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I just found this, and it's great. "The Guns of 17th Street", a review of Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy edited by Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan published in the spring 2001 issue of The National Interest. The author is Jonathan Clarke, a former British diplomat and conservative foreign policy analyst who, as you'll see, was hating on neoconservatives before it was cool.

UPDATE: FYI, both The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute are located on 17th Street here in sunny Washington, DC. Clarke's book, co-written with Stefan Harper, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order is very good but a bit dated at this point.

Comments

It pains me to write it: "Kriston" s/b "Kristol"

Posted by: Kriston on October 25, 2006 02:31 PM

Great stuff. Has anyone read Clarke's book "America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and Global Power"? I hardly need yet another book analysing neocon flaws, but the article Matt linked to was so perceptive that I might have to find his book.

Posted by: Ricky Barnhart on October 25, 2006 02:37 PM

It's not all great.

Elliott Abrams, one of the contributors with whom this reviewer had the privilege to cooperate in various Anglo-American forums on Central America, can attest to the vicious personal attacks he suffered for his courageous pursuit of a value-based policy that led to the defeat of the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran guerrillas. President Ronald Reagan, the hero of this book, was excoriated for his evil empire" approach to the Soviet Union. Yet there is little doubt that, had it not been for Reagan's willingness to go beyond intellectual criticism of communism and commit himself to a forward-leaning action plan for its removal, the chances are good that the gulag woul d still be entertaining its guests.
Posted by: otrov on October 25, 2006 02:37 PM

The essay does note this unsavory trait among the neo-cons:

There is a fascination with history's strong men, as if the "Triumph des Willen" was an admirable trait, albeit expressed as evil in certain of them. Whether this is really compatible with American ideals of limited, constitutional government by laws rather than by men is the subject of another essay.

It isn't simply their spin that has tried to elevate the uber bozo Bush to Churchillian status. Their desire to follow a strongman means that whoever it is they hitch their wagon to must actually be worthy of them. Their 6th rate academic bad selves.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on October 25, 2006 02:56 PM

Jeffry Davis illustrates the exact same quote that caught my eye, although I thought the beginning of it even more interesting:

There is a curious flavor of Nietzschean "will" running through this book. There is a constant appeal to the need to mobilize the people to war. The "present dangers" of the title turn out not to be external threats but the possibility that the American people will not be sufficiently ready to lift up arms.

Posted by: dynamicinfo on October 25, 2006 06:39 PM

At essay length, Clarke is reasonably honest. He acknowledges AFL-CIO funding for Solidarnosc in Poland, that Reagan was wacko in Reykjavik, that it was the Serbian people who brought down Milosevic and Boris Yeltsin who stood up most forcefully to Soviet hardliners. What gives? Is it a British thing?

Posted by: Doug on October 25, 2006 07:26 PM

There's this bit, too: "With regard to the role of law, we should remember that we put the Nazis on trial inter alia for the crime of making war. If, as the authors suggest, they rehabilitate war as an acceptable instrument of national policy, there should perhaps be a passing reference to the legal ramifications."

Actually, it was the crime of waging war of aggression, but he's got that understatement thing going pretty well. "Passing reference to the legal ramifications" being another way of saying "keep your leaders out of the dock at The Hague or elsewhere."

Posted by: Doug on October 25, 2006 07:34 PM

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