Neoconservatives

Francis Fukuyama, a supporter of the invasion of Iraq, has changed his mind. In a new book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy", Fukuyama finalised the break with the neoconservative movement: "Having long regarded myself as a neoconservative, I thought I shared a common worldview with many other neoconservatives - including friends and acquaintances who served in the administration of George W. Bush ... I have concluded that neoconservatism ... has evolved into something that I can no longer support."

by Peter Nolan

By Gwynne Dyer

Does the US invasion of Iraq have a silver lining? Is democracy about to spread through the Middle East, toppling one regime after another? And will they be replaced by moderate, peace-loving, America-loving governments? Paula Dobriansky thinks so, and she claims that the nonviolent demonstrations in Beirut and the resignation on March 1 of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government proves her case.

Dobriansky, a core neoconservative, is undersecretary of state for global affairs in the Bush administration. On Feb. 28, she greeted the demonstrations in Beirut with the following claim: "As the president noted in Bratislava just last week, there was a rose revolution in Georgia, an orange revolution in Ukraine, and most recently, a purple revolution in Iraq. In Lebanon, we see growing momentum for a `cedar revolution' that is unifying the citizens of that nation to the cause of true democracy and freedom from foreign influence."

The "purple revolution" is a phrase invented by Bush administration flacks to link the January elections in Iraq, conducted under foreign military occupation and largely boycotted by the country's Sunni Arabs, with the spontaneous nonviolent uprisings that have brought democracy to several dozen other countries, from the Philippines to Ukraine, over the past two decades. Whatever else it may be, Iraq is not a case of spontaneous nonviolent revolution against tyranny. On the other hand, the Lebanese protesters who are demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from their country do fit that general pattern: there seems to be a case to answer here.

By Andrew I. Killgore

During the tacit alliance between Iran and Israel from 1972 to 1979, Iran provided oil and lucrative contracts to Israel. In return, Israel-via the United States-provided huge amounts of arms, stoking the ambitions of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to play a larger role in the region. Nor did Washington object when the shah announced plans to build 10 nuclear power plants.

Iran's 1979 political cataclysm, however, ushered in a Shi'i Islamist regime. Tehran began to support its fellow Shi'i in Lebanon, particularly the resistance by Hezbollah to Israel's illegal occupation of south Lebanon. There flowed the Litani River, the waters of which have been coveted by the Zionists since the 1919 peace conference ending World War I.

Israel successfully argued in Washington that Iran's support of Hezbollah amounted to sponsoring "terrorism." As a result, Iran was linked to Libya in the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), for which the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee is largely credited with authorship. ILSA provided for U.S. sanctions against any company spending $20 million on Iran's or Libya's oil or gas industry. European companies failed to succumb to U.S. pressure, however, and Iranian aid for Hezbollah continued. Under AIPAC pressure-and without consulting newly inaugurated President George W. Bush-Congress extended ILSA for five years in 2001.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush linked Iran with Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of Evil." The 2003 invasion of Iraq followed, based on Saddam Hussain's alleged possession of "weapons of mass destruction" and ties to al-Qaeda. With over 1,000 American soldiers killed and thousands wounded, that war has gone very sour, and may cost Bush the November election.

by Gwynne Dyer

What would we do without Richard Perle, everybody's favourite neoconservative? It was he who came up some years ago with the notion that we must "de-contextualise terrorism"; that is, we must stop trying to understand the reasons that some groups turn to terrorism, and simply condemn and kill them. No grievance, no injury, no cause is great enough to justify the use of terrorism.

This would be an excellent principle if only we could apply it to all uses of violence for political ends - including the violence that is carried out by legal governments using far more lethal weapons than terrorists have access to, causing far more deaths. I'd be quite happy, for instance, to "de-contextualise" nuclear weapons, agreeing that there are no circumstances that could possibly justify their use, and if you want to start de-contextualising things like cluster bombs and napalm, that would be all right with me, too. But that was not what Perle meant at all.

Perle was speaking specifically about Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel, and the point of "de-contextualising" them was to make it unacceptable for people to point out that there is a connection between Palestinian terrorism and the fact that the Palestinians have lived under Israeli military occupation for the past 37 years and lost almost half their land to Jewish settlements.