The Neo-con sitcom moves on...

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Does Father Know Best?
The making of American foreign policy – a sitcom in two acts
by Justin Raimondo

Leave it to the Americans to consider their foreign policy in terms of a family drama: the current narrative is that Rummy's exit signals the arrival of Daddy's Wise Men to bail out Junior from the mess he's made in the Iraqi sandbox. Like a frat boy who has maxed out his credit card or totaled his flashy new sports car, poor little Georgie-Porgie has finally turned to Daddykins for advice he once spurned. Just like in an episode of Father Knows Best – or, better yet, Leave It To Beaver…

If Richard Perle is Eddie Haskell, and Dubya is Wally, then no wonder the events of the past few days strike a note of dιjΰ vu. After all, didn't bad boy Eddie always deny his role in fomenting trouble, leaving Wally to take the brunt of his father's wrath? Perle and his fellow cabalists are now washing their hands of Iraq, claiming that the president didn't really follow their advice, and of course it was just a coincidence that their disavowals – including from David "Axis of Evil" Frum, former White House speechwriter and author of a Bush hagiography, The Right Man – came on election eve.

"The Boys Are Back in Town" avers Howard Fineman in Newsweek, by which he means the Wise Men who surround Bush the Father. When Bush the Son came to power, he hooked up with his new friends – the neocons – and put them in positions of power and influence. Now that they've left the place a shambles, the Wise Men are back, and they have a job to do. James Baker III, the Old Man's grand vizier, is heading up what is naturally being called the Baker Commission, charged with coming up with a solution to the Iraqi conundrum, while Robert Gates – head of the CIA in the Bush I administration – takes Rummy's place at Defense. The neocons are out, the "realists" – sometimes called "pragmatists" – are in, and it's a New Era in Washington.

Or is it?

It isn't just the Iranians, the Syrians, the Saudis, the Israelis, the Kurds, and the Lebanese factions that the Wise Men have to deal with. There are also domestic roadblocks to a comprehensive – or incremental – settlement of the Middle Eastern question, notably what John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call "the Lobby" in their seminal study of Israel's lobby in the U.S. It was the Lobby that, in large part, lured us into the Iraqi quagmire, and this same concatenation of forces stands in the way of an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The Lobby opposes a Middle East settlement: they stand for expanding Israeli interests, at the expense of the Arabs and the Persians, and their goal [.pdf] – the atomization of existing Middle Eastern states down to a more manageable stature – is being rapidly accomplished in Iraq. Their goal is to duplicate the process throughout the region, and this means more "regime change" – in Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran.

In any contest pitting the Baker Commission against the Lobby, the outcome is going to be problematic – but I'd put my money on the latter. Especially as the neocons ditch their old Republican allies and attach themselves to a new host – the Democratic Party – it is hard to see how the War Party is going to be stopped. Unless, of course, the American people wake up in time – there's always that possibility. The recent election is proof that they haven't fallen permanently asleep: they can be roused, if only there's the right stimulus.

It remains to be seen what the Wise Men are up to, but I wouldn't put much store in it: whatever it is, it's likely to proceed at a snail's pace, and, for the reasons given above, the clock is ticking…
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