Originally published on the CGS blog on October 9, 2007.
The Washington Note’s Sameer Lalwani argues/affirms/reaffirms/repeats that John Bolton is, in fact, not a petty neoconservative, but rather a pugnacious nationalist . Okay. Maybe he’s right (unlikely)…maybe he’s wrong (likely). But I’m a simple midwesterner, so I don’t care if you call it a pretty pig or a sexy swine, it’s all bacon and pork chops to me. Very simply, Bolton’s bad news if you want a U.S. foreign policy that is principled, morally sound and reflects an enlightened national self-interest.
But here’s where Sameer and I really disagree:
While it is at least conceivable that neo-cons might be brought around to constructive foreign policy engagements through a re-appropriation and re-deployment of their own rhetoric on democratization and ostensible support for human rights (though they have thus far disavowed the consequences that can accompony such moral campaigns), it is evident from Clemons’s and Rachman’s assessments that Bolton cares little for such moral crusades that depart from his narrow notion of US interests.
Conceivable that neocons might be brought around to constructive foreign policy engagements?! Re-appropriation and re-deployment of their own rhetoric on democratization and ostensible support for human rights? Seriously, Sameer? What could possibly lead you to this assertion? I certainly have seen nothing that would suggest such a shift in neoconservatism.
And suspending reality for a second or two, if neconservatives somehow aligned with interventionist liberal hawks in the name of democratization and human rights, would that make our foreign policy more or less unilateralist and militaristic? And would that in turn make the world more or less secure and peaceful? I’ll leave you to answer those questions and ponder your own results.
Let’s not put lipstick on the proverbial pigs that are pugnacious nationalists and their neoconservative brethren, because they are all incredibly dangerous to U.S. and global interests in both the short- and long-term.
