Foer on Kristol

In the wake of the Iraq war, a fascination with neoconservatism -- a fascination that had previously been shared by very few people, one of them being Frank -- exploded into the political and even the popular culture. But the concept became deeply vulgurized and misunderstood. One common and very crude assumption interpreted the neocons as simply a form of the Israel lobby, crafting doctrines for American power that were merely devised to justify Israel's interests.

The truth is that the original neocons were very far from deep, emotional supporters of Israel. They were pro-Israel, but their pro-Israel views stemmed from their general hawkishness rather than vice versa. In any case, the neoconservative ideology was wildly simplistic and intellectually corrupt, as Frank well shows, but this particular understanding of it has always been misplaced.