The Neo-Cons: Hubris and Hegemony

he continuing failure to find significant quantities of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, coupled with increasing domestic and international distaste over a forged document used by the Bush administration to make its case for invading Iraq, will make it much more difficult for Washington to achieve the foreign policy objectives envisioned following the September 11 attacks as articulated in the September 2002 National Security Strategy.

With the coming to power of the Bush administration, a faction within the conservative stratum in Washington --- commonly referred to as the neo-conservatives and made up of members from a variety of think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century --- gained much political clout. This faction, its most noticeable member being Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, put into motion a broad foreign policy strategy in which the United States would act as a global hegemon and eliminate all possible threats to its interests. The purpose of such a policy was to prevent American global economic hegemony from being damaged, and, more importantly, to set the foundation for an international framework revolving around Washington that would project the United States' massive power far into the 21st century. As written in the National Security Strategy, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom -- and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise."

One of the major goals of this foreign policy was to "reshape" the Middle East into a form suitable to Washington's national and economic interests. The invasion of Iraq was the first step towards this goal. The United States was able to easily eliminate the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, which was largely defenseless due to the extremely strict U.N. sanctions established during the Bush administration of the early 1990s and tightly enforced through the eight years of the Clinton administration. By removing Saddam Hussein --- which was a policy long-pushed by members of the current Bush administration throughout their years working for various think-tanks during the 1990s --- the Bush administration was able to project U.S. power into the heart of the Middle East due to the ensuing occupation of Iraq.

After having achieved the primary objectives of removing Saddam Hussein from power and saturating the country with U.S. military personnel, the Bush administration was then able to more directly continue their broad objective of reshaping the Middle East. The administration has continued to argue that Syria and Iran --- two countries critical of U.S. foreign policy --- are threats to the United States, its firm ally Israel, and, in general, the "free world."

However, it is now unlikely that this administration still has the political leverage to continue a policy of "regime change."  While Washington never achieved international political legitimacy to invade Iraq, it was able to secure domestic political legitimacy, as most of the American population supported the Bush White House before, during and immediately after the march to Baghdad. Yet with the failure to find the alleged massive stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, in addition to embarrassing evidence demonstrating that the Bush administration used forged documents in their political case against Baghdad, the U.S. has lost nearly all international legitimacy it may still have had, while at the same time is rapidly losing domestic legitimacy. (I hope he's right about this! - BB)  President Bush's domestic approval ratings have been steadily dropping, and more Americans are beginning to feel that the White House was unprepared for the occupation of Iraq. According to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll published on July 1, 56 percent of the U.S. population believes the occupation to be going well. In the first week of June, this number was at 70 percent and in May at 88 percent.

The failure of the Bush administration to prove their case for invading Iraq has led to an awakening of America's current opposition party: the Democrats. (Again I hope he's right! - BB) Such obvious gaffes currently being made by the administration have given the Democratic Party the perfect opportunity to find an issue to use to weaken support for the current administration. Furthermore, it cannot be forgotten that the Bush administration barely won the presidential election of 2000 and failed to win the popular vote. Up until the September 11 attacks, when the United States as a whole receded into an embryonic state of nationalism, the Bush administration remained starkly unpopular, and the president himself was a frequent object of ridicule throughout U.S. media and society. Much of this administration's domestic and foreign policy successes have been the result of the lack of debate and disagreement within U.S. society, mostly having to due with the historical fear of criticizing an administration during a time of war.

But now the White House's layer of protective political fat is thinning and its future looks bleak. This ominous turn of events for the Bush administration will make it very difficult for it to achieve its spectacular foreign policy objectives of reshaping the Middle East and realigning the world in a form where U.S. power is firmly accountable to no other entity, not even the United Nations. The continuing stagnation of the U.S. economy, the failure to stabilize Iraq, and the growing domestic debate over the White House's case to go to war will all act to weaken the political power of the Bush administration and work to greatly reduce the possibility of Washington making controversial policy decisions at home and abroad. Barring a great economic upswing, or a flowering of Iraqi civil society under U.S. occupational rule, the Bush administration may have to follow a more conservative national security strategy.

Report Drafted By:
Erich Marquardt, for PINR

***************************