Yes? There is some reason to think otherwise? 
You want one guess on who both Irving and Bill Kristol supported in the 2000 primaries? Wikipedia takes one speech by Kristol summing up the neoconservative movement over 40 years and turns it into a policy platform.
On all the big things, the things that matter, John McCain agrees with the neconservatives.
We now know that members of the Bush Admin were pushing plans to invade or at least regime-change Iraq, not only after 9/11, but right after W took office. Would McCain have gone along with that?!
Look, I cited the 5 principles. I think I made the case that the only true overlap are the two issues that hawks have always agreed with. If you still disagree that is fine, but was my analysis wrong?
Jim
I think it was, because I don’t think those 5 principles are really the five principles of neoconservativism, in spite of Kristol’s speech. Of those five principles you’ve cited, the core of neoconservativism is a combination of 4 and 5. Your points 1, 2, and 3 are distractions, minor points. And even on your points 1-3, it’s not like McCain is off the reservation on any of those. He likes small government, but he doesn’t make a fetish of it like Grover Norquest, and he’s been consistantly pro-life, for instance, for his political career.
Sure, why not?
4 & 5 don’t define Neocon though, it just defines Hawk. Teddy was a Neocon if that is all Neocon is. By your definition I will concede that McCain is a Neocon. By your definition Rudy would be a Neocon. I don’t think your definition is accurate.
Jim
Hawks support the projection of American power, by force if neccesary, so in that regard, all neocons are hawks. But mere projection of power is content-free. Neocons support the projection of power to protect democracy and spread democratic values and values of human rights around the world. So, while all neocons are hawks, not all hawks are neocons.
In hindsight there are a lot of “why nots,” but I suppose you’re asking how it would have appeared differently to McCain in January 2001.
Let me restate the question: There were two plans for Iraq: “Plan A,” devised by the “realists” at the State Department (stage coup d’etat with American military support; install one of Saddam’s cashiered generals as president; hold snap elections to legitimize him; leave everything else as is); and “Plan B,” devised by the neocons at the Pentagon (invade, take over, privatize and free-marketize everything in Iraq). Which would McCain more likely have favored?
You misspelled “market capitalism” and “American hegemony.”
Two things:
We would still have opposed the Hussein regime - we had since 1990 and replacement of that regime became explicit American policy after 1996.
Would we have opposed Iraq in a more forceful way after Clinton? I think so. The twin phenomena of the McCain presidency and the breakdown of the sanctions regime would have forced this. Hell, Al Gore would likely have had to oppose Iraq with more force than his predecessor.
No, I meant what I said. Misrepresent what the neocons stand for all you want, but the fact that you’re cynical about their motivations doesn’t invalidate them.
Well that is fair, but I still see the other part of the Neocons agenda as the part I have always feared more.
I don’t think McCain is their poster boy by any means.
Jim
I honestly am sooo tired of the faux-shocked “The Bush administration wanted to remove Saddam from power BEFORE 9/11!”.
Of course they did. Because, get this, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, except in the sense that after 9/11 the american people had a larger appetite for kicking some foreign ass. What’s so shocking about the PNAC advocating getting rid of Saddam pre 9/11?
Imagining that McCain wouldn’t have invaded Iraq because he wasn’t influenced by the PNAC is silly. Bush didn’t invade Iraq because of 9/11, as you say, he wanted Saddam’s scalp from day one. And so would a President McCain. That’s not to say that McCain would have invaded Iraq either, just that McCain would have the same incentives to invade Iraq that Bush did.
Any American president after the first Gulf War would have wanted Saddam deposed, the only question would be what steps they would be willing to take to make it happen. Probably few presidents would have taken as big a risk as Bush did, for obvious reasons. But any president would have wanted to get rid of Saddam, if they thought it could be done without paying too high a price.
Nothing faux about it. So far as the public knew before 9/11, the Bush Admin’s policy toward Iraq was to be substantially the same as Clinton’s – containment, with an open-ended commitment to regime change. Even the news a low-key coup was being plotted would have been a damaging and embarrassing leak.
I think if a CIA agent had made a trip to inform President McCain about a potential attack by Osama bin Laden against the US, he wouldn’t have simply said “You covered your ass, now go away!” I think there’s a fair chance that he would have taken it seriously and the 9/11 plot would have been foiled. With that done, no Iraq war, more stability in the Middle East, and we’re still paying $2 per gallon for gas.
Right, but that other stuff isn’t really part of the neocons agenda. It’s tactical stuff. Neoconservativism is primarily a foreign policy philosophy…it doesn’t have much to say about domestic affairs.
Except what does the Iraq war have to do with 9/11?
Without 9/11 selling an adventure like the Iraq war might be more difficult, but the Iraq war wasn’t a logical consequence of 9/11. Saddam would have still have had a bullseye painted on his ass, whether 9/11 was foiled or not. Maybe a more prudent president would have forseen the problems an Iraq war would cause and we’d still be maintaining the no-fly zones and dropping bombs on Iraqi antiaircraft sites every few weeks. Or maybe we’d get fed up completely, and invade Iraq and handle the initial invasion and occupation more competantly. Or screw it up worse, who knows?
It hardly needs mentioning, but I’d better mention it anyway, that since McCain is running for president now and looks to have a good shot at it, this thread is not just your usual alternate-history speculation; answering the questions in it relates to how we can evaluate McCain as a potential POTUS.
Would Wolfowicz and Rumsfeld been part of McCain’s administration?