Blake Franko, National Interest: Who Cares What the Neocons Think?
The new administration should not listen to neoconservatives like Eliot A. Cohen, who enthusiastically led America into fiascos such as the Iraq War.
George Orwell once famously observed that Western intellectuals, more often than not, harbor a dirty secret. For all their pious talk about democracy or equality, their true temptation is to “usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip.” Orwell was talking about James Burnham, who went from being a prominent Trotskyist in the 1930s to a columnist at National Review espousing the rollback of Soviet Communism. But the force of his dictum applies to today’s neoconservatives, and perhaps to none better than Eliot A. Cohen.
Cohen, who is the Robert E. Osgood professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, was, of course, among the foremost proponents of the Iraq War. His forthcoming book The Big Stick: the Limits of Soft Power & the Necessity of Military Force, as the title suggests, is not the work of someone who has had any serious second thoughts. On the contrary, it is an unabashed plea for a revival of American militarism. As Talleyrand remarked about the Bourbons, Cohen has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
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WNU Editor: The vast majority of them publicised their opposition to Donald Trump when he was running for the Presidency .... so I doubt that many (if any) will be appointed in the new government. But the neocon voices are many in Washington and they have been around for a long time .... and they still have a lot of influence.
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