Think Again: Neocons

A cabal of neoconservatives has hijacked the Bush administration's foreign policy and transformed the world's sole superpower into a unilateral monster. Say what? In truth, stories about the "neocon" ascendancy -- and the group's insidious intent to wage preemptive wars across the globe -- have been much exaggerated. And by telling such tall tales, critics have twisted the neocons' identities and thinking on U.S. foreign policy into an unrecognizable caricature.

BY MAX BOOT | JANUARY 1, 2004

"The Bush Administration Is Pursuing a Neoconservative Foreign Policy"

If only it were true! The influence of the neoconservative movement (with which I am often associated) supposedly comes from its agents embedded within the U.S. government. The usual suspects are Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense; Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy; Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s...

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Max Boot is Olin senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, and author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

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