More Neoconservative Backlash

I don't know if Dan Riehl was as big a Bush-backer on Iraq as was David Horowitz, but Dan's written another interesting repudiation of neoconservatism. See, "Why Neo-Conservativism May Represent a Serious Concern For Israel":

Old line Reagan conservatives have always been something of a firewall for neo-conservatives, siding with them over more isolationist factions within the GOP. The thanks we most often got for that was either to have been ignored, or taken for granted - and now, it seems, even marginalized, as Jennifer Rubin is doing.

I'm not suggesting traditional conservatives will abandon Israel, or one of the three legs of Reagan Conservatism - national defense, most particularly. However, it is going to have to re-assess its positioning as regards neo-conservatism and the more isolationist elements of the GOP cited above. Unfortunately, they are not always a best friend to Israel.

As a result, what the aforementioned third leg of conservatism might look like given some new alignment, or dynamic, within the conservative movement is hard to predict. But with mounting debt and three wars going on, it's most likely to not be a very adventurous one, however hawk-ish it might remain in theory.

That, in the end, could prove to be a serious concern for Israel, one coming at the same time the Middle-east is unraveling thanks to Obama - a time when it can least aford any new concern. Yet, ultimately, neither they, nor anyone else, would have anyone to blame but neo-conservatism. Thanks to their policies, combined with a lack of respect and regard for traditional Reagan conservatives over a decade, or more, neo-conservatives may be bringing about the very thing they most oppose: a more isolationist grassroots conservative movement rising to take control of the Republican Party.

They may even have to revert to being Democrats before long. And one can only imagine the reception they'd get there. Given budget constraints and Obama's own current international adventurism, it's quite possible that neo-conservatism as a driving ideology won't even have a place in any next Republican administration. And that may happen, even if they are successful in helping to elect the next establishment Republican they are bound to find themselves endorsing in 2012 and, or 2016.

That's a block quote from the second half of the essay, so readers need to RTWT for the full argument. I'm not sure if it's just Jennifer Rubin that's the most painful thorn here, or something larger. If you check the links you'll see that Dan's fuming mad at Rubin's hoity-toity dismissal of grassroots conservative concerns on the budget deal. Rubin comes off as a beltway moderate completely out of touch with the ideological currents of limited-government conservatism. And I write this as a fan of Jennifer Rubin. But Dan's got a good point. The tricky thing here is not to throw all the "neocons" in one basket when hammering Rubin. I don't read her as much as I'd like, but she was at Commentary for a while, and she's about as aggressively Zionist imaginable. Perhaps Dan will want to flesh out his argument further in an additional essay. If by "Neo-Conservatives" he means William Kristol and perhaps Charles Krauthammer ... well, they're as beltway as you can get, and with Kristol, sometimes his fervent advocacy of the freedom agenda seems to overtake his better judgment. He's consistent, so give him that. But folks who might otherwise be attacked as "neocons" have been very cautious on change in the Middle East and the effects on Israel's interests. David Horowitz most obviously comes to mind, with his highly publicized renunciation of the democracy promotion agenda in Egypt and so forth. But Victor Davis Hanson personified neoconservative foreign policy on the Iraq war, and he had an inside line to the White House back in 2003, but he's now one of the biggest skeptics on the Obama administration's foreign policy, calling for a degree of realist restraint that's the antithesis of the the neoconservative paradigm.

And that's to say nothing of the domestic neoconservative agenda, especially on social policy going back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the folks at Public Interest under Irving Kristol. And the Reagan years are probably a little more of a complicated comparison in any case, considering President Reagan's appointment of Jeanne Kirkpatrick to the U.N. after her breakout article on dictatorships in foreign policy at (the neoconservative policy journal) Commentary.

Anyway, my money is on the neocons remaining a key force on conservative policy circles well into the future. On Israel and isolationism alone, the paleocons will be out to pasture. The real debates will be more on whether we'll see ideological purists within the conservative movement prevail over the moderate progressive-appeasers in the GOP. I'm thinking Newt Gingrich on latter, despite his otherwise grand vision for the Republican Party. No more Dede Scozzafavas, thank you.

Anyway, Dan might head over to Cato Institute to read the batch of essay at the series, "The Rise and Fall of Neoconservatism." And I'd also recommend going easy on Jennifer Rubin for a while. Check her out again after the budget battle dies down a bit. She's a good lady. A lot of us, like myself, were previously on the left, hence "neoconservative," but we're among the most passionate defenders of the Reaganite vision in conservative circles today.