[Peace-discuss] the neocons fight back

Wed Sep 4 02:38:11 UTC 2013

The Neocons are out to overturn the tide
of non-interventionism...

The interests of America...

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2873/9595462289_59e3645522_m.jpg

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432404579050821624966890.html

The Robert Taft Republicans Return
Isolationism has never served the interests of America, or the GOP.
BRET STEPHENS

'We'll be lucky to get 80 Republicans out of 230." That's an astute GOP 
congressman's best guess for how his caucus now stands on the vote to 
authorize military force against Syria.
At town hall meetings in their districts, the congressman reports, House 
Republicans are hearing "an isolationist message." It's not America's 
war. The evidence that the Assad regime used chemical weapons is 
ambiguous, maybe cooked. There isn't a compelling national interest to 
intervene. "Let Allah sort it out." We'd be coming in on the side of al 
Qaeda. The strike serves symbolic, not strategic, purposes. There's no 
endgame. It would be another Iraq.
Or, to quote Sean Hannity in all his profundity, it would be "the next 
world war."

There's also the trust issue. "Why should I go out on a limb to help 
this president?" The /this /in that question, as House Republicans ask 
it, means Benghazi and Susan Rice 
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/R/Susan-Rice/7113>, the IRS and Lois 
Lerner, the NSA and James Clapper. It means a president for whom all 
policy is partisanship, including the referral to Congress.

"Big move by POTUS," former Obama 
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/O/Barack-Obama/4328> spinmeister David 
Axelrod tweeted over the weekend. "Consistent with his principles. 
Congress is now the dog that caught the car." Thanks, David, for that 
conciliating image to win over fence-sitting Republicans.
Most Republicans don't want to become, again, the party of 
isolationists. Not consciously at any rate. Nearly all of them profess 
fidelity to a strong military, to Israel's security, to stopping Iran's 
march to a bomb. And opposition to military intervention in 
Syria—particularly if it's of the pinprick sort being contemplated by 
the administration—isn't necessarily proof of isolationist sympathies. 
Henry Kissinger <http://topics.wsj.com/person/K/Henry-Kissinger/5998> is 
opposed to intervening in Syria. Henry Kissinger is not, last I checked, 
an isolationist.
Yet the Syria debate is also exposing the isolationist worm eating its 
way through the GOP apple. Thus:
"The war in Syria has no clear national security connection to the 
United States and victory by either side will not necessarily bring into 
power people friendly to the United States." Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.).

"I believe the situation in Syria is not an imminent threat to American 
national security and, therefore, I do not support military 
intervention. Before taking action, the president should first come 
present his plan to Congress outlining the approach, cost, objectives 
and timeline, and get authorization from Congress for his proposal." 
Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah).
"When the United States is not under attack, the American people, 
through our elected representatives, must decide whether we go to war." 
Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.)

Such faux-constitutional assertions—based on the notion that only direct 
attacks to the homeland constitute an actionable threat to national 
security—would have astonished Ronald Reagan, who invaded Grenada in 
1983 without consulting a single member of Congress. It would have 
amazed George H.W. Bush, who gave Congress five hours notice before 
invading Panama. And it would have flabbergasted the Republican caucus 
of, say, 2002, which understood it was better to take care of threats 
over there rather than wait for them to arrive right here.
Then again, the views of Messrs. Paul, Lee and Amash would have sat well 
with Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio (1889-1953), son of a president, a man of 
unimpeachable integrity, high principles, probing intelligence—and 
unfailing bad judgment.
A history lesson: In April 1939, the man known as Mr. Republican charged 
that "every member of the government . . . is ballyhooing the foreign 
situation, trying to stir up prejudice against this country or that, and 
at all costs take the minds of the people off their trouble at home." By 
"this country or that," Taft meant Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The 
invasion of Poland was four months away.
Another history lesson: After World War II, Republicans under the 
leadership of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg joined Democrats to support the 
Truman Doctrine, the creation of NATO, and the Marshall Plan. But not 
Robert Taft. He opposed NATO as a threat to U.S. sovereignty, a 
provocation to Russia, and an undue burden on the federal fisc.
"Can we afford this new project of foreign assistance?" he asked in 
1949. "I am as much against Communist aggression as anyone. . . but we 
can't let them scare us into bankruptcy and the surrender of all 
liberty, or let them determine our foreign policies." Substitute 
"Islamist" for "Communist" in that sentence, and you have a Rand Paul 
speech.
Which brings us to another isolationist idea: that what we do abroad 
takes away from what we have, and can spend, at home. When Barack Obama 
claims, dishonestly, that the cost of foreign wars is guilty of "helping 
to explode our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build 
here at home," he is sounding this theme. So is Mr. Paul when he 
demagogues against foreign aid by insisting that "while we are trying in 
vain to nation build across the globe, our nation is crumbling here at 
home."

Republicans should know that deficits are exploding not because of 
military spending or foreign aid—as a percentage of GDP, George W. Bush 
spent less on defense in 2008 than Jimmy Carter did in 1980—but because 
of the growth of entitlement programs. Republicans should know, too, 
that investing in global order deters more dangerous would-be aggressors 
and creates a world congenial to American trade, security and values. 
One cost-effective way of doing that is making an example of a thug who 
flouts U.S. warnings and civilized conventions.
Taft couldn't understand this when it came to the dictators of his day. 
Neither does Mr. Paul when it comes to the dictators of today. The 
junior senator from Kentucky may not know it yet, but, intellectually 
speaking, he's already yesterday's man. Republicans follow him at their 
peril.
/Write to bstephens at wsj.com/
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