Robert Kagan for their effort to dress up a barbaric doctrine inrnlanguage that sounds ahnost hke it might have been written byrna civihzed human being, hi the Summer 1996 issue oi ForeignrnAffairs, Kristol and Kagan outline what they call a “neo-Rcaganite”rnforeign policy. Conservatives, it seems, have beenrn”adrift” in the realm of foreign policy since the end of the ColdrnWar. Up until November 9, 1989, the role of the United Statesrnin world affairs had been defined by the alleged threat posed byrnthe Soviet Union. Now that the Soviets are gone, however, thernquestion arises: “Wliat should that role be?” Kristol and Kaganrnhave an answer:rnBenevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the “evilrnempire,” the United States enjoys strategic and ideologicalrnpredominance. The first objective of U.S. foreignrnpolicy should be to preserve and enhance that predominancernby strengthening America’s security, supporting itsrnfriends, advancing its interests, and standing up for itsrnprinciples around the world. The aspiration to benevolentrnhegemony might strike some as either hubristic orrnmorally suspect. But a hegemon is nothing more or lessrnthan a leader with preponderant influence and authorityrnover all others in its domain. That is America’s positionrnin the world today. The leaders of Russia and China understandrnthis. At their April summit meeting, BorisrnYeltsin and Jiang Zemin joined in denouncing “hegemonism”rnin the post-Cold War world. They meant thisrnas a complaint about the United States. It should be takenrnas a compliment and a guide to action.rnThis vision of world dominafion goes way beyond hubris,rncrossing the border into outright megalomania. It reminds mernof all those terrible science-fiction movies, where the goal of thernmad scientist or the evil space beings is always to conquer thernworld. For the authors of this manifesto of empire, however,rnwhat most normal people would consider villainous is, instead,rnvirtuous. As the architects of “national greatness conservatism,”rnKristol and his cabal naturally want to export that “greahiess” tornthe rest of the world. It is the old Marxism turned inside out:rn”Democratic revolution” must be exported to the far corners ofrnthe globe.rnWhile the neocon theoretician Francis Fukuyama deploysrnthe Hegelian dialectic to show that history hasrnended in the birth of what he calls the “universal homogenousrnstate,” the Weekly Standard and neocon columnists and editorialrnwriters beat the war drums continuously and ever more loudly:rnThey want all-out war against Serbia, Iraq, Russia, China,rnNorth Korea, and who knows how many other so-called “roguernstates.” (Austria may very well be next.) Of course, by the neoconrndefinition, any state that does not recognize Americanrnsupremacy, that does not kowtow and surrender its sovereigntyrnto the West, is a “rogue state.” Neoconservatism is an ideologyrnthat has to have perpetual war.rnThe War Party is not unitary: It is riven into various factions,rnwith ostensibly “left” and “right” wings. Some, like Kristol andrnKagan, want the United States to assume a frankly imperialrnstance, acting unilaterally to achieve global dominance. Others,rnthe “left” imperialists, see the United States acfing throughrnthe United Nations or some other multilateral institution. Bothrnsee the emergence of a global state, centered in the West, as inevitablernand desirable. The only argument is over how to bringrnthis about. Each wing has regional preferences in terms of thernenemies it chooses, with the “left” concentrating on Europernwhile the “right” has always focused on the Asian theater of operations.rnBut fliat is a whole other subject: Suffice it to say thatrnwe are talking about two versions of essentially the same poison.rnBill Kristol, affecting a macho stance, is enraptured by his visionrnof “crushing Serb skulls,” while Clinton and his enablers posernas great “humanitarians”—even as they bomb one of the oldestrncities in Europe from the cowardly height of 50,000 feet.rnSo we have a War Party that spans the ver)- narrow spectrimirnof the politically permissible, from the neoliberal “left” to thernneoconservative “right”—with anything and everything thatrnfalls outside of these parameters exiled to the so-called “fringe.”rnOf course, when the “mainstream” is defined so narrowly, millionsrnof Americans find themselves on the “fringe.” This is therngreat dream of the neocons: to lop off the fringes and instituternthe rule of the Eternal Center, where dissent is nonexistent—rnespecially in the realm of foreign policy.rnIt is very clever how they have gone about their deliberaterncampaign to marginalize any and all opposition to the globalistrnidea. But any attempt to suppress opposition is bound, instead,rnto stimulate it—and that was the reason for the recent Anh’-rnwar.com conference, and all the conferences to come: to mobilizernthe party of peace. The first step of that mobilization is tornrecognize who we are, and where we are coming from. ThernPeace Party, though less organized —and far less generouslyrnfunded—represents a far greater number of Americans, most ofrnwhom are instinctual isolationists. The American people havernhad to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into virtually everyrnwar in their history, and the end of the Cold War has encouragedrnthis natural isolationism.rnBut this opposition to foreign adventurism usually arises onlyrnafter we actually go to war. Active opposition to interventionismrnin between wars has been limited to the “far” left and the “far”rnright. We have the remnants of the Old Left, whose best elementsrnare represented by a man like Alexander Cockburn —rnand whose worst aspects are exemplified by the neo-Stalinistrnrobots of the Workers World Party, whose “International ActionrnCenter” painted the opposition to the Kosovo war as a wackornsideshow far better than the War Party ever could.rnIt is on the right, however, that the most interesting developmentsrnhave taken place, for until the end of the Cold War, therernwere very few antiwar rightists. Until recently, the long traditionrnof anti-imperialism on the right was almost completely forgotten.rnYet the old America First Committee, founded by rockribbedrnconservatives and opponents of Franklin DelanornRoosevelt in 1940, was the biggest and best-organized antiwarrnmovement in American history. The fight to keep us out ofrnthe European war was led by such Roosevelt-haters as John T.rnFlynn and such editorial bastions of Midwestern Middle Americanismrnas the Chicago Tribune and the Saturday Evening Post.rnTheir analysis—that we would win the war against national socialismrnin the trenches but lose the battle for liberty on thernhome front—was largely borne out by events. Caret Garrett,rnchief editorial writer for the Saturday Evening Post, warned inrn1950 that “we have crossed the boundary that lies between Republicrnand Empire”—but by then, not many were listening.rnOnly a few, notably Murray N. Rothbard, the libertarianrneconomist and theoretician, carried on the Old Right tradition.rnBy the mid-60’s, the so-called “New Right” of William F. Buckley,rnJr., and National Review had taken over the conservativernmovement almost completely, along with a crew of ex-leftistsrnlULY 2000/1 7rnrnrn