Like, wow. Especially Libya.

I wish we had a new comments system. As our Mistress is missing (ish) perhaps we could solicit assistance.

Re Libya, I think we are seeing not a national revolt, but a regional one, if one looks carefully at the information here in BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12512536

Recall Libya is not a modern society like the rest of the Maghreb (comparatively), and the East in Libya is where the Senussi were strongest. The Guide is from the centre west.

Libyans haven't been protesting in Tripoli because security forces just have a lot of control there, having taken over public places before people could take them, etc.

I saw Norman Finkelstein speak this week and he had an interesting take of the impact of current events on the power balance in the region. He still hesitated to call Tunisia and Egypt revolutions, and still just called them revolts, hoping that they would properly conclude their stated goals as revolutions.

His take was that a democratic Egypt would not break the peace treaty with Israel. However, Egypt could then not counted on to stay neutral in the case that Israel wanted to attach another country, whether it be Lebanon again or launching a strike on Iran. The population would not want Egypt to stand idly in the case of an Israeli aggression.

He seemed to just think that Egypt would open the Rafah crossing, and that this wouldn't have consequences. Hajo Meyer, whom I saw speak earlier this year, thought that Israel would enter the Sinai again should that happen. (Mubarak hadn't yet fallen when this speculation was made.)

Whether the military is a caretaker government or re-asserts control, I don't think it would budge much on Rafah or Israel overall... Only under elected civilian control this might change.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men that, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

I am starting to get the weird feeling that the neo-cons' basic premise was correct after all. What seems to be underlying all of these revolutions is that the gradual opening of their societies through satelite TV and the Internet, has convinced the average person that there is a better way. Does anyone see any of these revolts as being driven by a yearning for a return of the Caliphate?

I think the West, which, I suppose, really means the U.S., needs to throw its support behind these movements, both vocally and practically. If we don't we will regret it for the next 50 years.

Of course, revolutions get co-opted, but as they stand now, these revolts echo the secular movements of the 50's and 60's. The current protestors don't want to replace a secular dictatorship with an even more oppressive religious one. The model is Turkey, not Iran.

Except I don't think that was the basic premise of the neocons. Their basic premise was that gradual change driven by economic liberalization and globalization wasn't enough, and that the US Army needed to start breaking things. Hence Iraq and al-Hurra, but not so much interest in encouraging trade, aid and free media generally.

It's worth noting that a principled few aside, they've been conspicuously quiet now when dictatorships actually start falling.

Neocons from Kristol and Kagan and Ledeen and Wolfowitz have basically taken the rebelling sides to a degree.

Ledeen even wrote this:

"We should have been pressuring the friendly tyrants in the Middle East to liberalize their polities lo these many years. We should have done it in the shah’s Iran, and in Mubarak’s Egypt, and in Ben Ali’s Tunisia. It is possible to move peacefully from dictatorship to democracy (think Taiwan. Think Chile. Think South Africa). But we didn’t, in part because of the racist stereotype that goes under the label "the Arab street," according to which the Arab masses are motivated above all by an unrelenting rage at Israel for its oppression of the beloved Palestinians. That myth went along with another: the belief that the culture of the Arab world (sometimes expanded to “the culture of the Muslim world”) was totally resistant to democracy. The tumult has nothing to do with Palestine/Israel and even a blind bat can see hundreds of thousands of Arabs fighting for democracy, as have their fellow Muslims in Iran."

That is not a terrible surprise when one realizes that that they have been saying that for a while, and it is not far from being correct.

The problem has always been that they have always been cultists of American military power. Further, out of genuine attachment they have been too pro-Israel and allowed themselves to believe the old pre-1948 Zionist theory that Arab hostility to Israel or Zionism is essentially the manufactured product of the Effendis (later the Arab state leaders) and ancient or religious prjudice. Even those who are not pro-Israel hawks, like Wolfowitz, still hew to the Israeli line because the neocons are a thin constituency and therefore needed to merge their pummel Iraq and Iran agenda with the Israel lobby and with cruder right wing xenophobia about Muslims (along with Christian Zionism which contains both xeonphobia and pro-Israelism)' Muslims are people who until they stop being Muslims are to be repressed violently. (Bernard Lewis served as the access point for all three with Dick Cheney.)

The fissures may break open now with genuine neocons splitting permanently with the mere kill-the-camel-jockeys nationalist and pro-Israel constituencies they exploited for their war with Iraq.

A side factor for some pro-Israel neocons, Mubarak was never their man. They saw him as promoting sectarianism in Egypt, and worse, never cultivating a warm peace with Israel, which he did resist even if he was accomodating in policy. (Note that Mubarak's thugs were accusing their opponents of being Israeli agents.)

As Ledeen exhibits, though, the neocons may still underestimate the heartfelt and honest basis of anti-Israel sentiment among Arabs, including among democratic and human rights oriented secular rap-listening young people.

Well, first, I don't think the basic neocon premise really relied on military force. The idea was never to march a liberating Coalition army from one oppressed country to the next a la Europe 1945. Rather, military force was seen as one method of clearing out existing power structures with the idea that democracy would flourish in the newly-cleared space. The hope was that a successful and democratic Iraq would, by example, spark the very kinds of organic movements that are sweeping the region now.

Second, the dirty little secret of serious neocon philosophy was that if things worked out, Israel would no longer be indispensable to U.S. foreign policy aims. If the price for a region full of Turkeys was less U.S. support for Israel's Palestian policies, it would have been an extremely small price to pay.

Of course, part of the idea was that if the region became democratic and free, Israel would be substantially less threatened and would, as a result, be able to lighten up without compromising its security. But the key point was that if the Middle East were a "normal" region then the Palestinian issue could be dealt with in a "normal" way. And if that included more nuanced support or even *gasp* actual U.S. criticism of Israel on occasion, so be it.

Well, first, I don't think the basic neocon premise really relied on military force.

That's the neocon deal in a nutshell. You must know nicer ones.

From Kristol and Kagan's core piece:

TWENTY YEARS later, it is time once again to challenge an indifferent America and a confused American conservatism. Today's lukewarm consensus about America's reduced role in a post-Cold War world is wrong. . . Conservatives will not be able to govern America over the long term if they fail to offer a more elevated vision of America's international role.

What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony.

That isn't about tweaking one dictator. And it isn't performed by moral suasion and a few targeted international Pell Grants.

It's about wielding and delivery global military power and making something of a fetish of it.

Assuming the dirty secret you describe is true -- and it hard to believe what with the absurd elvel fetishism of most neocons towards Israel -- then the mere fact that they premised their belief on the idea that ISrael was indispensible to US mideast policy shows them at least to be deluded.

More significantly is the fact that they might believe a democratic middle east would be more favorably disposed to Israel (a product of the Effendi theory, that Arab states "incite" anti-Israel hostility and that's where it is all from). In some sense yes, as Arab hostility will take a more responsible approach, and internal issues of regovernance will slow the militarization of confrontation for perhaps enough time for a real settlement to "take."

More significantly, all that is no reason to have DELAYED a confrontational policy -- or for my preferred methods a disengagement -- where warranted.

The neocon theory was in a good sense correct -- the sight of a larger-than-life leader being overthrown would inspire democrats and break down fears of offering resistance. But a whopping catch -- that has to be done FROM WITHIN.

Foreign armies deposing, imposing and vetoing Middle Eastern rulers is a dime a dozen form the past the people remember with shame. It doesnt incite democracy, it insights feelings of impotence and humiliation and fear, and primitive anger.

And the above paragraph is what neoconservatism with its messianic hubris of global hegemony is and why it fails, and its assumption in the Mideast context of the Effendi Theory of anti-Israelism, isn't inclined to create good strategy or attitudes on the ground for the real world.

THe problem isnt that the neocons were wrong but that they were significantly right *on paper*, and totally wrong in the real world, and totally excessive and militaristic and "imperialistic" in their views of American power.

The "benevolent global hegemony" above, was part of the original Kristol Kagan text and should have been in italics.

Anyway this all deserves a full entry-post discussion soon.

And "absurd elvel fetishism" should be "absurd level of fetishism"

Oh, man. I was totally hoping for an Elf Theory of the Middle East.

I do have a Gnome Theory for Alaska.

First, as you note yourself, there are several strains forming the "neo-con coalition". These range from the serious and thoughtful to people who are pro-Israel because they want to hasten Armegeddon and the Second Coming.

Of course, people who make a fetish of Israel and people concerned with broader issues have different ultimate agendas. Hence, my comment that the "dirty little secret" of serious neocon philosophy was that, were the project successful, Israel would become a sort of Middle Eastern UK as far as U.S. foreign policy went -- an old friend, but no longer the linchpin of regional foreign policy. But this feature of the neocon project is not something you'd want to emphasize if you want to keep all your fellow travelers on board.

I do not deny that neocons are perfectly comfortable using military force. But that is, in a sense, a detail. The defining feature of Neocons is that they are, at heart, a kind of Marxist, except they believe in the historical inevitability of freedom and democracy rather than the historical inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Like Marxists, they are willing to adopt a number of strategies to achieve their ends, military force being only one. The main thing is kicking over the game board on the theory that the new players will be democratic, freedom-loving founding fathers.

Is this outcome self-evident or even likely? I don't think so. In fact, there is a surprising lack of analysis about the neccessary conditions for a functional democracy. I have worked on this myself, a bit, and it seems to me that they are several and far from universal.

So this is a glaring weakness in the neocon project. But, being true believers, they cannot incorporate the idea that democracy simply cannot function in some societies until certain neccessary conditions are met.

And you say "benevolent global hegemony" like it was a bad thing. What else would you expect to motivate the world's only -- at least for the moment -- superpower? A quest for genteel irrelevance in a multi-polar world? What are you? France?

Genteel irrelevance in a multi-polar world.
Hmm.
To quote you quoting Mr Hogan, you say that like it's a bad thing.
I'd add republican (modern "democracies" being in point of fact representative republics) as a quibble to that vision.
Irrelevance is not quite right. More like prominent actor among other countries who are treated as equal legally, as in the structure of the UN, where the Security Council acts as the voice of the major players, but everyone is given a voice and technically recognized as equal in sovereignty.

I think commenter {anonymous} is rose-colored glassifyng the neoconservatives. They were fundamentally about global belligerence and their emotional pro-Israelism was mostly, though not universally (cf. Wolfowitz), genuine (Doug Feith had a picture of Herzl in his home office) and to the extent it was not overdone, they still bought (and mostly still buy) into the idea that Arab anti-Israelism was/is primarily a product of manipulation and distraction by Arab potentates -- in the past, the Effendis, later the Arab rulers, and more recently the dread mullahs.

This merits a full post that I may be too lazy/busy to do but will try.

{anonymous} commenter, you are also conflating neoconservatives with Christian Zionists. The neocons are secular, at least in their politics. They have no belief in all that Biblical prophecy and promise stuff, at least consciously.

Also: A policy based towards irrelevance? No, equality and prosperity and freedom and defensive strength. Yes, a humbler foreign policy, as George Bush II had promised.

And frankly I dont think French policy today is genteel or sesking irrelevance, at least in N Africa.

Correction to anonymous guy - sorry, you do not conflate the neocons with Chrisitan Zionists; I misundestood the neocon coalition remark.
Apologize.

THe neocons are waking up in the morning and discovering that having slept with anti-Muslim bigots to get their policy moved forward is something to regret. But they hooked up on the common grounds of national belligerence. They loved the idea of American military power and destruction and order as liberating force; it was not just one method.

The neocons failed Mideast 101 in not realizing that overthrowing a dictator by a foreign WEstern power would not unleash the dogs of democracy but would simply add insult to injury.

(Yes the Marxist analogy for neocons is a good one, especially as many older neocons were converts from that field). Nor would it necessarily cause democracy as that is a risk,as you note, based on a lot of factors and the operation of free will and circumstance. (Even now the results of these balloon poppings of authority are unknown.)

Final apology is if anonymous guy is a gal, I shouldnt have presumed, sorry.

my contribution to Matthew's pun-ditry:

the Sunni leaders of Bahrain must be saying: "Shi'ite, the people are revolting."

okay, it's not quite worthy, but we all start somewhere.

on the other topic of the neocons, I noted that the Economist had a piece where they attempted to argue that "Bush had it right about promoting democracy" - except that he didn't, really, he more than caved to the dictators and entrenched almost all of them. Rhetoric by itself, in a State of the Union address, meant nothing; particularly when arms and trades deals convinced those dictators that America wasn't about to abandon economic interests for democratic ideals.

The IRaq war wouldn't have happened solely because of neoconservative tweaking though it was the lead force. It sailed also -- among other constituencies -- on right wing Realists who felt that Arabs closer to the middle east needed blowing up to demonstrate US power after 9/11, preferably a state. The main constituency for that approach was Dick Cheney. They/he were indifferent to the democracy dominoes. These coalished even better with the redneck Muslim pummelers and the Israel-right-or-wrong cheering sections for the war. (Israel itself, at least the government and policymakers, were quietly ambivalent about the invasion of Iraq).

Despite the democracy rhetoric of Bush, dictators everywhere were still supported. One need only study the re-election(s) of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia (during Bush and Obama) to see which comes first, interests or democracy.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/100521/ethiopia-america%E2%80%99s-autocratic-ally-votes