Stop listening to neo-conservative dunces! “They’ve been wrong about almost every important strategi

[DonViejo]

Stop listening to neo-conservative dunces! “They’ve been wrong about almost every important strategic choice”

Neocons have flawed worldview and awful track record, says Harvard professor who's seen through nonsense for years

PAUL ROSENBERG

There are many voices criticizing the prominence of neoconservatives who’ve been weighing in on the crisis in Iraq, since it was the neocon-advanced idea of invading Iraq which is the sine qua non that created this mess in the first place. But being wrong on Iraq is not the neo-cons’ only sin—merely their most germane.

A piece that Harvard international affairs professor Stephen Walt wrote during the 2008 election, “The Shattered Kristol Ball,” caught Salon’s attention because it takes the argument considerably further, and thus gives a much more comprehensive picture. It’s not just Iraq that neocons were wrong about, Walt indicated, it’s everything—even their supposed triumph the “surge,” he noted. Walt argues that their failure is rooted in a worldview divorced from reality. He further clarified this argument by discussing the strengths of the alternative, foreign policy realism, the dominant U.S. foreign policy worldview since World War II.

Salon contacted Professor Walt to ask him to reflect and expand on the themes he struck in that piece—themes that have getting far too little attention since ISIS emerged as a serious military threat in Iraq. The following is an edited transcript of our interview.

I’d like to start small, with specifics, and build up to the big picture. Neocons tried to use the “surge” to vindicate all their earlier failures in Iraq, and even today, some may think it strange to say that the “surge” failed. Yet, you wrote that it had failed all the way back in September 2008, and Obama’s failure to realize this was arguably instrumental in his decision to expand the war in Afghanistan.

So, three questions to being with. First, Why did you say the “surge” failed in 2008?

more:

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/07/stop_listening_to_neo_conservative_dunces_theyve_been_wrong_about_almost_every_important_strategic_choice/

[ZombieHorde]

1. They've been terrible on the subject of foreign policy,

but excellent on selling their foreign policy.

[Enthusiast]

4. You can be excellent on selling foreign policy when you control the media.

[Scootaloo]

2. And do remember, they're not exclusively Republican, by a LONG shot.

Neoconservativism / neoliberalism (The later term doesn't seem to apply to foreign policy as much) are ideologies that transcend party affiliation. When we have personages like Chuck Schumer laughing and joking about strangling "the Arabs" until they kowtow to power, and the Clinton "reforming" welfare and destroying the Mexican economy for American corporate gain.... We can't pretend this ideological disease only affects the other party - though, surely, in terms of volume, they're the bigger problem

[Enthusiast]

3. Wrong! They’ve been wrong about every important strategic choice. Not almost.

Neo-Cons have never been right.