http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...utoftheshadows

By Doyle McManus Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.

For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush's reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.

But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" — a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.


"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking — and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."

On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" — an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy — agreed.

"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it … [and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy."

A senior Bush aide who met with reporters Friday to explain the meaning of the speech waved away a question about its endorsement of neoconservative ideas. "I've never understood what that neoconservative label means, anyway," he said, refusing to be identified by name because, he said: "We should be focusing on the president's words, not mine."


But the aide went on to repeat, with emphasis, some of Bush's words that put democratization of other countries at the center of his foreign policy. "It is a top priority for his second term," the aide said. "He's raised the emphasis. He's raised the profile…. He's made it clear that he's going to turn up the pressure a bit. He's going to try to accelerate the process."


The administration would begin unveiling specific steps to increase the pressure for democracy in undemocratic countries, the Bush aide said, but he refused to describe any at this point.


At her confirmation hearings this week, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) named six countries as "outposts of tyranny" that would get special attention from the second-term Bush administration: Cuba, Burma, North Korea (news - web sites), Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe.


On Friday, the senior official who briefed reporters said the administration also would be pressing friendly regimes to institute democratic reforms; he mentioned Russia, China, Pakistan and Egypt "as illustrations." Much of the pressure, he said, would be private rather than public, and the administration would be careful to avoid undermining a leader like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whom it counts as a democratic reformer.


Another senior official — a prominent neoconservative who also refused to be named — said Bush's theme reflected several "lessons learned" in the last 30 years. Chief among them, he said, was an argument that neoconservatives often made about the Soviet Union and, more recently, Iraq: that a central goal of the United States should be "systemic change" — changing hostile states' regimes, not merely their policies.


Still, he cautioned, "A policy promoting democracy also has to be a realistic policy…. We have to consider … what are the risks of overly rapid change? What's the downside?"


The definition of neoconservatism has been hotly debated in recent years as the neocon camp has grown in numbers and influence. One of the movement's fathers, Irving Kristol, once defined it — in contrast to traditional conservatism — as "forward-looking, not nostalgic … cheerful, not grim." In domestic affairs, he wrote, neocons tend to accept the need for a strong federal government, not a weak one.

In foreign policy, they believe in a broad definition of the national interest, not a narrow one; they are more willing than most traditional conservatives to commit American power, including military power, to such causes as democracy and human rights.

"Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces," Kristol wrote in 2003. "No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary."


Ronald Reagan, who committed the United States to help anti-communist "freedom fighters" in countries from Afghanistan to Nicaragua, often has been described as the most neoconservative president — until now. Nixon, who was equally anti-communist but who sought diplomatic agreements with communist powers like Russia and China, was the leading realist.

Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, fell squarely into Nixon's realist tradition; when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in 1990, he sought to slow down the process for the sake of stability, not speed it up. The elder Bush's top foreign policy advisor, Brent Scowcroft, occasionally has been acidly critical of the younger Bush's more adventurous policies; on Friday, Scowcroft refused to comment on Bush's inaugural speech. "He's in enough trouble already," an associate said.

The president has not always been as much of a neocon as his speech Thursday suggested. When he first ran for president in 2000, Rice, then his top foreign policy advisor, wrote an article promising that Bush would pursue a modest, limited foreign policy, and criticized the attempts at democratization and "nation-building" of the Democratic administration of President Clinton.

But after Sept. 11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, Bush was drawn progressively toward the neoconservative view that the only way to stop terrorism in the long run was to bring democracy, first to the Middle East, and in Thursday's speech, to the entire world.

As they drafted the speech this month, White House political aide Karl Rove and chief speechwriter Michael Gerson held a two-hour seminar with a panel of foreign policy scholars, including several leading neocons — newspaper columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University and Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford's Hoover Institution — according to a person who was present.

Another sign of the administration's bent: Several of the leading realists of the first term, notably Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his closest aides, have left. But leading neoconservatives, including Wolfowitz, are staying. And at least one, National Security Council aide Elliott Abrams, is said to be in line for a more prominent job at the State Department or NSC.

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<<Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.>>

I can only pray that the real conservatives rise up against this. Man, this is so frightening.

To me the NeoCons are the worst of both words: a huge federal government and extremely hawkish foreign policy.

I have a feeling "I told you so" won't cut it in four more years...

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

Neo-cons are what liberals would be if they were sincere about their own ideology.

After decades and decades of trying diplomacy.....trying to fix things in the Middle East.....trying everything from a hands-off policy to extreme diplomatic intervention........Bush is right in taking a different approach. He's 100% right-on in that "democray" in the Middle East is the ONLY thing that can bring about peace. Peace in that area.....and peace elsewhere. I'm not talking about the exact form of democray that we have necessarily. But I am talking about "freedom." Freedom and tolerance of others.

I don't see how anybody could argue against what he said about freedom and democracy. Human beings, by their very nature, WANT to be free. "Being free" means being able to practice one's religion without being persecuted....and it means being tolerant and respectful of others. Who wouldn't be FOR that?????? And who wouldn't believe it would work??????

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

Could you please enlighten me on how you arrived at the conclusion that he's "100% right-on"? Can you show any proof that his meddling has been any better than any other approach? Or give any examples of his successes at same? For that matter, who appointed us to "fix things in the Middle East" anyway?

As an American, I believe as you do that freedom and democracy are great. However, there are obviously a lot of people in the world who don't seem to agree. I'm all for helping anyone attain it who act like they want it, but I'm not for forcing it down people's throats at the point of a gun.

I don't understand the arrogance of people like you and the President, who think you have all the answers for everybody on the planet, while at the same time throwing out the words "being tolerant and respectful of others". Do you even think about what those words mean? How is forcing your idea of "freedom and democracy" on other peoples and cultures any different than forcing your religion on them?

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<<Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.>>

It's called....MY OPINION. And it's based on the fact that nothing else that's been tried has worked....and that it's human nature for people to want to be free. If they are free there....free to practice their own religions without fear someone will toss them in prison or kill them....and free to make livings as they wish and raise their families and send their kids to school.....why wouldn't that be better?

Then you agree with President Bush.....because that's exactly what he stated in his speech!!!!

Please read his Inaugural speech again. It says nothing about "forcing" democracy on anyone. In fact, it says that IF a people want and seek democracy, then we'll support them and help them when we can. Pay close attention to this part. Because it's exactly the opposite of what you are claiming he said. Too many Dems and liberals are trying to make it into something it most certainly was not!

"Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way."Pres. Bush...from his Inagural speech

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

I think we should make the neo-cons pay for these war from their own accounts and they should be on the front lines. Then we will see how hawkish they are.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

I guess that holds true the other way, huh? That means the Viet Nam war should have been paid for by liberals and only liberals and Democrats on the front lines.

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

I'm sorry, but are you on some sort of medication that impairs your cognitive capacity and memory? I root for the NY Knicks. I don't root for political parties. I consider Viet Nam a needless war. For all I could care, all of the members of the Kennedy and Johnson could have been stuck on the front lines. And Nixon could have been added in Cambodia.

You seem to believe that because I don't approve of the job Bush has done that I am a liberal who really liked Kerry. As I wrote on numerous occasions, I wanted Kerry to win because I knew that the republican controlled congress would keep him in line. I am NOT, and let me repeat NOT a liberal. I am a conservative Republican who doesn't like the far right/religious right doctrine that we are seeing right now.

I don't know how else I can make this clear to you. Most people live each day and learn by what they experience during that day. But for some reason, your mind seems to clear and revert to the wrong notions you held the day before (plus of course the opinions you download from Fox News every morning).

I don't root for a political party. Anyone who took a passing glance of my posts would realize that. I can't explain why you can't.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

Sure PJ. Everyone who doesn't root for a political party has this to say...
"I think we should make the neo-cons pay for these war from their own accounts and they should be on the front lines. Then we will see how hawkish they are." At least I admit it: I'm partisan, I'm a Republican, and I support President Bush. YOU say you are a Republican. So....tell me which Republican you support and why? What is your definition of "neocon?" And who do you consider a neocon and why?
Is the word "liberal" as negative to you as "neocon?" If not....why not? To most REAL Republicans "Liberal" is pretty much a dirty word. Let's see if it is to you.

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007