Sour grapes and conspiracy-mongering characterize the left’s response to President George W. Bush. Far more profound is the growing disquiet of conservatives. Their case is ably expressed in measured tones and backed with voluminous research by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke in their new book, “America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order.”
Mr. Halper served in the Defense and State Departments under Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Mr. Clarke is a former British diplomat. Both men see America’s “moral authority at risk.”
What frustrates them is neither a vigorous response “to the catastrophic horror of September 11, 2001” nor a willingness to act alone when necessary. Rather, they write, “the post-9/11 policy was in fact grounded in an ideology that existed well before the terror attacks and that in a stroke of opportunistic daring by its progenitors, has emerged as the new orthodoxy.” The result has left us less rather than more secure.
It is a damning indictment. Mr. Halper and Mr. Clarke eschew the emotion, hysteria and cant of the left. “When we rallied to Ronald Reagan’s clarion cry of the ’Evil Empire’,” they allow, “We never anticipated the day when Americans, as a result of their interventions around the world, would be held in lower esteem than if they had simply stayed home.”
Ultimately,”America Alone” centers on how the neoconservatives have turned their policy prescriptions into America’s national security strategy. The problem, in the view of the authors, is that:
“[T]he neo-conservatives have taken American international relations on an unfortunate detour, veering away from the balanced, consensus-building, and resource-husbanding approach that has characterized traditional Republican internationalism … and acted more as a special interest focused on its particular agenda.
“We reach this conclusion reluctantly inasmuch as it implies that the American global role, to which we attach great value as a force for good, has not been as effective as it should have been.”
Mr. Halper and Mr. Clarke first review what neoconservatives believe. In general, the latter make absolutist moral claims, emphasize the unilateral use of military power for multiple foreign policy ends and focus on the Middle East and Islam. A chapter in “America Alone” reviews the fascinating growth of neoconservatism from an obscure academic movement in the 1960s to a governing elite in the 2000s.
Although some neoconservatives achieved positions of power during the Reagan years, Mr. Reagan was far more ecumenical and pragmatic than they liked. By the end of his tenure, they accused Mr. Reagan of appeasing the Soviets and selling out Israel. Their flirtation with Bill Clinton was even briefer.
George W. Bush provided neoconservatives with a new opportunity but, note the authors, “George Bush did not approach office with a foreign policy predisposed toward the neoconservative agenda.” It was September 11 that allowed the neoconservative movement to “hijack” U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Halper and Mr. Clarke admit that the word is harsh, but argue convincingly that there is no better one.
The authors are critics — conservative critics. There is no nonsense here about going to war for oil or being bought by Halliburton. Rather, they worry about the damage done to the American republic by a vast social engineering project gone bad. One of the most serious costs has been to undercut the war on terrorism by shifting troops and resources to Iraq and degrading international cooperation.
The latter is a particular concern of Mr. Halper and Mr. Clarke, who spent their careers enhancing the Western alliance. They write that the neoconservative “disregard for international opinion is particularly pernicious. It risks turning garden-variety anti-Americanism into something more insidious, specifically an activist phenomenon that we call ’counter-Americanism’.”
This is especially dangerous at a time when America’s greatest security threat is a transnational matrix of terrorist groups that cannot be destroyed by the United States alone.
President Bush obviously is well-intentioned and resolute. His neoconservative advisers are smart and creative. But, worry Mr. Halper and Mr. Clarke, they’ve got the policy wrong. As a result, say the authors, we see “financial and military resources stretched to the breaking point, moral authority dissipated, allies alienated, adversaries energized and radicalized.” America risks losing the war on terrorism.
“America Alone” is a sobering critique of U.S. foreign policy by two serious conservatives. What makes their book so powerful is that their conclusion appears to be so right.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Reagan.
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