Dick and Liz Cheney on CBS 'This Morning'

The Cheneys' new book's out tomorrow, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

Restoring American Exceptionalism

Dick and Liz Cheney's new book is here, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

And they write at today's Wall Street Journal, "President Obama has dangerously surrendered the nation’s global leadership, but it can be ours again — if we choose his successor wisely":

In 1983, as the U.S. confronted the threat posed by the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan explained America’s unique responsibility. “It is up to us in our time,” he said, “to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.” It was up to us then—as it is now—because we are the exceptional nation. America has guaranteed freedom, security and peace for a larger share of humanity than any other nation in all of history. There is no other like us. There never has been.

Born of the revolutionary ideal that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,” we were, first, an example to the world of freedom’s possibilities. During World War II, we became freedom’s defender, at the end of the Cold War, the world’s sole superpower. We did not seek the position. It is ours because of our ideals and our power, and the power of our ideals. As British historian Andrew Roberts has observed, “In the debate over whether America was born great, achieved greatness or had greatness thrust upon her, the only possible conclusion must be: all three.”

No other nation, international body or “community of nations” can do what we do. It isn’t just our involvement in world events that has been essential for the triumph of freedom. It is our leadership. For the better part of a century, security and freedom for millions of people around the globe have depended on America’s military, economic, political and diplomatic might. For the most part, until the administration of Barack Obama, we delivered.

Since Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed us the “Arsenal of Democracy” in 1940, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have understood the indispensable nature of American power. Presidents from Truman to Nixon, from Kennedy to Reagan, knew that America’s strength had to be safeguarded, her supremacy maintained. In the 1940s American leadership was essential to victory in World War II, and the liberation of millions from the grip of fascism. In the Cold War American leadership guaranteed the survival of freedom, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the defeat of Soviet totalitarianism. In this century it will be essential for the defeat of militant Islam.

Yet despite the explosive spread of terrorist ideology and organizations, the establishment of an Islamic State caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and increasing threats from Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, President Obama has departed from this 75-year, largely bipartisan tradition of ensuring America’s pre-eminence and strength...

Keep reading.

And again, don't miss this essential book, at Amazon, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

The Culture War Returns

Well, it's not just now returning, although no doubt he's onto something.

From Jacob Heilbrunn, at the National Interest":

1968 IS BACK. A growing chorus of voices on the right is arguing that the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson are ushering in a new round of the culture wars. On the website Breitbart, for example, Robert W. Patterson, a former George W. Bush administration official, wrote, “The Grand Old Party must decide: Go libertarian, and sympathize with the protesters and rioters? Or does it want to be conservative, and side with the police, the rule of law, and the forces of order? The lessons of the 1960s suggest the latter is the path to victory.” William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, observed during the recent riots in Ferguson, “It does feel like a Nixon ’68 moment. Who will speak for the Silent Majority?”

It was a revealing question. In 1968, Richard Nixon tapped into white working-class antipathy toward student and black radicalism to defeat Hubert Humphrey. The Southern Strategy was born. Two years earlier, Ronald Reagan had won election as governor of California by denouncing the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and promising to “throw the bums off welfare.” Reagan would go on to midwife what became a potent alliance between the emerging neoconservative movement and traditional conservatives. The neocons began to share the traditionalists’ belief that, as Burke put it, “Men of intemperate mind can never be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

The maiden neocons had themselves emerged from the intensely partisan milieu of the 1930s to become respected public intellectuals. They viewed the scaturient passions of the New Left that had suddenly emerged in the 1960s as a clear and present danger—what the literary critic Lionel Trilling deemed an “adversary culture.”

Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and a number of other neoconservatives were deeply influenced by Trilling’s criticism of liberalism from inside the movement. They were also influenced—Kristol and Himmelfarb in particular—by the political philosopher Leo Strauss, who had fled Nazi Germany. Strauss believed that the culprit for much of what had gone wrong in Western civilization could be traced back to Machiavelli, who had lowered man’s sights away from a transcendent good. The result was the rise of relativism, in which one view of how humans should behave is as good as another. Strauss, by contrast, promulgated a different message, one that resonated with the new generation of conservatives—a return, after centuries of neglect, to classical virtue.

Kristol assailed what he called a “new class” of managers, lawyers, bureaucrats and social workers who promoted new issues such as women’s rights, sexual liberation and minority rights. Himmelfarb’s numerous books lauded the idea of Victorian virtue, stressed self-help and charity, and argued that the public dole had profoundly corrosive moral effects, foremost among them creating a culture of dependency on government.

Though it has tended to be scanted in recent years, neoconservatives—“Liberals mugged by reality,” as Kristol once put it—were initially much less preoccupied with foreign than domestic issues. Domestic policy is where they made their bones. Kristol and Daniel Bell founded the Public Interest in 1965 (though Bell ended up resigning as coeditor in 1973). The National Interest didn’t appear until 1985, just as the Cold War was beginning to reach its terminal phase. Political scientist James Q. Wilson, a regular contributor to Commentary and the Public Interest, devised the “broken windows” theory, which holds that stopping petty crimes is a vital step toward preventing major ones from occurring. RIOTING IN the inner cities in 1968, the disintegration of New York City, the rise of black militants and the introduction of affirmative action hardened neocon attitudes. Nathan Glazer called affirmative action “affirmative discrimination.” In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued a report warning about the collapse of the black family. Two years later, he delivered a speech to the Americans for Democratic Action stating that “liberals must somehow overcome the curious condescension that takes the form of defending and explaining away everything, however outrageous, which Negroes, individually or collectively, might do.” Other neocons blamed a new antinomianism for America’s ills. The emphasis on individual needs and wants—feminism, multiculturalism and the like—meant that the idea of a common civic good was disappearing. In their view, it was being replaced by a society of disgruntled supplicants.

Neocon apprehensions about crime and the sexual revolution were also acutely reflected in literary form. In novels like Mr. Sammler’s Planet and The Dean’s December, Saul Bellow vividly evoked the racial tensions of the 1970s, prompting charges that he was himself a racist. The Dean’s December focuses on the murder of a white graduate student named Rick Lester by a black hoodlum and a female prostitute. The protagonist Alfred Corde, a dean at the University of Chicago, registers his sympathy with the underclass but suggests that the basic problem is insoluble:

We do not know how to approach this population. We haven’t even conceived that reaching it may be a problem. So there’s nothing but death before it. Maybe we’ve already made our decision. Those that can be advanced into the middle class, let them be advanced. The rest? Well, we do our best by them. We don’t have to do any more. They kill some of us. Mostly they kill themselves.

Sounds familiar.

But keep reading.

Dick Cheney Ramping Up New Policy Push

I mentioned the new book coming out previously, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

I'm looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, at the Wall Street Journal, "Former vice president to release book and mount lobbying campaign that is likely to play into 2016 presidential election":

CASPER, Wyo.—Few people noticed the 74-year-old in the tan Stetson at a high-school rodeo here. Dick Cheney was happy to blend in.

That is about to change. The former vice president is looking to make a splash on the national stage with a new book to be published in September and a group he and his daughter Liz launched to advance their views.

The effort is sure to play directly into the 2016 presidential debate, in which national-security policy is already a point of difference between the Republican candidates, many of whom are looking to turn the page on George W. Bush’s administration.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal at the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds, Mr. Cheney previewed some of his likely positions:

• He characterized one leading GOP contender, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, as an isolationist. “He knows I think of him as an isolationist, and it offends him deeply,” Mr. Cheney said. “But it’s true.”

• An early critic of nuclear talks with Iran, he thinks the U.S. should be prepared to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also favors additional arms shipments to U.S. allies in Eastern Europe and further military exercises in Poland to send a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• And he scoffed at the debate that tripped up Mr. Bush’s brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, over whether or not he would have invaded Iraq with the virtue of hindsight. (Mr. Bush, after some back and forth, eventually said he wouldn’t). Mr. Cheney instead said Republicans should scrutinize the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq under President Barack Obama.

Mr. Cheney’s overarching message, and the theme of the book he is co-authoring with his daughter Liz Cheney, is that the U.S. needs to assert itself more on the world stage. “We thought, looking forward to 2016, it was very important to make sure those issues were front and center in the campaign,” he said.

By weighing in, Mr. Cheney is bound to make himself a flash point in the 2016 debate, stoking further questions about which policies of the George W. Bush administration Republicans embrace and which they reject, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the bulk collection of phone records and interrogation policy. That could prove particularly uncomfortable for Jeb Bush, who has struggled to define himself apart from his brother.

Mr. Cheney already exerts quiet influence over his party, making semiregular trips to the Capitol to address House Republicans and advising some GOP White House hopefuls. He wouldn’t discuss those conversations. Two of his top foreign-policy aides have signed on with Jeb Bush. And he is headlining donor events all over the country for the Republican National Committee.

“The party is very fortunate to have an active and engaged Dick Cheney for this upcoming political cycle,” said Reince Priebus, the party’s chairman, noting the number of candidates and elected officials who turn to the former vice president for advice. “He’s a top fundraising draw, in high demand.”

Holly Shulman, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said “there’s no one happier about Dick Cheney becoming a foreign policy surrogate than we are…If he needs any assistance getting out his message, our team would be happy to help book him for interviews.”

Keep reading.

Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America

I love the title of Dick and Liz Cheney's forthcoming book, being published by Threshold Editions.

Here's the press release, "THRESHOLD EDITIONS TO PUBLISH NEW BOOK BY FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY AND LIZ CHENEY."

And at Amazon, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

Heh, the epic title of a neocon manifesto. Leftist heads are going to explode.

Kill Obama's Iran Deal

From William Kristol, at the Weekly Standard, "Special Editorial: Kill the Deal":

Commentators have exposed how bad the Iran deal is in various ways; the point, however, is to kill it.

Why? Because the deal can't be fixed. Even if sanctions relief were somewhat more gradual, even if the number of centrifuges were somewhat lower, even if the inspections regime were somewhat more robust—the basic facts would remain: Iran gets to keep its nuclear infrastructure, including the most sensitive parts of it. The sanctions come off. And the inspectors can be kicked out. So Iran, a state-sponsor of terror, an enemy of the United States, an aggressive jihadist power, a regime dedicated to the destruction of Israel, will become a threshold nuclear weapons state...

Keep reading.

They're Back: The Neocons and Iran

From Jacob Heilbrunn, at the Los Angeles Times, "The neocons: They're back, and on Iran, they're uncompromising as ever":

If nothing succeeds like failure, then the neoconservatives who championed democracy promotion and regime change against Saddam Hussein are very successful indeed. After the Iraq war went south, the reputations of leading neocons such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz came into disrepute. But as the Obama administration has worked toward its controversial nuclear deal with Iran, the neocons have once again become the dominant voice on foreign policy in the Republican Party.

Writing in National Review on the eve of the agreement, the historian Victor Davis Hanson declared, "Our dishonor in Lausanne, as with Munich, may avoid a confrontation in the present, but our shame will guarantee a war in the near future."

Over the last few decades, the neocons, who are mostly based at think tanks and magazines in Washington, have come to constitute a kind of military-intellectual complex. Their credo is as sweeping as it is simple: No compromise is ever possible with America's foreign enemies. Instead, they are championing a liberation doctrine that allows them to present bombing and invading other countries at will as an act of supreme moral virtue.

Exhibit A is Iran. Just as they argued that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear bomb, so leading neocons are rehearsing the same arguments about Tehran. They say the U.S. has no choice but to go on the attack before Iran explodes a nuclear bomb and becomes a regional superpower with the ability to destroy Israel.

"The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what's necessary," John Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration, recently wrote in the New York Times. "Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran."

Similarly, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who studied under Harvey Mansfield, a neoconservative government professor at Harvard University, is pushing the GOP toward a more hawkish stand. In March, Cotton circulated a letter designed to torpedo the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran and in a speech at the Heritage Foundation said Congress should be "offering to transfer advanced weapons like surplus B-52 bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs to Israel."

If the neocons are well-represented in Congress, they also have the ear of some leading potential GOP presidential candidates...

It's like six degrees of separation for Heilbrunn. Sheesh. Most of the folks he mentions aren't even remotely considered "neocon." John Bolton, for example, repudiated the neocon label repeatedly in the years following the Iraq war, and especially around the time he served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. And Tom Cotton's a neocon because he took a class with a neocon? Well, most young college students should be communists by that standard, given the far-left colonization of the academy by America's ideological enemies.

Keep reading, for what it's worth.

Seriously. Heilbrunn even goes so far as to smear über isolationist Rand Paul by the dreaded "n-word." The horrors!

Mark Levin Hilariously Slams 'Munchkin' Republican 'Backbenchers': Says He's 'One Inch' from Leaving the GOP

I started giggling at the "munchkin" line.

Levin gets on an angry roll here, at the Right Scoop, "Mark Levin to the GOP: I AM ONE INCH AWAY FROM LEAVING YOU!"

Peter Wehner takes issue, at Commentary, "Mark Levin Should Leave the Republican Party."

Actually, I'd bet Levin has Wehner in mind when he hammers the "dissembling" Republicans.

Me, I'll all "meh." I'm a neocon. I don't identify as a Republican. I'll vote for them, mainly to stop the Democrat-Socialists. But you gotta give it to Levin for really letting it rip here. Hopefully the idiot "munchkins" boosting rhinos like Jeb Bush will get the message. Sheesh.

Be sure to give it a listen.

Awesome! Neocon Robert Kagan Slams Leftist Jane Harmon's Soft Power Narrative to Beat #ISIS (VIDEO)

National Review has the abbreviated clip, "Robert Kagan: Obama Administration Must Prove It’s Willing to Fight ISIS in Order to Gain Allies."

But the whole segment is good, from Face the Nation this morning. Kagan says soft power is fine and dandy, but ISIS doesn't care about soft power. If you want to beat folks like this you need to destroy them on the ground and bolster American respect around the world. Allies will flock to your banner then.

A great panel. Kagan's comments on hard power come at about 6:20 minutes.

The American Conservative 'Clears the Way for Global Jihad...'

From Robert Spencer, at Jihad Watch, "“The American Conservative” embraces the Islamic supremacist agenda":

The American Conservative (TAC) is a paleocon publication that counts among its founders Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos, both bitter critics of Israel who have been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, so it is not surprising that it would be venomously anti-Israel. But now its opposition to American interventionism (which I generally share, and particularly share in regard to the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters) has driven it straight over the cliff into active support for the Islamic supremacist agenda of demonizing foes of jihad terror and friends of Israel, thereby clearing away resistance to the global jihad.

Keep reading.

America's Dangerous Aversion to Conflict

A great piece, from Robert Kagan, at WSJ, "The U.S. increasingly yearns to escape the harsh realities of war, but as recent events make clear, raw force remains a key element in international politics."

Joshua Muravchik: Making David into Goliath

Here's another highly recommended book, from Joshua Muravchik, Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.

'In the summer of 2014, is it not clear that reality is neoconservative?...'

From Abe Greenwald, at Commentary, "Reality Is Neoconservative":

In the summer of 2014, is it not clear that reality is neoconservative?  That is to say, disposed toward violence and chaos in the absence of an American-led liberal world order. Recently, the case was made unwittingly not by a neoconservative, but rather by CBS News’s Bob Schieffer. “Trying to understand the news of this terrible summer,” he said, “it is hard to come away with any feeling but that we are in the midst of a world gone mad.” He went on:

On one side of the world, an ego-driven Russian leader seems to yearn for the time of the czars, when rulers started wars on a whim or a perceived insult — and if people died, so be it.
 In the Middle East, the Palestinian people find themselves in the grip of a terrorist group that has embarked on a strategy to get its own children killed in order to build sympathy for its cause — a strategy that might actually be working, at least in some quarters.

Schieffer closed with his own apt quote from Will Durant: “Barbarism, like the jungle, does not die out, but only retreats behind the barriers that civilization has thrown up against it, and waits there always to reclaim that to which civilization has temporarily laid claim.” The barbarians are back.

And just think of what Schieffer’s inventory of barbarism ignored. This week in Iraq, ISIS forced the last of Mosul’s Christians from the city under the threat of death. The United States evacuated its embassy in post-Gaddafi Libya, owing to an orgy of violence taking place there. In a recent 10-day period 1,800 Syrian civilians were killed in the ongoing civil war—a new conflict record.

And when Iran develops its fervently sought nuclear weapon, this will look in retrospect like our last carefree summer...

Continue reading.

Bill Kristol vs. Peter Beinart on Obama's Troop Drawdown

Ooohh, you gotta love it!

Transcript here.

'Cold War-Hungry Neocons' Stage-Managed Liz Wahl's Resignation from Russia Today? — ROTFLMFAO!!

OMG this is too much!

The epic Israel-hating scumbag Max Blumenthal posted a huge write-up to the communist rag Truthdig:

Wow. @MaxBlumenthal and @Truthdig reveal Neocons staged Liz Wahl's onair resignation from RT. http://t.co/aGIYllHDEQ
— Sean Kerrigan (@SeanJKerrigan) March 21, 2014

And hilariously Russia Today's picked it up and pumped the "neocon conspiracy" meme during its programming.



Hey, no doubt dreaded neocons are pushing for a bombing run on Moscow! World War III! We're on our way to a new clear day!



Meanwhile, left-wing whackjob Kevin Gosztola's been hassling Ms. Wahl on Twitter, even at one point misrepresenting himself as a reporter for Glenn Greenwald's First Look startup.

@kgosztola It's really sad when someone lies about their employment demanding answers. Please stop harassing me.

— Liz Wahl (@lizwahl) March 21, 2014

In any case, secure your tinfoil hat because there's more on this, from Dave Weigel, at Slate, "Your Guide to the Developing and Hilarious War Between RT and Neocons":

Yesterday afternoon I belately sat down with Liz Wahl, the former RT reporter who resigned on the air in protest of the Crimean incursion. We happened to meet up right after the left-leaning site TruthDig ran a piece that connected a bunch of facts that had never been concealed—for example, that the Foreign Policy Initiative was founded by Bill Kristol, and that Wahl's champion James Kirchick worked for it—so Wahl and I ended up talking about that.

A few readers have informed me that this controversy was impenetrable. Let me explain, because it's a deeply strange story and I'd hate for you to miss out.

Oh that is juicy. Keep reading! The suspense is excruciating!

And bonus! Here's even more lulz from Daniel Greenfield, at Frontpage Magazine, "Max Blumenthal Now Shilling for Putin":

Max Blumenthal, a creepy fellow you may know as Clinton aide Sid Blumenthal’s son who caught some public attention for writing a book that even critics of Israel referred to as a selection of the Hamas Book of the Month Club, is going Full Greenwald.

After an anchorwoman for Putin’s RT propaganda network resigned, Max Blumenthal wrote up an “expose” claiming that “Cold War-Hungry Neocons” were behind it.

By “Cold War-Hungry Neocons”, Blumenthal means James Kirchik, a gay writer for the Daily Beast who was around 9 when the USSR fell.

Apparently a “cadre of neoconservatives” hungry for Cold War and Hot Dogs targeted a propaganda news network that 99 percent of its viewers only encounter while searching for dashcam accidents on YouTube…. “to deepen tensions with Russia.”

Forget invading Crimea. The real tension deepening comes from an on-air resignation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to head down for a supply check in my underground bomb shelter, lol.

Disturbing Images: Photo Archive Is Said to Show Widespread Torture in Syria

At the New York Times, "If Genuine, Evidence of Mass War Crimes":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Emaciated corpses lie in the sand, their ribs protruding over sunken bellies, their thighs as thin as wrists. Several show signs of strangulation. The images conjure memories of some of history’s worst atrocities.

Numbers inscribed on more than 11,000 bodies in 55,000 photographs said to emerge from the secret jails of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, suggest that torture, starvation and execution are widespread and even systematic, each case logged with bureaucratic detail.

This collection of images was identified as having been part of a voluminous archive of torture and execution maintained by the Syrian government and smuggled out by a police photographer who defected and was given the code name Caesar.

So far, only a few photographs have actually been released by lawyers commissioned by the Qatari government, an avowed opponent of Mr. Assad, and the claims about their origins could not be independently verified.

If genuine, the trove is new visual corroboration that Mr. Assad’s government is guilty of mass war crimes against its own citizens, just as it appeared to regain some international standing. The photographs were released as delegates from the Syrian government and the opposition began gathering in Switzerland for long-awaited talks to find a political solution to end almost three years of civil war.

As always, the question is what's going to happen? Clearly, Assad must go, to use President Obama's cheap phrase. But how? The U.S. won't topple him. Neoconservative Robert Kagan is quoted at the piece:

Mr. Assad’s enemies say they hope the leak, first reported in The Guardian and on CNN, will cause enough revulsion in the West to prevent any deal that might leave him in place, or perhaps prod the West into more muscular steps to remove him, just as the disclosure of the Serbian massacre at Srebrenica in 1995 moved NATO to launch airstrikes in the Balkans.

But even the most determined advocates of Western intervention say the images may dramatize the moral cost of inaction but are unlikely to change the policy, especially given the American aversion to another entanglement in the Middle East.

“I feel like we have had at least one or two Srebrenica moments in Syria already,” said Robert Kagan, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has pushed for American action. “The White House has completely hardened itself to whatever horrendous news might come out of Syria because the president doesn’t want to get involved.”

Continue reading.

And the "Problem From Hell" lady, Ambassador Samantha Power, is fully aware of the latest revelations, but of course can't do a thing to stop the systemic slaughter:

Reports & smuggled-out pics of horrifying, seemingly systemic prisoner executions by Syrian regime. Pure inhumanity. http://t.co/HkOY4RHUIR

— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) January 22, 2014

No one wants U.S. intervention in Syria, and so Assad, whose regime has emerged as the bloodiest in decades, will continue in power, and the country will continue its spiral into what is the most deadly bastion of international terrorism since Iraq in 2006.

'Cheney, like her father, is an unapologetic neoconservative who favors muscular use of American military power overseas, a policy that does not sit well with many grassroots conservatives, particularly in the libertarian-leaning West...'

That's Liz Cheney, who I love, but who's now dropping out of the Wyoming Senate race, not surprisingly.

At CNN, "First on CNN: Liz Cheney to abandon Senate bid" (via Memeorandum).

Neocon Elizabeth O'Bagy's Controversial Op-Ed at the Wall Street Journal

Here's the lady's commentary, which was out last weekend at WSJ, "On the Front Lines of Syria's Civil War."

Folks should read that first, before diving into the controversy, which has unusually steep policy implications.

While Ms. O'Bagy is identified at the op-ed as "a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War," it turns out she's also affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), an anti-Assad political action committee with a pending application for 501(c)(3) non-profit status at the IRS. Foreign Policy cited the lady's credentials in June as the "political director at SETF." And here's the group's press release, "SETF Welcomes Dr. Elizabeth O'Bagy to DC Staff."

Recall that the Institute for the Study of War is Kimberly Kagan's neoconservative foreign policy think tank. It's pretty interesting that O'Bagy's piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain during hearings this week. But the pushback was enough for the Institute to publish an addendum to Ms. O'Bagy's biography at the website:

Press Advisory- September 6, 2013:

The Institute for the Study of War employs Elizabeth O’Bagy as a senior analyst on its Syria portfolio.  She also has a role in the Syria Emergency Task Force that she wishes to clarify.  She states:

“The Syrian Emergency Task Force has filed with the IRS to register as a 501 (c) 3, and has been an important subcontractor for the United States and British governments in providing aid and assistance to the Syrian people. I work with the Syrian Emergency Task Force in an advisory capacity on a number of humanitarian aid and governance building contracts. I am hired on a contractual basis in my role as the Political Director and Humanitarian Aid Coordinator, but do not receive a salary from the organization. In this role with the Task Force, I have worked on a number of contracts with the United States Department of State to provide an evaluation of the current aid and assistance programs inside Syria and provide guidance on how to better implement these programs.

“The Syrian Emergency Task Force does have a registered 501 (c) 4 and does engage in political advocacy. However I do not work with this office and I do not lobby on their behalf. My role within the organization has been limited to humanitarian efforts funded through the United States Department of State and the British Foreign Office.”

Kimberly Kagan, President of the Institute for the Study of War, writes, “I have great confidence in Elizabeth O’Bagy and her work.  She has written numerous, fully documented reports on the Syrian opposition.  Her nuanced arguments, the evidence on which she bases them, and the citations of her sources are available for all to examine.”

As far as I can tell, Ms. O'Bagy's a Ph.D. candidate at Georgetown University. She's young, 26 years-old. All this seems to bother Jerome Corsi, who writes at WND, "Obama relying on student's spin on Syria?"

Corsi's a spinmeister himself, so take that FWIW. He does link to an interesting Reuters piece out Thursday, "Kerry portrait of Syria rebels at odds with intelligence reports."And see the commentary at Wintery Knight, "Intelligence reports show Islamic extremists dominate Syrian opposition."

There's also a Memeorandum thread with the salacious headline, "Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Draws Scrutiny Over Writer's Ties to Syrian Rebel Advocacy Group."

So who's right?

Ms. O'Bagy's traveled frequently to Syria, as recently as one month ago. The territorial division of control among rebel groups she describes sounds both logical and realistic. But the appearance of outside militants aligned with al Qaeda wasn't a factor over a year ago, when the administration would've had less worry over arming terrorists. At this point it's hard to believe that "moderates" still dominate the opposition. Indeed, recall what Edward Luttwak wrote a couple of weeks ago:

The war is now being waged by petty warlords and dangerous extremists of every sort: Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways; Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion; and jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States.

That sounds more like it, although perhaps more "on-the-ground" research reports will clear things up. But that's not my problem. It's Obama's and his bomb-happy allies in the Senate. And so far I don't think they're making the sale.

ADDED: Here's Daniel Greenfield's report that indicates that the Free Syrian Army forces under General Idris is riddled with Islamists, "The Wall Street Journal’s Misleading Report on the 'Moderate' Syrian Opposition."

And don't miss Rusty Shackleford, "Study: Red Unicorn, Rainbow Brigades Dominate Syrian Opposition."

What Neocon Revival?

Here's a key passage from David Brooks at the New York Time, "The Neocon Revival":

Neocons put values at the center of their governing philosophy, but their social policy was neither morally laissez-faire like the libertarians nor explicitly religious like some social conservatives. Neocons mostly sought policies that would encourage self-discipline. “In almost every area of public concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers, or voters and public officials,” James Q. Wilson wrote.

How would they know if programs induced virtue? Empirically. “Neoconservatives, accordingly, place a lot of stock in applied social science research, especially the sort that evaluates old programs and tests new ones,” Wilson added.

Nobody would call George F. Will a neocon, but, in 1983, he published a superb book called “Statecraft as Soulcraft.” It championed the sort of governing conservatism that was common then and is impermissible now. “It is generally considered obvious that government should not, indeed cannot, legislate morality. But, in fact, it does so, frequently; it should do so more often,” Will wrote.

He was not calling for a theocracy. He was calling for “strong government conservatism,” for a limited but energetic government that could cultivate the best in persons by educating the passions. “American conservatives are caught in the web of their careless antigovernment rhetoric,” he concluded.

Brooks reiterates a key point about neoconservatism: that its essence is a domestic policy movement, despite the rise of the foreign policy Vulcans during the George W. Bush administration.

But what Brooks doesn't do is examine how the so-called neocon support for "strong government" in fact erodes the values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency that are central to a conservative creed. Also neglected is the notion that some Republicans thought of as neocons, John McCain comes to mind, have become the biggest enablers of dependency-state Democrats in recent years, and have thus tarnished the brand nearly beyond redemption. Indeed, McCain's now saying he'd more likely back Hillary Clinton over Rand Paul in 2016, which raises the question: When will McRINO be switching parties? (See IBD, "Why Does John McCain Keep Running as a Republican?")

The problem for neoconservatism is not to surrender to laissez-faire libertarianism, it's simply to stand up for the very values that it purports to champion. Pushing for a "strong government" conservatism at this point simply empowers Democrat big government. Neocons need to reconnect with the mediating institutions that help families free themselves from government dependency. This doesn't mean becoming a 100 percent small-g conservative. It means standing up for values by reining in out-of-control Democrat-collectivist entitlement statism. Without that, there is no "neocon revival."

RELATED: From Reihan Salam, at National Review, "Searching for Irving Kristol" (via Memeorandum).

Liz Cheney Will Run for U.S. Senate

Let's be honest here: Liz Cheney really doesn't want to be a U.S. Senator, she wants to be president. Thus she's got to have experience in elected office, and the Senate would give her a credible, if not esteemed, perch to launch a presidential bid.

As for the politics of Wyoming, they say Mike Enzi's well liked, although no doubt tea party conservatives could pick through his voting record and find thing to grumble about. Is Liz Cheney that grassroots as to have automatic support of the conservative outsiders storming the gates of Washington? I don't know, although certainly anti-incumbency sentiment could help her in the primary.

Personally, I'd like to see a President Cheney, hence I fully support her upstart challenge to the incumbent. But the whiff of carpetbagging is strong, and lots of establishment types --- D.C. beltway hacks who have a lot of power --- aren't so thrilled with Cheney's chutzpah, so we'll see.

At the Hill, "Liz Cheney to primary Sen. Enzi in Wyoming." (Via Memeorandum.)



PREVIOUSLY: "Liz Cheney Looking to Challenge Mike Enzi for Wyoming Senate."