Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it[and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy."

Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows
By Doyle McManus
Times Staff Writer

January 22, 2005

WASHINGTON —  In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.

For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush's reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.

But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" —  a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.

"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking   and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."

On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" —  an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy —  agreed.

"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it…[and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy."

A senior Bush aide who met with reporters Friday to explain the meaning of the speech waved away a question about its endorsement of neoconservative ideas. "I've never understood what that neoconservative label means, anyway," he said, refusing to be identified by name because, he said: "We should be focusing on the president's words, not mine."

But the aide went on to repeat, with emphasis, some of Bush's words that put democratization of other countries at the center of his foreign policy. "It is a top priority for his second term," the aide said. "He's raised the emphasis. He's raised the profile . He's made it clear that he's going to turn up the pressure a bit. He's going to try to accelerate the process."