(NOTE: This is the second of a series of recent commentaries on developments in the conservative political movement– namely the “rise of the neo-conservatives”, and the concern this is causing with the more traditional conservatives and “paleo-conservatives”.)
Editor’s Note: I was hesitant at first about posting this article by Pat Buchanan, partially because he has been seen by many as an extremist on some issues, and partly because he occasionally dips below our standard of decorum in his analysis. However, he is a major voice in the conservative community. He has been the conservative commentator for many left-right political shows over the past many years, he has been a Republican candidate for president, and he is an Editor of The American Conservative. Furthermore, his article is quite extensive, he backs up his assertions with extensive quotes and references to other sources, and he provides a valuable in-depth, insider viewpoint on the growing rift in the conservative movement. It certainly provides essential background information in understanding the roots and branches of the PNAC.
It’s also worth saying that the growing level of disgust among those “in the know” about the rise of the PNAC and neoconservativism in U.S. foreign policy is making it harder to find analyses and commentaries in which the disgust doesn’t show through to at least some extent.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
March 24, 2003 issue
Copyright � 2003 The American Conservative
The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: �Can you assure American viewers … that we�re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?�
Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.
Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these �Buchananites toss around �neoconservative��and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen�it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is �Jewish conservative.�� Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a �key tenet of neoconservatism.� He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush �sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.� (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)
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