Daniel Larison, who’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite bloggers despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that he’s an old-school type of conservative, has a remarkably thought-provoking post on how neoconservatism may look dead -but may be bound for a comeback.
Money quote:
Even so, you can guarantee that the alarmists who warned of new […]

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It should hardly be surprising that the conserative punditocracy is swooning at the prospect of reviving the Cold War.
The Cold War arguably made conservatism what it is today - or at least, what it was in 2000.
While the historical narrative is far more complicated, the broad public narrative is that Ronald Reagan - and thus […]

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Sullivan, continuing to argue with Max Boot, makes a very good point:
But let me remind Boot that there was no mention before the war that we were there to secure oil supplies as he now argues.
In fact, that very idea was regarded as a left-wing smear. Nor were we told that we would invade and […]

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Fascinating exchange between Sullivan and Max Boot in regards to the question of “what now” in Iraq, with Boot comparing Iraq to Germany (as all neocons do) and saying something amazing:
The broader point is that the success of American military interventions has usually been closely related to their length. The longer we stay, the more […]

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As noted in the bit yesterday about the winger radio host who - like so many wingers - shouts “appeasement! appeasement” without having any idea what “appeasement” actually means - let alone the historical context - I’m amused by this piece today, about how Teh Leader dusted off some 69-year-old comments by a long-dead Idaho […]

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It all gets so confusing. The right took us to war in Iraq because Saddam had WMDs. But then he didn’t. Yet now, via Josh Marshall, we see that the real reason we went to war in Iraq was because Saddam might have had WMDs, maybe, at some point:
Unfortunately — and here Feith is critical […]

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Spencer Ackerman on why neoconservatism is constitutionally incapable of actually vanquishing al-Qaida:
And as long as we’re talking COIN, let’s tie this all together. Barnett has this line about Obama fighting al-Qaeda but not al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is something John McCain mentioned in his speech yesterday. But look at who AQI is. According to this […]

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Glenn Greenwald calls out the neoconservative armchair would-be saviors of civilization so you don’t have to:
They are society’s freedom fighters, the Progeny of Churchill, Patton and Napoleon, bravely and tenaciously manning the barricades of Civilization itself. They’ll find a powerful and protective Warrior who leads them; advocate all sorts of fascinating technologies and complex spying […]

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Reading Krauthammer’s “Time to partition Iraq” column, Matt Yglesias boils down the essence of modern neoconservatism:
And such is the war in Iraq as seen through neocon lenses. Mistakes are always in the past. The current policy is always working. When the mistakes are being made, those who point out the mistakes are tarred as near-treasonous. Then, […]

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The print version last week, of course, was a recycled version of something first appearing in this space, a depressed/depressing assessment of the undeniable fact that no matter what happens in Iraq, whether the “surge” is actually working or not, we are going to keep on surging, we are going to stay the course, regardless.
Oh, […]

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I just had the displeasure of reading a Charles Krauthammer column in which he excoriates Barack Obama for recent foreign-policy gaffes, including this:
During the April 26 South Carolina candidates’ debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaida strike on two […]

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Juan Cole on the Pentagon official who dissed Hillary:
Who was she criticized by? Just one of the last Neoconservatives who hasn’t yet been forced out of office because he abused the public trust or who hasn’t yet slid into a criminality fostered by sublime arrogance.

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Sullivan’s getting them and posting them. My favorite so far:
Q.  How many neocons does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A.  Neocons don’t bother with light bulbs. They declare a War on Darkness and set the house on fire.
Update: Another good one:
Q: How many neocons does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. […]

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TNR’s Johann Hari cruises with the National Review crowd and watches the neocons dis their elders:
“Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. “No,” Podhoretz replies. “As […]

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Andrew Sullivan has a post today addressing one of the central paradoxes of neoconservatism, or what’s left of it: If, as a large number of those who continue to support the war in Iraq now believe, Arabs are “completely immune to democratic life,” what in the world are we doing there?
By neoconservative logic, the U.S. […]

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