Newsweek: the last neocon standing

[Cocoa]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15896208/site/newsweek/

The Last Man Standing

With the neocons in disarray, Elliott Abrams may be their best hope for keeping President Bush onboard.

Dec. 4, 2006 issue - It's been a rough season for neoconservatives, the group that has dominated U.S. foreign policy since the attacks of September 11. They've been largely run out of the Bush administration, beset by infighting, and mocked by a foreign-policy establishment that hailed their power just a few years ago. Last month was particularly brutal. They looked on helplessly as Democrats took both houses of Congress. They had to grit their teeth when President Bush met with Washington dealmakers James Baker and Lee Hamilton, whose bipartisan group is charged with extricating America from the mess the neocon-influenced policy created in Iraq. Then, insult to injury: they watched their cold-war nemesis in Central America circa 1986, Daniel Ortega, rise again to be president of Nicaragua.

The neocons are reeling, but they're not dead yet. A few stalwarts are digging in their wing-tips. And there's already a small backlash against the backlash. At the State Department, supposedly the bastion of realism, some officials are sounding defiant. "There are a lot of people throughout the ranks who believe in the democracy agenda," says one senior official who would only discuss policy issues anonymously. "If the result of the Baker report is that we have to make any deal necessary ... to get out of Iraq, I don't think that's going to fly." Their hopes, and the hopes of neocons everywhere, may rest on the shoulders of Elliott Abrams, the number-two official at the National Security Council—who remains in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East, a linchpin of the neocon agenda.

Abrams, who declined an interview request from NEWSWEEK, has his work cut out for him. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Abrams handles the Middle East, though not Iraq. Earlier this year, Abrams pushed for an $85 million expansion of TV and radio programming beamed into Iran to gently promote regime change. Now, toppling the mullahs might be off the table. The same goes for the policy of pushing reforms on Arab allies like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who has kept a key opposition figure in jail for more than 11 months and scaled back rights. Michael Gerson, who served until recently as Bush's speechwriter (and who is now a NEWSWEEK contributor), says Abrams must be troubled by the swing. "People who support the democracy agenda are deeply concerned that Mubarak is significantly backtracking," Gerson says. And Abrams has to cope with the fallout of his push for Palestinian elections—the rise of Hamas, and the breakdown of the peace process. But Abrams has one powerful advantage. "Bush has enormous regard for him," says a senior administration official who would not speak about their relationship on the record. "One, because he knows Elliott is keeper of the flame. And also, he's the only one who doesn't draw any attention to himself." (Abrams has been somewhat press-shy ever since he admitted to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-contra affair two decades ago; he was later pardoned.)

The biggest dogfight is still ahead: whether to cut a deal with regimes like Iran, North Korea and Syria. Bush's approach has been to counter threats from oppressive regimes by trying to change them. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and the punditocracy's best-known neocon, says it's hard to imagine the president turning his back on all that. "I think Bush is the last neocon in power," he says. "The truth is, it was always Bush."

more...

[Trajan]

1. "Elliott Abrams, .. —who remains in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East"

Ah ..... no wonder its WAR WAR WAR all the time .... Elliot's in charge ....

There arent enough dead yet ... Democracy cannot be acheived with so few dead ....

The word 'peace' has been excised from ALL the dictionaries at the White House ...

[rodeodance]

6. don't forget Karen Hughes

te he

[Erika]

2. The U.S. is ready to throw the neocons out

Bush should be impeached.

[reformedrepub]

4. Yeah good luck

with that "Our Speaker" Nancy has already said impeachment is "off the table"....what a joke.

[Toots]

9. And we have never known a politician to say something and do something else?

Politicians are like fishermen, the truth is just not in them....

[aquart]

3. See? If we'd hanged him for Iran-Contra........but nooooooooooo.

[madmusic]

5. Great site on the neocons.... with pictures!

FYI:


Edwin Meese III

Attorney General (Reagan)

Heritage Foundation - The Federalist Society

http://www.eurolegal.org/neocons/usneocon.htm


Even if they are pushed out of the war, they are entrenched in the courts.

[izzie]

7. I am sick of the country bleed dry to keep Bush looking good.

It is just not going to work and I am not the only one who thinks like this. Turning over our men, army, and the rest of this country is not going to make a dead fish smell any better so why waste our blood and goods on this one day longer? Cut Bush out and now.

[arewenotdemo]

8. Abrams is actually a Jewish separatist

For some odd reason, the appropriateness of his views are questioned neither by the Administation nor by the American press. Go figure.

>>>In one of the many oddities of the Christian Right-neoconservative alliance that bolsters the Republican Party and forms a backbone of the George W. Bush administration, many neoconservative government officials are radical separatists, indeed segregationists. As Abrams, who argues against Jews dating or attending elementary schools with non-Jews, put it in his book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America: “Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart—except in Israel—from the rest of the population” (Free Press, 1997). Judaism, according to Abrams, demands “apartness”—not in the sense of confining oneself to a physical ghetto, but all necessary measures should be taken to prevent “prolonged and intimate exposure to non-Jewish culture.” Abrams takes care to insist that his positions imply no “disloyalty” to the United States, but at the same times insists that Jews must be loyal to Israel because they “are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people. Their commitment will not weaken if the Israeli government pursues unpopular policies.”<<<

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/969