The empire strikes back: Dick Cheney, Benjamin Netanyahu and the rebirth of neoconservatism

[DonViejo]

First they marched us into Baghdad. Now they're doing everything in their power to engineer a new war with Iran

DAVID BROMWICH, TOMDISPATCH.COM

“We’re going to push and push until some larger force makes us stop.”

David Addington, the legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, made that declaration to Jack Goldsmith of the Office of Legal Counsel in the months after September 11, 2001. Goldsmith would later recall that Cheney and Addington were the first people he had ever met of a certain kind: “Cheney is not subtle, and he has never hidden the ball. The amazing thing is that he does what he says. Relentlessness is a quality I saw in him and Addington that I never saw before in my life.”

Goldsmith did not consider himself an adversary of Cheney and Addington. He probably shared many of their political views. What shocked him was their confidence in a set of secret laws and violent policies that could destroy innocent lives and warp the Constitution. The neoconservatives — the opinion-makers and legislative pedagogues who since 2001 have justified the Cheney-Bush policies — fit the same description. They are relentless, they push until they are stopped, and thus far they have never been stopped for long.

The campaign for the Iraq war of 2003, the purest example of their handiwork, began with a strategy memorandum in 1996, so it is fair to say that they have been pitching to break up the Middle East for a full two decades. But fortune played them a nasty trick with the signing of the nuclear agreement between the P5+1 powers and Iran. War and the prospect of war have been the source of their undeniable importance. If the Iran nuclear deal attains legitimacy, much of their power will slip through their fingers. The imperialist idealism that drives their ventures from day to day will be cheated of the enemy it cannot live without.

Iran might then become just one more unlucky country — authoritarian and cruelly oppressive but an object of persuasion and not the focus of a never-ending threat of force. The neoconservatives are enraged and their response has been feverish: if they were an individual, you would say that he was a danger to himself and others. They still get plenty of attention and airtime, but the main difference between 2003 and 2015 is the absence of a president who obeys them — something that has only served to sharpen their anger.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/25/the_empire_strikes_back_dick_cheney_benjamin_netanyahu_and_the_rebirth_of_neoconservatism/

[Time For Peace]

1. I don't think they ever went away.

They have been fully involved and working behind the scenes all along. All the proxy wars have their fingerprints all over them. The downside is that they have been enabled and allowed to continue their operations unimpeded or prosecuted by Democrats too.

[Renew Deal]

2. There's some good stuff in there

I didn't get to finish it, but it's more thoughtful than most Salon articles.

[DirkGently]

3. The smash 'n grab continues.

"Relentless" is right. Hard to dismiss the neocon plan as conspiracy theory when they wrote it all down.

PNAC's first public act was to release a "Statement of Principles" on June 3, 1997. The statement had 25 signers, including project members and outside supporters (see Signatories to Statement of Principles). It described the United States as the "world's pre-eminent power," and said that the nation faced a challenge to "shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests." In order to achieve this goal, the statement's signers called for significant increases in defense spending, and for the promotion of "political and economic freedom abroad." It said the United States should strengthen ties with its democratic allies, "challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values," and preserve and extend "an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century