so, how's PNAC doing these days?

[theknife]

the Project For A New American Century is a well-documented game plan for US foreign policy administration that has been discussed here before. the plan, developed in the 90's and refined after 9/11, calls for the US to practice "benevolent global hegemony" based on "military supremacy and moral confidence".

from the Asia Times, an interesting article on how PNAC (and by direct extension, the Bush administration) is doing after four years of foreign policy failure:

Coalition down but not out
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - It was four years ago this week that a little-known group called the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) published an open letter to President George W Bush advising him on how precisely he should carry out his brand-new "war on terrorism".

In addition to ousting Afghanistan's Taliban, the letter's mostly neo-conservative signatories called for implementing regime change "by all necessary means" in Iraq, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the (September 11) attack". It also urged "appropriate measures of retaliation" against Iran and Syria if those countries refused to comply with US demands to cut off support to Hezbollah, which they considered part of the terror network.

The letter called for cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it immediately halted attacks against Israel and Israeli settlements, and for a "large increase in defense spending" in order to rein in the conflict that some of its signers, notably former CIA director James Woolsey, were soon describing as "World War IV".

Six months later, PNAC published a second letter - again little-noticed by the US mainstream media - calling for Washington to "accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power", "lend full support to Israel" whose "fight against terrorism is our fight", and greatly increase the defense budget to ensure that the impending war could be successfully carried out in all its aspects.

PNAC's prescription and subsequent events fostered the impression, particularly in Europe and the Arab world, that the group had successfully and - given the lack of media coverage - covertly "hijacked" US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.

These events included the administration's fulsome embrace of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, followed by the invasion of Iraq, not to mention the effective cut-off of communications with both Damascus and Tehran (albeit not precisely because of their ties to Hezbollah).

Indeed, when the historical record of what the Bush administration has actually done in the region is compared with PNAC's recommendations, the correspondence can only be described as stunning.

But they were hardly the result of some covert conspiracy.

In fact, the PNAC, whose staff consists of only about half a dozen people, had been issuing letters, statements and reports quite openly for several years before. It called in particular for regime change in Iraq as part of a larger foreign policy project inspired mainly by a policy paper drafted by hawks in the Pentagon under former President George H W Bush after the first Gulf War, and by a 1996 article by PNAC co-founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan in Foreign Affairs magazine that called for the US to practice "benevolent global hegemony" based on "military supremacy and moral confidence".

The ideas contained in those works attracted - indeed reflected - the thinking of what could best be called a coalition of hawks, including assertive nationalists, neo-conservatives and the Christian Right, which have worked together since the mid-1970s.

And it was that coalition that seized the initiative after September 11, 2001 within the administration. Guided by Kristol, who doubles as editor of The Weekly Standard, PNAC simply became the public voice of that coalition.

After all, among the signatories of its 1997 charter statement were Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their two top aides, I Lewis Libby and Paul Wolfowitz (who had authored the 1992 Pentagon paper), respectively, as well as several other top administration officials.

Thus, in its September 20, 2001 letter to Bush, the PNAC was not "recommending" anything that these men were not already pushing within the administration's highest councils, as Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward among others has since made clear. It was acting as a combination of transmission belt, echo chamber and cheerleader on the outside, as it has since.

So, four years later, how is the PNAC is doing? The short answer is not so well. Because it represents a coalition of different, although like-minded varieties of hawks, its own influence - or at least the perception of that influence - is highly dependent on the coalition's unity.

But that unity began to fray even as US troops were flowing into Iraq. Sensing that Rumsfeld, in particular, was not committed to using the kind of overwhelming force - and keeping it there - necessary for "transforming" Iraq (and the region), Kristol and Kagan, among other neo-conservatives, began attacking the defence secretary and have repeatedly called for his resignation.

Moreover, their tactical alliance with "liberal internationalists" - mostly Democrats - in appealing for the resources required for "nation-building" has, by many accounts, deeply offended Rumsfeld and other "assertive nationalists" in and outside the administration.

Some in turn have blamed neo-conservatives for deluding themselves and Bush into thinking that US troops would be greeted with "sweets and flowers" in Iraq. The exile of Wolfowitz to the World Bank and the resignation last summer of Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith should be seen in this light.

But the breakdown in the coalition's unity and coherence resulted at least as much from external factors, as well, beginning with the tenacity of the Iraq insurgency. In bogging down US land forces, it has put paid to the coalition's original dreams of the armed forces being prepared to intervene in any crisis - anytime, anywhere.

In addition, the unanticipated and enormous costs associated with the occupation in Iraq - to which might now be added the unanticipated and enormous costs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina - has also demonstrated, both to some right-wing but budget-conscious nationalists, as well as to the rest of the world, that the money for the kind of military PNAC has always lobbied for is simply not available.

Thus, significant hikes in the defence budget, or in the occupation force in Iraq, as called for by PNAC in its most recent letter this January, are simply beyond the political pale.

Indeed, the growing public perception that Iraq has become a "quagmire" has added to the burdens of the PNAC coalition, members of which now must spend an inordinate amount of time defending the original decision to invade. A group that is temperamentally best suited to offence has found itself over the past two years in an increasingly defensive crouch.

Another external event that has clearly divided the PNAC coalition, and even the neo-conservatives who have dominated it, was Sharon's determination to disengage from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

The September 20, 2001 letter and its April 3, 2002 follow-up on the Israel-Palestinian conflict both reflected the coalition's commitment to the closest-possible alliance between the US and a Likud-led Israel.

But just as the Likud Party in Israel has split over Sharon's disengagement, so PNAC hawks, particularly the neo-conservatives and the Christian Right, have split here. And because Israel holds such a central position in the worldview of both groups, internal disagreement on such a key issue is particularly debilitating.

But it would be a mistake to believe that because the PNAC and the coalition it represents are down, they must be out, particularly with respect to the other policy initiatives which they recommended four years ago.

Confrontation with Iran, particularly under the leadership of hard-line President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, is something that the coalition remains unified about, particularly with respect to the prospect of Tehran's acquisition of nuclear weapons.

While the PNAC has not explicitly addressed what to do about Iran, there is little question that the coalition - like the hawks within the administration - remains fundamentally united on its own hardline policy and, in any event, an absolute refusal to directly engage the new government.

What to do about Syria is more uncertain, although more hawkish sectors within the coalition clearly favor "regime change", possibly with the help of cross-border attacks in the name of preempting the infiltration of insurgents into Iraq, as has been called for by Kristol, among others.

While realists within the administration argue in favor of engaging Syrian President Bashar Assad, if only because the alternative could be so much worse, the hawks, particularly the neo-conservatives who often refer to Damascus as "low-lying fruit", appear determined to prevent any weakening of their policy of isolation and economic pressure on the assumption that the regime will soon collapse.

As in Iraq, however, the question of what will take its place has not yet been fully thought through.

these days, most people seem to like the old American century better.

[Mazer]

And this too shall pass...

[albed]

Cumming
on a blue dress
made me happy

Questions
in the courtroom
made me lie

Cum stains
on the blue dress
proved me guilty

Scumbags
in the congress
let me fly




Had John Denver in my head today. (Sunshine)

[theknife]

at some point in the future, when historians poke around in the aftermath of the slow-motion train wreck that is this Bush administration, PNAC's mission statement will come to be regarded as the Mein Kampf of it's time.

[floydian slip]

indeed

and most of the people living in the u.s., just like in 1930's-40's Germany can say "we had no idea this was happening"

[JackSpratts]

and like those ja-mer-mans of yore would be held in contempt by civilized people for eons. course not quite as strongly, perhaps, but cheer up rabid conservatives, the republicans are still running things. it ain't over yet. before they're hunted down like mangy dogs or chased from power by global invasion forces these hard-right sociopaths may just give the nazi's a run for thier zyklon b afterall - and while in hiding you can squeak "we helped them do it!" under your breath naturally. there's your legacy. what a gas, eh?

- js.

[albed]

You gotta pull yourself out of that fantasy world Jack; it ain't healthy. Just snap out of it. Come on; you can do it.

[floydian slip]

it must be tough to see wearing blinders

[theknife]

Neocon architect says: 'Pull it down'

NEOCONSERVATISM has failed the United States and needs to be replaced by a more realistic foreign policy agenda, according to one of its prime architects.

Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the best-selling book The End of History and was a member of the neoconservative project, now says that, both as a political symbol and a body of thought, it has "evolved into something I can no longer support". He says it should be discarded on to history's pile of discredited ideologies.

In an extract from his forthcoming book, America at the Crossroads, Mr Fukuyama declares that the doctrine "is now in shambles" and that its failure has demonstrated "the danger of good intentions carried to extremes".
In its narrowest form, neoconservatism advocates the use of military force, unilaterally if necessary, to replace autocratic regimes with democratic ones.

Mr Fukuyama once supported regime change in Iraq and was a signatory to a 1998 letter sent by the Project for a New American Century to the then president, Bill Clinton, urging the US to step up its efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It was also signed by neoconservative intellectuals, such as Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, and political figures Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the current defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

now he figures out the game plan is doomed - sorry about your kids, mr & mrs america

wonder if he e-mailed this revelation to fellow neocon PNAC-ers Cheney and Rumsfeld..."hey guys, we fucked up bigtime - this whole Iraq thing isn't gonna work out the way we thought it would..."

[JackSpratts]

Those were your legs you left in Iraq? Oh dear. I'm sorry, we're just making this up as we go along, didn't you know?

in the immortal words of otter:

"You fucked up - you believed us!"

take that america!

- js.

[multi]

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

...He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."

link

[Malk-a-mite]

Originally Posted by theknife

now he figures out the game plan is doomed

Fukuyama as of at least 2 years ago was saying that the ideas behind the original Neoconservation movement that he was a part of had been corrupted and stained forever.

He no longer even associates with those that refer to themselves as Neocons.

[RDixon]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...the_next_war/1

[Nicobie]

What's a neocon?

Is it anything like a ecofreak?

[floydian slip]

page 73 of the PNAC's 'Rebulding Americas Defenses'

This may happen when they take on
one mission too many – if, say, NATO’s
role in the Balkans expands, or U.S troops
enforce a demilitarized zone on the Golan
Heights – and a major theater war breaks
out. Or, it may happen when two major
theater wars occur nearly simultaneously.
Or it may happen when a new great power –
a rising China – seeks to challenge
American interests and allies in an important
region.

i wonder how the nano bot army and the space weapons are coming?

[TankGirl]

Originally Posted by RDixon

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...the_next_war/1

That was an interesting and well-written (and scary) article. Thanks for the link, RDixon.

[RDixon]

Originally Posted by TankGirl

That was an interesting and well-written (and scary) article. Thanks for the link, RDixon.

Thanks.

I seldom read the entire article when they are that long, but that one, I did.

And I fear what is revealed in the article is just the tip of the iceberg that will sink America.

[theknife]

from the last paragraph in the article:

"Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he concluded. "There is no other way."

these fucking maniacs are truly delusional - bring down these regimes how? and then what? the "we'll be greeted as liberators with flowers strewn at our feet" myth has been shattered in Iraq and Afghanistan...what makes Damascus and Tehran any more tenable than Bagdhad?

[Mazer]

What makes everyone think military action in Iran is a foregone conclusion?

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

What makes everyone think military action in Iran is a foregone conclusion?

don't know about everyone else but i'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion; i'm saying that our government has given every indication that they would prefer military action over diplomatic action. since it's clear they have not learned a thing from Iraq, military action is indeed something to be concerned about. headline from today's NYT:

Bush Sees a Chance for Change to Sweep Mideast

sound familiar?