AIPAC vs. the Neocons on Iran

A piece today in Bloomberg View headlined the fight between the Israel lobby and the Republican über-hawks as “Aipac vs. Pro-Israel Republicans.” But it would more accurately be called “AIPAC vs. the Neocons.” And we shouldn’t forget for a moment that the bankrupt ideology of neoconservatism is behind these efforts; the line between leading neocons and this obstructionism is too easy to trace—and too laughably reminiscent of their misadventure in Iraq.

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Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?

Based on her public record and Gates’s insider account, Clinton could be expected to favor a more neoconservative approach to the Mideast, one more in line with the traditional thinking of Official Washington and the belligerent dictates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As a U.S. senator and as Secretary of State, Clinton rarely challenged the conventional wisdom or resisted the use of military force to solve problems. She famously voted for the Iraq War in 2002 – falling for President George W. Bush’s bogus WMD case – and remained a war supporter until her position became politically untenable during Campaign 2008.

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Things Get Tense as Kirsten Powers Battles Krauthammer Over Definition of Neocon: ‘You’re a Neocon!’

“You both know what a neocon is and you both know neoconservatives—,” Powers said.

“Can you define it,” Krauthammer interjected.

Powers was seemingly baffled by her co-panelists’ position.

“They’re people who mostly used to be liberals, who became Republicans over foreign policy, they are more hawkish on foreign policy, Irving Kristol, is a neocon. You’re a neocon!” she told Krauthammer. “You acting like we don’t know — like there are no neocons?”

A few moments later, host Bret Baier asked if the definition is “someone who always wants to go to war.”

“Somebody who, I think, is hawkish on foreign policy—,” Powers said before being cut off.

“Is Hillary Clinton a neocon?” Bayer asked.

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The Neocons: First in War, Last in Peace

The neocon Founders and their acolytes were largely Jews scarred by the Holocaust, much like the men and women with whom I tended to associate. To their credit few of them had suffered any illusions about Stalin’s Russia. But the same was true of those of us on the non-Communist left. Irving Howe — Kristol’s former pal and later his bitter ideological adversary, who would write an introduction to a volume of Present Tense profiles I later edited– loathed the neocons, and vice versa. He once wrote a biting Op Ed mocking neocons for defending Reagan’s alliance with Contra “freedom fighters” in its secret proxy war against Nicaragua. Inspired, I assigned an amazing journalist, Tina Rosenberg, who later moved on to the New York Times, to cover the troubles south of the border, which she did in several impressive reports, none of which I imagine the bellicose pro-Reagan neocons on the floor above appreciated After the U.S.-favored Chilean-Pinochet coup against the elected Salvador Allende, Rosenberg quoted a popular joke among Chileans. “Why is there no military coup in America?” The answer: “There’s no U.S. Embassy.”

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Paul On GOP Neocons, Krauthammer: Sometimes They’re ‘Just Wrong’

Sen. Rand Paul kicked off his 2016 presidential bid by calling out several factions of the Republican Party, including the “neocon” branch of the GOP that Paul says has a war-hawk mentality whose policies make the U.S. “less safe as a nation.”

Speaking with Fox News Wednesday, Paul addressed criticism from conservative Fox contributor Charles Krauthammer, saying that “neocons” in the Republican Party are “actually much closer to President Obama than I am.” The Kentucky Republican also detailed how America’s aggressive foreign policy stances often “backfire” and that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants are using “our American arms.”

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Neocon "Chaos Promotion" in the Mideast

Former Washington insider and four-star General Wesley Clark spilled the beans several years ago on how Paul Wolfowitz and his neoconservative co-conspirators implemented their sweeping plan to destabilize key Middle Eastern countries once it became clear that post-Soviet Russia "won't stop us."

As I recently reviewed a YouTube eight-minute clip of General Clark's October 2007 speech, what leaped out at me was that the neocons had been enabled by their assessment that – after the collapse of the Soviet Union – Russia had become neutralized and posed no deterrent to U.S. military action in the Middle East.

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Neocons Against Iran Diplomacy

There never have been real consequences for those responsible for the neoconservative foray into Iraq. Neither have they been charged for their devious entry into Iraq, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, nor for policies that decimated the Iraqi livelihood. Now neocon voices seem to seek another war, this time with Iran.

Will war talk work? War fatigue is being replaced by ISIL fears, and most memories are short anyway, especially considering that few Americans were directly impacted, one percent of Americans fighting our wars.

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Paul On GOP Neocons, Krauthammer: Sometimes They’re ‘Just Wrong’

Speaking with Fox News Wednesday, Paul addressed criticism from conservative Fox contributor Charles Krauthammer, saying that “neocons” in the Republican Party are “actually much closer to President Obama than I am.” The Kentucky Republican also detailed how America’s aggressive foreign policy stances often “backfire” and that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants are using “our American arms.”

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RAND HITS BACK AT ‘JUVENILE’ ‘NEOCON COMMUNITY’ CRITICS

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) shot back at his “juvenile” critics who he said were members of the “neocon community” during an interview broadcast on Tuesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

Rand responded to an attack ad that played a clip of him saying Iran wasn’t a threat to the US’ national security by stating, “things do change over time. Also, I wasn’t campaigning for myself, I was campaigning to help my father at the time. But I would say that almost every element of the ad’s a lie. I mean, they say I’m helping the president. I’m actually one who has said to the president that this deal, when it becomes final, has to be finalized by Congress, and I said I’ve done that to actually strengthen the president’s hand. But I do want him negotiating from a position of strength,” which he said Obama isn’t, and expressed his concern over Iran’s “lack of sincerity” due to their rhetoric, sponsorship of terrorism, and threatening of Israel, and his belief they should never be trusted with a nuke.

He continued, “I have no idea really who these people are [behind the ad]. But I think that they’re–I would say they’re part of the neocon community. The neoconservatives sort of believe, these are the same people who wanted to give arms to Gaddafi, and then the next years, wanted to topple Gaddafi. They’ve been on both sides of every war, they only thing consistent about their message is, ‘we should always be at war.'”

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GOP Senator Tom Cotton vows to block final Iran agreement

US Republican Senator Tom Cotton, known for his close links to a neoconservative group, says he will leave no stone unturned in order to sabotage a final nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran.

According to reports, Cotton received one million dollars from the Emergency Committee for Israel, a neoconservative group associated with Israel lobby, just before the last US election. The group was founded in mid-2010 by William [Bill] Kristol, a US neoconservative political analyst.

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Being A Neocon Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

Brownfeld notes that John Bolton, Joshua Muravchik, and Bill Kristol have all advocated attacking Iran, just as they advocated attacking Iraq. Of course, Iraq used to act as a counterweight to Iran, until we overthrew Saddam Hussein. Now, Iraq's Shiite dominated government is essentially allied with Iran.
Brownfeld also notes that the neocons have a long record of exaggerating Iran's aggressiveness, reminding us that one of the favorite gurus of the Bush Administration, Bernard Lewis, predicted in 2006 that an Iranian attack on Israel was imminent.


The neocons also have a long record of exaggerating Iran's military capability.

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Neo-conservatives promoted war with Iraq, now look toward Iran

Neo-conservatives who successfully pushed the nation to war with Iraq, a country that never attacked us and never possessed the Bush Administration’s “weapons of mass destruction,” are now promoting war with Iran, a country more than three times the size of Iraq.

The war in Iraq did not go well, defying the neo-conservatives’ prediction that U.S. troops would be welcomed with open arms. That war had a series of unintended consequences, as wars always do. It left a regional power vacuum that helped promote the growth of ISIS, helped increase the chaos in Syria and increased the regional importance of Iran.

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