THE PALEOS TALK THEMSELVES DOWN OFF THE LEDGE

Is the Neoconservative Moment Over? (Pat Buchanan, 06/14/2003, The American Conservative)

The salad days of the neoconservatives, which began with the president's Axis-of-Evil address in January 2002 and lasted until the fall of Baghdad may be coming to an end. Indeed, it is likely the neoconservatives will never again enjoy the celebrity and cachet in which they reveled in their romp to war on Iraq.

While this is, admittedly, a prediction, it rests on reasonable assumptions. But why should neoconservatism, at the apparent apex of its influence, be on the edge of eclipse?

Answer: the high tide of neoconservatism may have passed because the high tide of American empire may have passed. "World War IV," the empire project, the great cause of the neocons, seems to have been suspended by the President of the United States.

While we still hear talk of "regime change" in Iran and North Korea, U.S. forces not tied down in occupation duties by the anarchy and chaos in Iraq, are returning home.

The first signal that the apogee of American hegemony in the Middle East has been reached came as U.S. soldiers and marines were completing their triumphant march into Baghdad. Suddenly, all the bellicosity toward Syria from neoconservatives and the Pentagon, stopped, apparently on the orders of the Commander in Chief.

What's curious is not that the moment should be over so soon but that as astute an observer as Mr. Buchanan should not have recognized all along that it would be brief. A people who couldn't summon the will to finish a real war, like WWII, were never likely to finish off such an amorphous one as the "war on terror". There may be enough impetus left to stick to it until the regimes in N. Korea and Iran fall, but not much more than that. Then it's back to splendid isolation, which is our default posture towards the world. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 15, 2003 6:22 AM