[Marxism] Rove the Regulator and the amazing disappearing neocons

[J.M.P.Cloke@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Having watched Karl Rove make the gobsmacking claim on TV 
that he and Bush were all in favour of proper regulation 
of the financial services sector and that it was the 
Democrats who blocked moves to do so, it now appears that 
there never were any neocons, either.... would someone 
mind explaining to me what the hell is going on with 
reality?!


  
Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence
  
Dana Milbank, Washington Sketch: Richard Perle in 
Wonderland
  
Friday, February 20 at 12:00 p.m. ET: Washington Sketch
  
In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the 
Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attack. 
But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, 
he created a fantastic world in which:
  
1. Perle is not a neoconservative.
  
2. Neoconservatives do not exist.
  
3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly 
couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight 
years.
  
"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign 
policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National 
Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is 
believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."
  
So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is 
widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign 
policy? "My name was on it because I signed up for the 
study group," Perle explained. "I didn't approve it. I 
didn't read it."
  
Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by 
Perle, giving a "moral" basis to Middle East policy and 
demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? "I 
don't have the letters in front of me," Perle replied.
  
Right. And the Bush administration National Security 
Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of 
pre-emptive war and using American power to spread 
freedom? "I don't know whether President Bush ever read 
any of those statements," Perle maintained. "My guess is 
he didn't."
  
The Prince of Darkness -- so dubbed during his days 
opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon -- was not 
about to let details get in the way of his argument that 
"50 million conspiracy theorists have it wrong," as the 
subtitle of his article for National Interest put it. "I 
see a number of people here who believe and have expressed 
themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative 
foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the 
Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility 
for the deplorable state of the world," Perle told the 
foreign policy luminaries at yesterday's lunch. "None of 
that is true, of course."
  
Of course.
  
He had been a leading cheerleader for the Iraq war, 
predicting that the effort would take few troops and last 
only a few days, and that Iraq would pay for its own 
reconstruction. Perle was chairman of Bush's Defense 
Policy Board -- and the president clearly took the advice 
of Perle and his fellow neocons. And Perle, in turn, said 
back then that Bush "knows exactly what he's doing."
  
Yesterday, however, Perle said Bush's foreign policy had 
"no philosophical underpinnings and certainly nothing like 
the demonic influence of neoconservatives that is 
alleged." He also took issue with the common view that 
neocons favored using American might to spread democratic 
values. "There's no documentation!" he argued. "I can't 
find a single example of a neoconservative supposed to 
have influence over the Bush administration arguing that 
we should impose democracy by force."
  
Those in the room were skeptical of Perle's efforts to 
recast himself as a pragmatist.
  
Richard Burt, who clashed with Perle in the Reagan 
administration, took issue with "this argument that 
neoconservatism maybe actually doesn't exist." He reminded 
Perle of the long-time rift between foreign policy 
realists and neoconservative interventionists. "You've got 
to kind of acknowledge there is a neoconservative school 
of thought," Burt challenged.
  
"I don't accept the approach, not at all," the Prince of 
Darkness replied.
  
Jacob Heilbrunn of National Interest asked Perle to square 
his newfound realism with the rather idealistic title of 
his book, "An End to Evil."
  
"We had a publisher who chose the title," Perle claimed, 
adding: "There's hardly an ideology in that book." (An 
excerpt: "There is no middle way for Americans: It is 
victory or holocaust. This book is a manual for victory.")
  
Regardless of the title, Heilbrunn pursued, how could so 
many people -- including lapsed neoconservative Francis 
Fukuyama -- all be so wrong about what neoconservatives 
represent?
  
"It's not surprising that a lot of people get something 
wrong," Perle reasoned.
  
At times, the Prince of Darkness turned on his 
questioners. Fielding a question from the Financial Times, 
he said that the newspaper "propagated this myth of 
neoconservative influence." He informed Stefan Halper of 
Cambridge University that "you have contributed 
significantly to this mythology."
  
"There are some 5,000 footnotes," Halper replied. 
"Documents that you've signed."
  
But documents did not deter denials. "I've never advocated 
attacking Iran," he said, to a few chuckles. "Regime 
change does not imply military force, at least not when I 
use the term," he said, to raised eyebrows. Accusations 
that neoconservatives manipulated intelligence on Iraq? 
"There's no truth to it." At one point, he argued that the 
word "neoconservative" has been used as an anti-Semitic 
slur, just moments after complaining that prominent 
figures such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- 
Christians both -- had been grouped in with the 
neoconservatives.
  
"I don't know that I persuaded anyone," Perle speculated 
when the session ended.
  
No worries, said the moderator. "You certainly kept us all 
entertained."
  
  
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Dr Jon Cloke
Project Officer EnergyCentral and Research Associate
Global and World Cities Group
Geography Department
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU

E-mail: j.m.p.cloke@xxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: 00 44 07984 813681

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