Machiavellian Neoconservatives

The United States incursion into Iraq is a prime example of the Machiavellian neoconservative doctrine: a foreign policy directed toward world dominance based upon a unilateral preemptive use of force without regard for diplomacy and multilateral organizations. Actually our chance to establish a “Pax Americana” was in 1945 when we alone had nuclear capability. However, we are not a war-like nation and sought world peace in the United Nations which neoconservatives disdain. Perhaps we were naïve and hoped for too much. At least it gave the international community a forum to air problems and endeavor to keep peace. Its sanctions kept Saddam Hussein at bay for twelve years and certainly prevented him from being a threat.President Bush is intellectually mediocre. From the beginning of his presidency, according to ex-staff personnel, he was angling for an excuse to go to war with Iraq. He had early on surrounded himself with Machiavellian neoconservatives and after 9/11, with international acquiescence, went after terrorists in Afghanistan where the al-Qaeda terrorist network was supposed to be headquartered. But as Rumsfeld said, Afghanistan, had no good bombing targets. So the war on terrorism turned into a war on Iraq to the consternation of all our major allies except Great Britain. Although ostensibly we are fighting to establish an Iraqi democracy, we are actually fighting to get a U.S. foothold in Arabia to enthrall the nation and control their valuable oil resources. Our original target, terrorists, are still active as indicated by the heightened danger alert today (2 Aug.) for downtown N.Y. and Washington, D.C.

Neoconservatism is amoral. It is also an excellent example of man’s inborn hunger for recognition and power. As I indicate in Cascading Universe.* this is a genetic trait in all cerebral animals, a product of Darwinian evolution. The concept of right and wrong plays a very limited, illusory role in basic physiological drives. Michael Ledeen in Machiavelli on Modern Leadership states that the bloody-mindedness of world leaders and would-be leaders –“derives from ambition and human ambition is unlimited, both that of individuals and the institutions they create.” Ledeen, still following Machiavelli in The War Against the Terror Masters, extols leadership and stresses the importance of winning. He praises “Creative destruction — both within our own society and abroad.”

The Neo-con’s American Empire can never come to pass because U.S. citizens are not interested in sending their youth to die in a war of outright aggression when there is no apparent threat. In former times, forceful leaders, kings, emperors or dictators seeking glory were able to assemble armies to extend boundaries and enhance national pride. In those days people were more easily made to serve because they were under the thumb of a government that stressed “patriotism” above intellectual development and a citizen’s well-being and his striving for a better life. Today people are more educated and independent. In the U.S. government is supposed to serve the people, not the people serve the government. As I stress in Cascading Universe, each individual is a world unto himself; civilizations are merely interacting, commingling aggregates of the atoms that constitute man.

Society is a product of personal interactions of constantly changing neural networks of individual brains; thus human affairs are never static. The increase of population and the accompanying broader knowledge add to the complexities of interpersonal relationships and make possible a greater realization of oneself as an individual rather than just as a pawn of the state. At present, with a more catholic and educated population, the call to arms necessary for a militant, unilateral and forceful promotion of American democracy throughout the world with no imminent threat is doomed to fail. Even in Iraq where American prestige is at stake the war became very unpopular when it became apparent that our aggression was wholly unnecessary and started primarily to satisfy Bush’s desire to be a “war president” as well as his desire to initiate the first step in the Neoconservative drive for U.S. world hegemony. In fact, there is considerable popular support for curtailing the useless killing of our soldiers and calling it quits.

It is hard to imagine how our government, knowing what they did, could order military reservists, hardworking American volunteers to give up their families and livelihood to war against a small insignificant nation that presented no threat to us. It is evident that we were blindsided by conniving neo-conservatives embedded in the present administration, taking advantage of the horrendous 9/11 attack to further their own aims.

Leo Strauss, a German Jewish émigré and a professor at the University of Chicago until his death in 1973, provided the intellectual support for neoconservatism. He preached that religion is the opium of the people and that those in power (like President Bush et al) should invent noble lies and pious frauds when necessary to keep the people enthralled.

The neoconservative movement was initiated by Irving Kristol in the late 1960s. Kristol, a New York Jewish intellectual was originally a Trotskyite who later switched to the right.

Neoconservatives are empire builders who scorn social science as being anti-business and left-wing. Hard science is also shunted aside when it conflicts with big business, particularly with respect to water and air pollution, saving the forestland, and global warming. Bush staunchly supports far-right religious doctrine as his opposition to stem-cell research and abortion would suggest. Neoconservatives whole-heartedly support Israel, not only as a Jewish homeland but as an important ally in the Near East.

Essentially, neocons believe that the United States should use its dominant power to unilaterally promote its values throughout the world. They are deeply immersed in the current Bush administration as the following roster indicates:

Vice President Richard Cheney
The vice president’s Chief of Staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith
Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
National Security Council Senior Director Elliot Abrams
Key Advisor Richard Perle

Also: Richard Armitage, Paul Bremer, Donald Kagan, Zalmey Khalilzad, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Bernard Lewis, Martin Peretz, Peter Rodman, Leon Wieseltrier, David Wurmser, Dov Zakheim, and many others.

The Neo-conservative network includes The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Center for Security Policy, Hudson Institute and the Project for the New American Century.

They consider the Middle East to be a region of great importance to us because of its energy resources; and Israel, a vital interest. The Palestinians are considered to be of no account and can be justifiably enclosed in a little state under the control of Israel.

The Neo-conservatives envisage American power throughout the world, advocating the use of force as an end in itself.

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Tyrannical Arabian theocracies will eventually succumb to more democratic societies as their citizens become more sophisticated and come to realize how down-trodden they are. New, less repressive social ideas will eventually take hold as they did in Europe several hundred years ago.

With regard to the present situation wherein Bush has bamboozled the public to support a war of aggression into Iraq, it should be obvious that we can not base foreign policy on lies and arbitrary decision making notwithstanding his Machiavellian cabinet. It behooves us to set an example as trading partners for everyone’s benefit rather than try to impose reform by destructive militancy à la Machiavelli.

SOURCES

Bush League Diplomacy, Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman, 2004 Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y.

Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Michael A. Ledeen, 1999 St Martin’s Press, New York, N.Y.

The War Against the Terror Masters, Michael A. Ledeen, 2002 St. Martin’s , Press, New York, N.Y.

America Alone, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, 2004 Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, N.Y.

Imperial Hubris, Anonymous, 2004 Brassey’s Inc. Dulles, Va.

Resurrecting Empire, Rashid Khaldi, 2004, Beacon Press, Boston, Mass.

Cascading Universe, Charles C. Worthington, 2004, Dorrance Publishing co. Pittsburgh, Penn.

Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor, Shadia B. Drury, free inquiry, June/July 2004