In September 2000, the primary Neocon thinktank, Project for a New American Century, published a report Rebuilding America's Defenses outlining a blueprint for using the dominant American military power to "redesign" the middleeast with an invasion of Iraq to topple Saddham Hussein and plant military bases across the area as a centerpeices of the the plan. Today the Washington Post suggests that the PNAC may be closing its doors as it sees its Mission Accomplished.
The doors may be closing shortly on the nine-year-old Project for a New American Century, the neoconservative think tank headed by William Kristol , former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and now editor of the Weekly Standard, which is must reading for neocon cogitators and agitators.
The PNAC was short on staff -- having perhaps a half-dozen employees -- but very long on heavy hitters. The founders included Richard B. Cheney , Donald H. Rumsfeld , Paul D. Wolfowitz , Jeb Bush , I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , William J. Bennett, Zalmay Khalilzad and Quayle.
PNAC Philosophy and Members Became Dominate Drivers Of Bush Foreign Policy
After President George Bush (43) was elected in 2000, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. essentially intalled not only the PNAC blueprint as the foundation for a radicle change of US Foreign Policy, but also, intalled its members as the key leaders in most of the top tops the Bush Government.
The goal was to continue the Reaganite, muscular approach to projecting American power and "moral clarity" in a post-Cold War world, the group's manifesto said. The targets were liberal drift and conservative isolationism.
PNAC and its supporters dominated the Bush administration's foreign policy apparatus and championed a policy to get rid of Saddam Hussein long before Sept. 11, 2001.
In its famous 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton , PNAC said "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime . . . now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy." Clinton was urged to use all diplomatic, political and military means to topple him.
But PNAC Fantasy Ideology Crumbled When Confronted With The Realities Of Iraq
But it did not take long to discover that the Iraqis were not secretly waiting for us with flowers to welcome us as liberators.
Despite the happy chatter before the Iraq invasion about cheering crowds and bouquets and cakewalks and how the war was going to pay for itself, the signatories wrote that "we are fully aware of the dangers of implementing this policy."
There had been debate about PNAC's future, but the feeling, a source said, was of "goal accomplished" and it looks to be heading toward closing. Former executive director Gary J. Schmitt , who had been executive director of President Ronald Reagan 's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, left recently for a post at the American Enterprise Institute. (Not a big move. Actually, only five floors up from PNAC.) Still, seems like a short century.
This is mixed good news, bad news. On one hand, PNAC's neocon influence on US foreign policy has been so disastorous, seeing it closed down, places another nail in the coffin of this discredited approach.
On the other hand, however, the fact that many of its members and proponents are merely changing their address and cover story, as we see with Gary Schmitt moving five floods up to the American Enterprise Institutte, it may be more difficult to keep track of them.
Which is no doubt, part of the public relations value of the rearangment. Just when we have developed a strong bead on PNAC and collected enough history and sufficient widespread public knowledge to hold them accountable for their discredited and failed policies, they change the name.
But much of the song remains the same. Many are eager to carry out the rest of the PNAC plan to attack Iran, Syria and other countries to "redesign the middle east" in Condileeza Rice's words.
Like the many headed Hydra of Greek mythology, if we merely chop off its head, two more grow to replace it. The neocon philosophy is a beast we must continue to track down and drive a stake through its heart. Spreading former members around in other conservative thinktanks is just going to make this more challenging.