happens again.

And there we have it. The neocon dream is not dead. Neoconservative Brooks lays out his manifesto in his rose-colored glasses way. (Remember the Iraqis who were supposed to toss flowers in our path as we marched into Baghdad?) The neocon dream is alive and well. The Iraq experiment was a learning experience. Brooks lays out the ways and means for further nation-building, democracy-making adventures even up to and including how to provide the cannon fodder.

And guess what? With Condi, Wolfowitz, and Hadley in charge of State, DOD, and National Security, the neocons, who have failed so spectacularly in Iraq, and who, without remorse, lied us into the war in the first place, would be well-positioned to do it all over again.

Please let us not give them the opportunity.