The Powell Endorsement and the End of the Republican Foreign Policy Establishment Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama is an important moment in the Presidential campaign.  Powell, a former National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State is one of the most trusted public figures in the United States.  And he is a Republican.  His endorsement acts as a seal of approval for moderate Republicans and independents from one of the most trusted figures in the country. 

But years from now when we look back at this moment there may be an even bigger story.  It is the story of the end of the Republican foreign policy establishment as we know it.  The final break between traditional pragmatic foreign policy conservatives and Neocons.  And it will likely be said that it was Colin Powell who struck the final blow that killed the alliance.

The pragmatists long dominated Republican foreign policy circles.  Their elder statesmen include notables such Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, George Schultz, James Baker, Bob Gates and of course Colin Powell.  They view the national interest through a relatively narrow lens, preferring to stay away from grandiose notions of American power and the romantic notions of spreading freedom and democracy around the world.  They don't completely forsake the idealistic notions of using American power as a force for good, but they do recognize that America's ability to spread democracy is limited

The Neoconservative wing of the Republican foreign policy community on the other hand,  which includes Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams is based on a version of messianic liberalism that believes that American empire and military might can be used to aggressively spread American values around the world. 

For years the two groups tolerated each other. The big break began in 2003 with the decision to go to war with Iraq.  A number of pragmatists began to speak out in opposition to the war, most notably Brent Scowcroft, who was not only George H.W. Bush's national security advisor but one of his best friends.  This evolution continued with James Baker's 2006 Iraq Study Group proposing a slow withdrawal from Iraq and direct engagement with Iran.

But with this election cycle, the break has finally come into the open.   John McCain's foreign policy ranging from the League of Democracies, to his refusal to talk directly to Iran, to his bellicose language reaction towards Russia has shown him to be a neoconservative hawk.  And now, one month before the election we have a remarkable situation where the majority of the old wise men of the Republican foreign policy community are either supporting Obama, not taking sides or supporting McCain out of loyalty or friendship while publicly contradicting him on foreign policy.

Consider this list:

• Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama.
• Richard Lugar, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has endorsed Obama's approach to diplomacy over that of McCain.
• Brent Scowcroft refuses to endorse either way.  Pretty telling for a former Republican national security advisor, especially since he was opposed to the war in Iraq.
• James Baker continues to support direct talks with Iran and has for the past two years. (Actually just read the entire five secretaries of state even transcript from CNN.  It's one big endorsement of Obama's foreign policy)
• Kissinger and Schultz are writing op-eds in the Washington Post and Financial Times calling for a more moderate approach towards Russia.
• Kissinger has also called for direct talks with Iran (At the Secretary of State level).
• Chuck Hagel has traveled to Iraq with Obama and while not publicly endorsing looks to be pretty clearly in favor of Obama.
• Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is giving speeches that sound a lot more like an Obama foreign policy than a McCain foreign policy.

The dirty little secret is that all of these pragmatic conservatives have more in common with Obama's world view and that of the progressive community as a whole than they do with McCain and Neoconservatism.  Right now most of them are sticking with McCain because of old friendships and loyalties, a desire to stay out of politics, or because they are social and economic conservatives. 

But don't be surprised if Powell's endorsement will encourage more of these pragmatic foreign policy conservatives to come over to the Democrats over the next few years.  At the very least I wouldn't be surprised if most of their proteges are soon working for Democrats.   If this scenario does in fact come to pass, then people will likely look back at the Powell endorsement as the moment the neoconservative/pragmatic conservative alliance came to an end, and the Republican foreign policy community fractured.

Comments

[zbird]

Interesting take on the Powell endorsement, although if you watch the Meet the Press interview he hardly focuses on foreign policy, instead talking mostly about the tone of the two campaigns. I've been sour on Powell ever since the infamous UN Security Counsel fiasco but I must say I was really touched by his insistence that it wouldn't matter if Obama were a Muslim. It's not so often you hear major party figures saying the right thing and really mean it.

[Dan Kervick]

The dirty little secret is that all of these pragmatic conservatives have more in common with Obama's world view and that of the progressive community as a whole than they do with McCain and Neoconservatism.

Oh, if only this were entirely true! Unfortunately, substantial numbers of liberals who style themselves part of the "progressive community" have all too much in common with neoconservatives. As you note yourself, Ilan, neoconservativism is a form of "messianic liberalism" that seeks to employ American empire and military might to spread American values - such as neocons conceive those values at least - around the world. I would only add that neoconservativism in foreign policy was bent not just on using American military might, but on extending and perpetuating American might, and building a permanent unipolar, hegemonic American order. But such dreams already seem quaint, do they not? And to that extent the neoconservative moment has passed.

But the gap you describe in the Republican Party isn't just between "pragmatists" and neoconservatives. I would argue that's not even the most important gap in the party. The more important gap that has opened up in the Republican party is, to put it bluntly, the gap between the civilized and educated, on the one hand, and the barbarians on the other. Neoconservatism is fundamentally an intellectual movement that achieved political influence by co-opting and managing a backward populist tribe: the ugly, jingositic, chauvinistic, xenophobic, ignorant, brutal, bigoted lovers of sheer force that are a core constituency of the Republican Party. I guess people like to call that foul and pathetic fascistic core "Jacksonianism" when they are in the mood to dignify a troglodyte tendency with an intellectual label, and treat it as a "school of thought". Neoconservatives were very deft at manipulating the neo-fascistic brutes in the Republican Party, but they created a monster. The savage element can no longer be contained and they have become a loathsome embarrassment to the party. Even the neocons aren't comfortable with them any longer.

The key leading neoconservative lights are highly educated individuals, whatever their other faults, and intellectuals and educated people can only tolerate so much association with ignorant barbarians before they rebel. Neocons regarded themselves as arch-enemies of fascism, but they sought to tame and ride a quasi-fascistic, ultra-nationalistic tiger in their battle against the Greater Fascism they believed they saw out in the Islamic world. They are now reaping the whirlwind. People like Powell, who isn't even from the neocon wing of the party, want nothing at all to do with those embarrassing, retrograde knuckle-draggers the neocons have called forth from the forests, and are now trying to suppress them and cast them back into the Cimmerian gloom from whence they came.

Unfortuantely for Democrats, the neoconservatives are now going to be looking for new homes and new political opportunities, and will soon be crowding in through the back door of the established liberal and Democratic foreign policy institutions - including at sites like Democracy Arsenal - where they will find a number of willing allies. Your own Mr. Lamond was heralding the work of one Michael McFaul the other day, a man who certainly embodies the messianic tendency of which you speak. After Obama wins, and we succeed in repelling the barbarians, I suspect a lot of us going to be putting a good deal of effort into working against the interventionist, messianic strain, which will no doubt manage to install some representatives in the Obama administration.

[Zathras]

OK, I'll bite. Richard Lugar was working on nuclear disarmament issues when Barack Obama was still a community organizer, whatever that means. Now we are supposed to believe that Lugar is endorsing Obama's approach to diplomacy. Why isn't it the other way around? I'm familiar with Obama's having taken advantage of an opportunity to be Lugar's wingman a couple of years ago; what, apart from the (D) after his name, did Obama bring to that party?

Incidentally, I notice that one major point of difference between the respective outlooks of Republican elder statesmen and the neoconservatives went unmentioned in this post. Here are some hints: one word. Six letters. Starts with "I." One group regards it as a friendly foreign country to which America owes a lot less than it owes us; the other regards it as the 51st state. A major organized interest within the Democratic Party cares more about it than about almost anything else. We'll see how close to George Schultz and Brent Scowcroft an Obama administration turns out to be on this one.

[Jay C]

"...based on a version of messianic liberalism that believes that American empire and military might can be used to aggressively spread American values around the world."

Ilan, isn't the syntax reversed here? Whatever their original policy philosophy might have been, the "neocons" have come (mainly, IMO, by their own efforts) to represent a foreign-policy approach that could be more precisely rendered as:

"... American values and military might can be used to aggressively spread American empire around the world."

Lest we forget, the original "rationale" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was to replace a hostile regime there with a pro-US one, which was intended to act as a local ally and springboard for the "democratization" of the whole region - at gunpoint, if necessary.
That worked out well, didn't it...?

[Jay C]

"...based on a version of messianic liberalism that believes that American empire and military might can be used to aggressively spread American values around the world."

Ilan, isn't the syntax reversed here? Whatever their original policy philosophy might have been, the "neocons" have come (mainly, IMO, by their own efforts) to represent a foreign-policy approach that could be more precisely rendered as:

"... American values and military might can be used to aggressively spread American empire around the world."

Lest we forget, the original "rationale" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was to replace a hostile regime there with a pro-US one, which was intended to act as a local ally and springboard for the "democratization" of the whole region - at gunpoint, if necessary.
That worked out well, didn't it...?

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