Neo-conservatism is something of a chimera in modern politics. For its opponents it is a distinct political movement that emphasizes the blending of military power with Wilsonian idealism (Mearsheimer 2005: 1), yet for its supporters it is more of a ‘persuasion’ that individuals of many types drift into and out of (Kristol 1995: ix). Regardless of which is more correct, it is now widely accepted that the neo-conservative impulse has been visible in modern American foreign policy and that it has left a distinct impact.

Neo-conservatism became a distinct ideology, or persuasion, in the aftermath of the cultural unrest and university riots in the late 1960’s America. A group of largely working class Jewish intellectuals based in New York (Fukuyama 2006: 15) most notably, Irving Kristol, interpreted the situation as modern liberalism attacking its own foundations and moral integrity in favour of mass social revisionism. In Kristol’s own words;

“Liberals were wrong, liberals are wrong, because they are liberals. What is wrong with liberalism is liberalism – a metaphysics and a mythology that is woefully blind to human and political reality” (Murray 2005: 45).

That reality was that mankind is naturally evil. Socialism had failed, so the solution was the pursuit of a non secular liberal democracy that addressed the crisis of relativism (Murray 2005: 46-47). To paraphrase Allan Bloom, American minds had become so open that they had become closed (Bloom 1987: 337-339). The early neo-conservatives sought to reorient domestic American politics by harnessing the moral foundations that religion provides, without necessarily being religious themselves (Kristol 1995: 365), and mould that together with Platonist ideology via the reading provided by Leo Strauss who is often cited as the ideological father of neo-conservatism, although within the persuasion his influence is often downplayed (Murray 2005: 37). In the true Platonic sense, the neo-conservatives had realised what was best for America and they felt it their duty to steer the misguided populace, and later the world, to their senses.

Having found an identity in the domestic American political sphere, foreign policy postulates followed. Irving Kristol describes three central pillars; a strong idea of patriotism, a round rejection of anything resembling or pointing towards a world government, and finally the view that statesmen should clearly distinguish friends from enemies (Kristol 2003: 2). These pillars are fused with a strong morality that compels America to use its power for the common good rather than reserve it.  This would become viscerally clear in the War on Terror, but it can be identified as far back as in the early Reagan and late Carter administrations (Fukuyama 2006: 45). In direct opposition to realist doctrine, the foreign policy of a country must represent its internal moral character. Maintaining alliances with dictators and unfavourable regimes is therefore abhorrent to neo-conservatism. American power “has been and could be used for moral purposes” (Fukuyama 2006: 48), Iraq is the stock example in this case and highlights clearly through the practice of regime change and democratisation (by force) how neo-conservatism applies to modern foreign policy. Neo-conservatism holds the domestic and international sphere to a clear moral and ideological standard and champions the use of militarism to further that standard globally. It does not ignore soft power issues, but rather, “when your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails” (Fukuyama 2006: 63). Quite simply, “the world is adrift, and for our safety it needs to be moored” (Murray 2005: 55). Neo-conservatives believe they alone have the moral and ideological foundations to successfully orient international relations to the benefit of all.

In the post Cold War era, neo-conservatism identifies closely with The End of History? thesis (Fukuyama 1989). This presupposes that liberal democracy will spread globally in the wake of the West emerging triumphant in the Cold War, rendering all opposing political orientations obsolete. The support for democratisation and the spread of liberal institutions into non Western areas seems fairly conventional when applied alongside Kantian cosmopolitanism and the democratic peace theory, however it gets its distinctive neo-conservative flavour when the use of interventionist military policies are used to effect that process.

The events of September 11^th provided an opportunity for those with a neo-conservative persuasion to gain prominence in the Bush administration. For much of the 1990’s, literature was proliferating in opposition to the New World Order of peace, offering the view that its peace was deceptive and America should use The Unipolar Moment (Krauthammer 1990) to create a unipolar era of unrivalled American power projected globally (Kagan 2002: 136-138). An organisation called ‘The Project for the New American Century’ drafted a document in September 2000 concluding that the best way to project American power is to increase military spending and “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars” (Donnelly 2000: IV). This already bears a general similarity to the 2002 National Security Strategy, which states; “the war… is a global enterprise of uncertain duration” (The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS) 2002: iii) and that “the only path to peace and security is the path of action” (NSS 2002: IV). What really binds the documents together, marrying neo-conservatism and the Bush foreign policy package, is the specific and exclusive naming of what would become the three ‘Axis of Evil’ nations as threats to American dominance. Additionally, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz and several other key members of what would become the original George W. Bush administration are signatories of the document and are of the neo-conservative persuasion. Taking the analysis of the rhetoric of the War on Terror further, President Bush states that America has chosen “leadership over isolationism” and endeavours to “shape the world, not merely be shaped by it” (NSS 2006: iii).

The backlash that developed in Iraq proved to be something of a watershed for neo-conservatism, and for the Bush administration. Ikenberry offers an extensive analysis as to why: Iraq was a geostrategic failure;  the ideology of the War on Terror is unsustainable politically and financially; American military might has been miscalculated; unipolarity is it not legitimate when weighed against multipolarity, nor is pre-emption; and the neo-conservative ideology is unstable, crude and ethnocentric (Ikenberry 2004: 8-19). Ikenberry derides the persuasion as fundamentalist stating conclusively, “their history is defective, their policies ineffective” (Ikenberry 2004: 20). This rejection is derived from a reading that places high credence in the two ‘grand bargains’ of the global system; the realist idea of security and stability, and the liberal institutionalism that tempers that realism. This duopoly makes American power safe for the world, and it is through the upsetting of this delicate balance that the neo-conservative persuasion of the Bush Presidency has not only highlighted the illegitimacy of that persuasion through its actions, but perhaps irreparably damaged faith in the entire system.

The realist critique of the neo-conservative persuasion in foreign policy is perhaps the most persuasive one. Mearsheimer offers a similar critique of the legitimacy of neo-conservative doctrine to Ikenberry, but contextualises his dissent.

“The dispute about whether to go to war in Iraq was between two competing theories of international politics: realism and the neo-conservatism that underpins the Bush doctrine” (Mearsheimer 2005: 1).

Rather than just state that neo-conservatism underpins the Bush doctrine, he goes on to state that both are essentially the same thing, a merger of idealism and power in foreign affairs … “Wilsonianism with teeth” (Mearsheimer 2005: 1). He accuses the Bush doctrine of presuming that the pre-emptive exercise of American power will produce a domino effect persuading other nations such as Iran to surrender to America’s will, when in fact timely honoured realist thinking has shown that the likely outcome would rather be a militarization of said nations to protect their sovereignty and attempt to balance American power (Mearsheimer 2005: 2). Chomsky agrees hailing this new norm in modern international law as “an ominous step in world affairs” (Chomsky 2004: 16). In this instance, the realist critique of neo-conservative foreign policy and Chomsky’s warning have so far proven incredibly accurate as Iran actively seeks to develop nuclear technology and adopts an increasingly belligerent posture towards America and Israel. Iraq is now a failed state and terrorism and violence in the region has escalated as an advertisement from the op-ed page of the New York Times on 26 September 2002 predicted in advance. This was signed by 33 scholars of international relations including Waltz and Mearsheimer. Developing the critique further, the Wilsonian core of the neo-conservative ideology, enshrined in democracy promotion as a foreign policy tool, is cited as an ambitious failure; “this was to be social engineering on a massive scale and it was to be done with a mailed fist” (Mearsheimer 2005: 3). The failure was in overlooking the important realist postulate that to citizens of any nation, nationalism and sovereignty are more powerful than democracy.

In order to understand the neo-conservative focus on the Middle East at the expense of other geo-political theatres, and to explain the receptiveness of George W. Bush to their persuasion, an examination of the controversial works of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington is necessary. Lewis, who is sympathetic to the neo-conservative persuasion, was hosted in the Whitehouse by Karl Rove in November 2001 on the subject of his thesis which states that as the current Middle Eastern status quo was created by ‘Imperial partition’ drawn over and through ancient civilisations, there is a legacy of instability in the region (Lewis 2004: 417). This unresolved clash of identities must be addressed as a priority as there are only two possible solutions to the ongoing instability of the region: either Islam or democracy (Lewis 2004: 423). Islam, with its own unique set of legal principles enshrined in Sharia Law is at odds with liberal democracy and, via Lewis’s reading, therefore mutually exclusive and incompatible. Conflict is therefore inevitable. The established contemporary American position towards the Middle East was primarily status quo oriented. Iraq’s advance into Kuwait was repelled, but no regime change was attempted resulting in the Gulf War doing no more than restoring the status quo. Clinton’s whole approach to Iran and Iraq was based on containment and sanctions, not regime change – again perpetuating the status quo. If Lewis’s controversial thesis was correct, these policies were enabling a ticking time bomb to threaten America.

Following on, Huntington borrows the words of Hedley Bull who stated that the west’s ‘apogee’ was 1900. Since then it has been declining in stature and influence slowly. Bull predicted that as Europe declined after the major World Wars, America will follow suit in the near future as part of a larger inevitable process of rebalancing internationally (Huntington 1997: 83). Huntington wants to categorically dismiss the validity of the neo-liberal End of History argument by re-emphasising the possible decline of the West in line with Bull’s prediction. In Huntington’s eyes a determined opposition by the other civilisation groupings, most notably Islam, in a fight for the survival of their (incompatible) way of life through a clash of civilisations is possible – as is the mirrored possibility of a preemptive fight by the ‘West’ to halt their own decline – thereby developing Lewis’s thesis of a future run by democracy, or Islam. It is not a wild leap to view the War on Terror as symptomatic of this as viewed from both sides of the fence. This a clear indicator of why the views expressed in the neo-conservative literature thus far analysed regarding the need for American dominance and unrivalled strength were seen as necessary, and seen as all the more urgent after 9/11. From this perspective, American policy towards the Middle East would have to change significantly, and it did.

Iran is the only logical candidate for a leader of such a theoretical ‘Islamic force’ to oppose the ‘West’. A nuclear armed Iran would make that threat more alarming – and in the post 9/11 era with the blurring of the lines between proliferation, state sponsored terrorism, and the rise in religious extremism – even more alarming for American policymakers. Of course this train of thought grossly underestimates the deep divisions in the Islamic world, prominently the Shi’a composition of Iran (as opposed to the vast majority of Muslims belonging to the Sunni denomination) and their predominantly Persian rather than Arab ethnicity. Regardless, Norman Podhoretz insists that American foreign policy must take military action to end Iran’s nuclear programme. This is necessary as September 11^th marked the beginning of World War IV (the Cold War being the third) and ‘Islamofascism’ is merely the most recent mutation of the totalitarian disease that has plagued the Twentieth Century (Podhoretz 2007: 17). America must destroy Iran to stop it creating an “Islamofascist” world order (Podhoretz 2007: 20). Extreme as it is, this sentiment was directly voiced by Bush II in 2005:

“The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/americas/4316698.stm).

That Islamic Empire, an Islamic Caliphate, dedicated to bringing Islamic law and teachings to the entire world, is the manifestation of the fears of Podhoretz. It precisely underlines the extremity of the neo-conservative world view, the reason for the focus on the Middle East, and the significant departure from traditional liberal and realist approaches.

For realists and most prominent members of the academy, as surveyed herein, the evidence points to miscalculation and failure of neo-conservative ideology when applied in reality. Even those within the persuasion who accept that the exercise of neo-conservative foreign policy has not heralded the intended results plead for continuation, to finish the job, so that the rest of the world can look back in posterity and see that they were right. The legitimacy of that point of view, as expressed most passionately by Podhoretz through his position on Iran, remains to be seen. It is impossible to predict the future; even realism could not do that in the case of the sudden ending of the Cold War. However, realism survived that failure and perhaps the idealism and morality of neo-conservatism will survive the setbacks in the War on Terror, and more importantly the failure amongst contemporary popular consensus. Whilst not wishing to roundly condemn neo-conservative postulates, taken at face value, with all the evidence collected and weighed as those postulates were applied in the Bush doctrine, it certainly seems a very hard case to answer for. The Iraq quagmire was forewarned by the 33 scholars, yet it was pursued. The failure of the democratisation domino effect was predicted by Chomsky and many others, yet as Afghanistan and Iraq became failed states and the Middle East polarised with anti-Americanism, the Bush administration dogmatically refused to alter their strategy. The core tenet of distinguishing friends from enemies and the ‘with us or against us’ rhetoric that followed from it has stretched the alliance with the European Union and, as Ikenberry pointed out, damaged the delicate grand bargain of American power tempered with multilateral legitimacy. It is a fair conclusion to state that neo-conservatism did not accurately perceive American military power, the power of democracy, or anticipate the failure of the world’s population to accept their ideological persuasion.

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Stephen McGlinchey is currently a PhD candidate at Cardiff University. His research interests focus around American foreign policy, particularly with regards to Iran and the Middle East

This piece is composited from research done at the Cardiff University International Relations Masters Program in 2007/08.