Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

A Neo-Conservative Resurrection | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A new Euphoria and a cheerful mood have breathed life into the exhausted body of the US ultra right. The positive results reaped by this group at the recent elections have allowed it to regain consciousness (albeit temporary). The results were not, however, the sweeping victory anticipated before the elections. While the Democrats maintained their small majority at the influential Senate, the House of Representatives went indisputably to the Republicans.

No sooner had the joy subsided than the hard-line voices, led by the member of the neo-conservatives gang among the candidates, rose inside the Republican Party to demand immediate war on Iran and the need for a “confrontation” with China to put an “end” to its growing rise. There were also calls also for reducing the speed of the retreat and pullout from both Iraq and Afghanistan. Such statements were made by the veteran Senator Lindsey Graham, member of the Senate Armed Forces and National Security Committees — Two committees that are very influential, important, and effective.

Emotional and frustrated voices have never vanished from US politics; they only kept a low profile while trying to contain the impact of their defeat following the election of Barack Obama, someone who is completely “different” from the conservative and extremist line of the George Bush Jr administration which was under the influence of the foolish neo-conservatives gang. Although Americans voters are only interested in the economy, in job creation, improvement of investment climate, and saving the economy from further deterioration, the extremist voices “are determined” to hijack the American policy and guide it toward violence, confrontation, and extremism.

The Unites States today, under the Obama leadership, is accused of causing the economic disaster. This is a lie and a nonsense propagated partly by the well known right-wing media machine.

Data clearly indicate that Clinton handed over to President Bush an administration that was loved throughout the world, with a healthy treasury. However, in a short time Bush destroyed, however, this surplus and launched unjustified wars, without a clear objective. He wasted huge sums of money in a dubious way, and plunged the country, and then the world, into a bottomless abyss of loans and financial and bankruptcies the impact of which will be felt for a long time to come before a full recovery takes place.

The extremist trend in the US right-wing includes dubious public figures who either strange or ridiculous, but they are all very influential and can guide people like a flock of sheep on their way to the slaughterhouse unconsciously.

Today the US right-wing is in the grip of the famous newsman Rush Limbaugh who has radical and hard-line views; he broadcasts a daily three-hour long program over 650 local radio stations with an audience of 15 million people that greet, love, and support his views despite their extremism, strangeness, odiousness, and often devoid of decorum. It is also in the grip of Alaska’s former Governor Sarah Palin who is marketing herself as the consciousness of the country and protector of the US patriotic values which although they are nothing but obscure, grey, and undefined idea, they have been enough to stir the enthusiasm of the tired, angry, and helpless ordinary people who are humiliated as a result of the bad economic situation.

Moreover, the situation is exploited by extremism promoters in the ranks of academics, and huge institutions sponsored by dubious groups led by the neo-conservatives gang that have not learned their lesson and continued to promote the same ideas but with different scenarios. The scenario today is no longer Afghanistan and Iraq but Iran, Yemen, and Sudan. These are the new, (undeclared) axis of evil. For its part, Israel is fuelling this with a sophisticated perfidy. In fact, their large presence in Southern Sudan today, and the success of the strong Israeli lobby in Washington in persuading senior US senators to visit Southern Sudan more than once, headed by veteran politician John Kerry, is not just a move but something that falls within the framework of the perfidious ideology of the neo-conservatives.

The Unites States calls for a free world but when will it free itself from the neo-conservatives?