Neocons vs Neoliberal - is there any difference at all?

Neolibs and Neocons, United and Interchangeable
Philip Giraldi

When it comes to foreign policy, particularly as it relates to the Middle East, there is not a whole lot of separation between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Republicans tend to be more bellicose in their statements, but Democrats have more than made up for that with their steely resolve to take the fight to the enemy wherever he might be. Both Republicans and Democrats reflexively support Israel, and nearly all candidates are in agreement on a number of other areas, including an aggressive policy toward Iran.

This unanimity is not particularly surprising as there is little or no serious debate on foreign policy and many of the leading candidates' advisers are graduates of the same school of thought, i.e., that the United States must use its military power to impose certain standards on the rest of the world. Neoconservatives and neoliberals are really quite similar, so it doesn't matter who gets elected in 2008. The American public, weary of preemptive attacks, democracy-promotion, and nation-building, will still get war either way.

The key to understanding the direction that candidates will take is to examine their foreign policy advisers. The candidates themselves, with one or two exceptions, know little about the world and its problems. They operate on a basis of packaged responses to set questions and are essentially looking for quick, soundbite solutions that will enable them to be characterized as strong on national security. Apart from that, most would be quite willing to leave the subject alone. How they think is processed and filtered by their advisers, most of whom appear to believe that the American public has an unending appetite for overseas adventures in spite of the fact that such policies have brought nothing but grief for the past 15 years. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are shy about using force. Bill Clinton enforced sanctions on Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands; he killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians when he bombed Serbia; and he was more than willing to use cruise missiles against civilian targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. George Bush has accepted a rather broader mandate, invading two countries and bombing several more, resulting in hundreds of thousands dead.

The two leading Democratic candidates for president are undeniably Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary is regarded as by far the more conservative candidate in that she has carefully triangulated her potential supporters and is unwilling to say that her vote in the Senate in support of the Iraq war was a mistake. She has also positioned herself with the Israel lobby through her pledge to disarm Iran by whatever means necessary and her threat to use nuclear weapons on terrorists. Her foreign policy advisers are a who's who of neoliberal hawks, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who famously believed that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to sanctions was "worth it." Clinton is also being advised by Richard Holbrooke, who is reported to be close to Paul Wolfowitz. Holbrooke is a possible candidate for secretary of state if Clinton is elected president. Holbrooke has been a supporter of the Iraq war, and he was an architect of the 1999 bombing of Serbia. Strobe Talbott, who advised Bill Clinton and was also involved with the bombing of Serbia, is reported to be another Hillary adviser.

Barack Obama is somewhat more enigmatic, but his recent ill-advised pledge to attack Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf does not do something about the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows that he is working hard to catch up. Obama's key advisers who speak for him on foreign policy include Gregory Craig, Anthony Lake, and Samantha Power. Craig is a leading Washington lawyer who was a White House special counsel under Bill Clinton and defended the president in his impeachment trial. Lake was also a Bill Clinton adviser who was involved in the Bosnian conflict. Power is an Irish-born Harvard professor from the Kennedy School who is regarded as an expert on Third World issues. None of the three is considered to be particularly partisan on any foreign policy issues but genocide, which Power has written a book about, but Obama is also accelerating his efforts to woo Jewish donors and to improve his standing with AIPAC, which has been suspicious of him because of youthful indiscretions that included expressions of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. He recently appointed Eric Lynn to develop an aggressive program of outreach to the Jewish community on his record of support for Israel, which he claims is unwavering. Obama fully endorsed Israel's invasion of Lebanon last year, and he has also cited his more recent sponsorship of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of May 2007, another irresponsible piece of legislation by Congress that will increase the suffering of the Iranian people while doing nothing to change the country's leadership. He has pledged that Iran will not be allowed to threaten Israel through its nuclear program, but he is vague on exactly what he would do to stop it.

Giuliani heads the pack of Republicans in terms of sheer neocon manpower. His appointment of Norman Podhoretz to his team of foreign policy advisers might be a shrewd bid to compete with the Democrats for Jewish money for his campaign, but it might also be reflective of a genuine inclination toward a policy of all aggression, all the time. Giuliani has endorsed the use of force to disarm Iran, including using nuclear weapons. Podhoretz has called for a World War IV against Islamofascism, which presumably means a war against all Muslim countries until they surrender. Giuliani is also being advised by Martin Kramer, a leading neocon who is associated with the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The other two serious Republican contenders, John McCain and Mitt Romney, are also being advised on foreign policy by neoconservatives. McCain is supported by Robert Kagan, a noted American Enterprise Institute chickenhawk and the author of the surge policy, and former CIA director Jim Woolsey, who, like Podhoretz, has called for a World War against Islam. Leading neocon lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, who headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was on the board of the Project for the New American Century, completes the McCain foreign policy and security team. There are reports that McCain will lose some of his advisers as his campaign is in trouble and that they might gravitate to Romney and Giuliani. McCain also had considerable interaction with neocon elder statesman Richard Perle in the early days of his campaign, but Perle has decided that McCain cannot win the nomination. Perle is deferring judgment on where he should go next. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Henry Kissinger are also reported to be giving McCain advice.

Mitt Romney is being advised by Dan Senor, former AIPAC staffer who graduated to the post of official spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. He is also relying on J. Cofer Black, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and now head of Total Intel, a Beltway bandit that provides security services to the government.

Dark horse and undeclared Republican candidate Fred Thompson is being advised by Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the vice president, and Mark Esper, a Lebanese Christian who is one of the few neocons from an Arab background.

All of the Republican and Democratic presidential aspirants appear to believe that a hard line on foreign policy makes them less vulnerable to attack in their run for the nomination. It is very discouraging to note that the advocates of the Iraq war, which is almost universally seen as Washington's greatest foreign policy blunder of the past hundred years, are continuing to play a major role in the shaping of policy for the next generation of political leaders of both parties.

Can't Find Osama? Attack Iran Instead

by Philip Giraldi

The July 17 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) "On the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland" [.pdf] warns that al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself in the tribal areas of U.S. ally Pakistan, that it has resumed training of cadres intending to carry out "high impact plots" against the United States, and that the terrorist threat for the next three years continues worldwide and is even growing in places like North Africa and Britain. As always there is a bland euphemism to define the emerging situation, in this case that the United States will be experiencing a "heightened threat environment." And to make sure that the conflation of terrorism with Iraq is not lost on the reader, the "central front" in Iraq makes an appearance among the report's "Key Findings."

In a tour-de-force of misinformation disguised as fact, the report states, erroneously, that al-Qaeda in Iraq represents the principal threat for an attack on the U.S. homeland "because it has expressed a desire to attack us here." The "attack us here" theme has been around for several years, and it has lately been reinforced by the White House's incessant linkage of Iraq to al-Qaeda, culminating in a July 10 speech in Cleveland in which President Bush named the terrorist organization 30 times during comments that were ostensibly on the war in Iraq. Anyone who follows terrorism even in a pedestrian fashion might politely suggest that the administration's position on the terrorism problem is nonsense. The main threat to the U.S. comes from the real original unadulterated al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Iraq, though a magnet and training ground for terrorist aspirants, is neither interested in nor capable of exporting its own particular brand of anarchy to America's shores.

Given the prominence of Iraq, the NIE is clearly more a political document than an objective assessment. It goes on to state that the U.S. has been on the offensive against terrorism, that it has "built new institutions" and "developed new tools." It is "constantly evaluating the threat" in hundreds if not thousands of meetings in Washington. Lots of meetings. Lots of reviews. Lots of worker bees working. The irrepressible Karen Hughes at State Department has summoned her Myrmidons, "countering al-Qaeda's violent message," challenging terrorists to cyber duels over the Internet. It's Star Wars all over again. "We remain vigilant." It's all there in the NIE.

But one might be forgiven for thinking, perhaps, that all is not well, that the terrorism problem is somehow worse now than it was in 2001. Such reflection, which would be appropriate for anyone who truly cares about the United States and its people, leads to the inescapable conclusion that the past six years of misdirection and mismanagement have made the world a much more dangerous place. In that light, one might conclude that the NIE is more a chronicle of failure than success, an admission that the White House and Congress have, in fact, been unable to protect the American people. It might also be observed that one doesn't get as much bang for the buck as used to be the case. The expenditure of half a trillion dollars in a "global war on terrorism" (GWOT) that has led to the deployment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, intelligence officers, and law enforcement personnel against no more than a couple of thousand terrorists concentrated in one of the world's most backward regions has not radically shifted the playing field in America's favor. Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda carried out 9/11. Osama has been hanging around in Pakistan since late 2001, and he is still there, training new terrorists and planning.

And, if something is wrong in the GWOT, as usual no one is to blame, as-finger pointing would reflect badly on the political leadership. Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the architect of the administration's failure to finish off a cornered Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan's Tora Bora Mountains in December 2001, received his Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. He now sits on the boards of the Bank of America and Outback Steakhouse, and it is assumed that he will soon be named president of Oklahoma State University. Ex-CIA Director George Tenet, who claims he warned Condoleezza Rice about an impending terrorist attack but, inexplicably, failed to tell the president, just received a $4 million book advance. Paul Wolfowitz, whose lack of judgment guaranteed that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would not succeed, is now comfortably back at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute after his failure at the World Bank.

The blundering of the past six years in which America's friends overseas have been turned into enemies by arrogance and bullying, in which Washington's standing among nations has plummeted, has not resulted in any serious change of course. No one is responsible. The neoconservative architects of the Pentagon assault on Iraq that has turned that country into a failed state and a magnet for terrorism have left for greener pastures, but not a one has admitted to error or been publicly admonished. Several, including Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council's Elliot Abrams, are still in positions of power, advocating a new war as part of a larger conflict that will go on indefinitely, everywhere.

And it's always convenient to blame it on the bad guys. Per the NIE, terrorism is not a problem because America's politicians, bureaucrats, and pundits stacked a hundred high in every office lining the Potomac have failed to understand the nature of the threat. It is rather because the terrorists have "evolved" and "adapted," hardly playing fair.

The NIE is not pleasant reading, even though it tries to make the essentially political point that everything possible is being done to protect "the Homeland." What it really is arguing is that everything that is being done should continue to be done, and more. That means more of the bloated bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security and the world's mightiest military budget. Another White House tactical response to the very real terrorist threat, which it doesn't want anyone to think about too much, is, predictably, to look for a diversion in the form of someone else to kick. With Iraq and Afghanistan in shambles, there just happen to be a couple of neighbors who can be credibly accused of "interference" with the U.S. military's civilizing mission. In the intelligence business it is sometimes necessary to use "disinformation" to establish a false factual basis or to create a straw man that can be used to divert attention from an unpleasant reality. If it is too hard to catch Osama bin Laden, it might be more convenient to talk about Iran instead. As Syria and Iran have both long been in the crosshair of the neoconservatives because of those countries' antipathy to Israel, it is reassuring to know that they have not been forgotten by the White House. It is possibly no coincidence that there has been a significant increase in the anti-Iran rhetoric emanating from both the Bush administration and Congress over the past few weeks, mostly seeking to establish a casus belli by contending that Iran is masterminding lethal attacks directed against U.S. troops in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A tidy little war against Iran would be a useful diversion that would make everyone forget about the NIE and the inability to do anything about Osama bin Laden.

Inside Track: Rudy’s New Foreign Policy Posse

by Philip Giraldi

The naming of leading neoconservative Norman Podhoretz as one of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s senior foreign policy advisers is disconcerting to those Americans who have hoped that the current disagreements with Iran might be resolved short of war. Giuliani—together with Mitt Romney and John McCain—has publicly advocated a military strike against Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons. He has also not ruled out the use of America’s own nuclear weapons if that should prove necessary to deter Tehran.

Depending on how the situation between Washington and Tehran develops, this pledge could conceivably mean a nuclear attack on a country that has not itself attacked the United States. This would shatter the policy of only using nuclear weapons as a deterrent that has been in effect since the Second World War. It would also establish a dangerous first-strike precedent for other nuclear powers like India, China and Pakistan that might in the future feel threatened. The acquisition of Podhoretz as an adviser confirms that Giuliani’s statements should be taken seriously and are not just political rhetoric designed to obtain the support of the influential Israeli lobby.

Podhoretz has recently called on the United States to bomb Iran and he describes the current situation—pitting Washington against what he describes as "the Islamofascist threat"—as World War IV. Podhoretz basically advocates a world-wide conflict not unlike World War II to defeat Islamists everywhere they are to be found. Giuliani is already the U.S. presidential hopeful who is perceived most favorably in Israel because of his uncompromising stance on issues like the Iranian threat and terrorism, and the addition of Podhoretz will certainly be viewed favorably by many influential neoconservatives. Podhoretz is himself an uncompromising advocate of what he sees as Israeli national security imperatives very much in the mold of the right-wing Likud party.

He continues to be a leading supporter of the Iraq War and is one of the few remaining apologists for the WMD claim, insisting that they were spirited away to Syria prior to the start of the fighting. In addition to Iran, Podhoretz advocates regime change policies for Syria and renewing warfare in the south of Lebanon to eliminate Hizballah. He has also supported regime change for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians. His advocacy of foreign policy positions for the United States will be decidedly Israel-centric. Even in Israeli terms, he is from the far right, advocating simplistic military solutions to solve what are complex and multifaceted international problems.

Podhoretz’s definition of the enemy as Islamofascism is itself a borrowing from right-wing Israeli think tanks that prefer to see an enemy in unitary terms that can be conflated with international terrorism. Most experts on Islam and on the many countries that have majority Muslim populations would reject that Islamofascism or anything like it really exists, just as the "global war on terrorism" is essentially a misleading simplification that has little meaning. The basically false depiction of a hostile and menacing global entity is done deliberately to help formulate a policy which perforce makes Israel’s enemies also the enemies of the United States, even when they are not.

Beyond terrorism, Podhoretz also does not see any difference between Israel’s broader security concerns and those of the United States, an assumption that is basically fallacious and which ultimately benefits neither Israel nor Washington. Of particular concern is the possibility that Rudy Giuliani has "bought in" to the world view expressed by Podhoretz and that his willingness to incorporate those positions will bring about a shift by Romney and McCain. As Giuliani is the front-runner, McCain and Romney might seek to outflank him in foreign policy by embracing even more hard-line positions that would be even less in the U.S. national interest.


Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is the Francis Walsingham Fellow for the American Conservative Defense Alliance.

The heat against Iran is still on - and it’s coming from the Democrats

by Philip Giraldi

In spite of repeated Pentagon denials that a military option is imminent, the United States is again putting pressure on Iran that could easily lead to an armed conflict, a conflict that is desired neither by the American nor Iranian people. Nearly everyone agrees that it would be better if Iran were not to develop a nuclear weapon, if, indeed, that is Tehran's intention. Though modern Iran has no history of attacking its neighbors, its geography places it at the center of a pivotal region where sectarian issues loom large and could potentially impact on the energy needs of the global economy. Nuclear bombs are already in the hands of several of Iran's neighbors, and the creation of another nuclear power would increase instability and heighten legitimate concerns that such weapons could somehow wind up in the hands of terrorists. The question becomes how to stop that process if it can be stopped at all.

The White House insists that it is resorting to diplomacy with Iran, and the current negotiations are, in fact, a considerable step forward as there have been no face-to-face talks since 1979. But the admittedly only very limited discussions held in Baghdad have focused solely on the situation in Iraq in spite of the fact that since 2003 Iran has made clear that it wants to negotiate all outstanding disagreements. It is widely believed that Vice President Dick Cheney and his national security adviser David Wurmser have deliberately limited the playing field because they have no desire to engage Iran amicably and are instead fixated on regime change in Tehran as the only acceptable solution to the "Persian problem." Cheney has been ably seconded by fellow hawk Elliot Abrams at the National Security Council, who has been working to undercut Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's efforts to avoid a war. Wurmser, meanwhile, has been advising the like-minded at the American Enterprise Institute that Cheney does not believe in negotiations and has promised that the Bush Administration will deal with Iran militarily before its term of office ends.

The Cheney-Wurmser-Abrams axis is opposed to Administration figures like Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the intelligence agency chiefs, all of whom are reluctant to do a replay of Iraq in Iran. The Iraq Studies Group (ISG) recommended engaging Iran and all other local players including Syria to help stabilize Iraq and the broader Persian Gulf region. It also recommended taking serious steps to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As "serious steps" would consist of Washington pressuring Israel, the ISG report has been coolly received by the White House and with intense hostility by certain Congressmen who are closely tied to Israel.

Israel's friends in Congress have countered the relative thaw in relations with Iran through their recent approval of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007. The Act disclaims any desire to "target" the Iranian people or to seek war between Washington and Tehran, but it creates conditions that could easily lead to military conflict. It sailed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a 37 to 1 vote on June 28th and it is expected that it will be approved by a landslide vote in the House when Congress reconvenes this week. The Act is bipartisan, having as co-sponsors Democrat Tom Lantos from California and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida. Lantos is a Holocaust survivor who frequently confuses the Israeli national interest with that of the US. He has recently recommended that Israel be allowed to become a member of NATO. Both Lantos and Ros-Lehtinen are regarded as strong and uncritical supporters of Israel's recent series of right wing governments. Only one Congressman, Jeff Flake of Arizona, spoke up against the Act, noting, correctly, that it would be ineffective and would make it less likely to "achieve the type of multilateral sanctions that we would need..."

The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007, which would go into effect on January 1, 2008, tightens the screws on Iran's economy. It sensibly denies a nuclear cooperation agreement with the US to any country that aids Iran's nuclear program, but then it goes off the rails. It strengthens the already existing Iran Sanctions Act by closing loopholes that have permitted some international energy companies, mostly located in Europe, Russia, and China, to invest in Iran's energy infrastructure. If fully implemented, this would require the US to sanction major companies that operate internationally and to deny them access to the US market. Lantos has stated unambiguously that his intention is to achieve "zero foreign investment in Iran" while Congressman Gary Ackerman of New York was blunt in his advice to foreign companies, "Don't invest in Iran." The ban on sales to Iran would even extend to refined petroleum products and the tankers used to ship them in an effort to strangle the Iranian economy, which could almost certainly be construed as an act of war. As Iran has only limited refinery capacity and exports most of its oil, its gasoline comes from refineries located in the Persian Gulf Emirates and in India. If that gasoline were to be denied, the Iranian economy would almost certainly collapse, with dire consequences for the Iranian people. But the economic problems would not necessarily weaken the Iranian government, which could declare a state of emergency and would almost certainly become more dominated by hardliners than it is currently. Under such circumstances, the country's leadership could easily decide that a nuclear arsenal is more than ever essential to guarantee national independence and would take every step necessary either to develop or acquire new weapons. The sanctions might produce the reverse of the intended outcome and a desperate Iran might also resort to other measures, like stepping up attacks against American soldiers in Iraq.

The Act also calls on the President to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group and to block assets of any entity providing support to it. That is in spite of the fact that the Revolutionary Guards constitute an integral part of the Iranian government and have never attacked the United States or US citizens. It would enable the Department of the Treasury to block accounts and transactions relating to the normal operation of the Iranian government and to pressure other countries and banks to do likewise, a very dangerous step that could again escalate into something unintended, forcing Iran to react in ways that might be unpredictable.

On the Senate side, there has also been increasing pressure to go after Iran. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut stated in an interview at the end of June and again in an article on July 6th that the Iranian involvement in Iraq means that Tehran "has already declared war on the US." It is to be presumed that Lieberman means that it is time for the United States to begin bombing. In the same June interview, Lieberman demonstrated his immense knowledge of foreign policy and defense issues by declaring that in Iraq "we've got the enemy on the run," a truly astonishing assertion that even the factually challenged Bush White House would be reluctant to make.

It might be reassuring to consider the ranting of a number of Congressmen who are joined at the hip to right wing governments in Israel as unimportant, but it would be a mistake to do so. Most of them are Democrats, the party that controls both the House and Senate currently and which is the odds-on favorite to win the Presidency in 2008. All the leading Democratic Presidential candidates have repeatedly voiced their willingness to "have all options on the table" in regard to Iran, which is taken to mean that the military option should be used if necessary. The "all options on the table" line was, in fact, coined by the Israel lobby AIPAC, which has consistently hyped the Iran threat and which believes that Tehran must be disarmed to enhance Israel's security. The American public, if it truly wishes to avoid a ruinous war with Iran, should instead insist that all options be taken off the table and that good faith negotiations begin on all the issues dividing Tehran and Washington.

Philip Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a regular contributor to www.antiwar.com in a column titled “Smoke and Mirrors” and is a Contributing Editor who writes a column called “Deep Background” on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues for The American Conservative magazine. He has written op-ed pieces for the Hearst Newspaper chain, has appeared on “Good Morning America,” MSNBC, National Public Radio, and local affiliates of ABC television. He has been a keynote speaker at the Petroleum Industry Security Council annual meeting, has spoken twice at the American Conservative Union’s annual CPAC convention in Washington, and has addressed several World Affairs Council affiliates. He has been interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s Independent Television Network, FOX News, Polish National Television, Croatian National Television, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, 60 Minutes, and Court TV. He prepares and edits a nationally syndicated subscription service newsletter on September 11th issues for corporate clients.

Phil is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992 designated as the Agency’s senior officer for Olympic Games support. Since 1992, Phil has been engaged in security consulting for a number of Fortune 500 corporate clients. He is currently President of San Marco International, a consulting firm that specializes in international security management and risk assessment, and also a partner in Cannistraro Associates, a security consultancy located in McLean Virginia. Phil was awarded an MA and PhD from the University of London in European History and holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Chicago. He speaks Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish.

The fictional feel-good vision of the United States and its role in the world

Reinventing Terrorism for Prime Time

That politicians might misrepresent their own views for reasons of expediency and to create a false, more electable persona should not surprise anyone. Senator Hillary Clinton's uncharacteristic revelation on June 4th that she prays every day might be regarded as one such self-serving fiction, only slightly less ridiculous than her assertion that she was a Yankees fan while growing up in Chicago. At least she has never claimed that she invented the internet. But the sham of politics as it is practiced is one thing and wallowing in ignorance is altogether something else, particularly when the ignorance is absolutely bipartisan and relates to an issue that might have genuinely serious consequences. Terrorism is one such issue and the potential blowback from misrepresenting the threat it represents could be catastrophic. Unfortunately, most of the politicians who are running for president just don't get it.

All of the leading president-aspirants from both the Democratic and Republican parties have embraced a fictional feel-good vision of the United States and its role in the world that is positively dangerous because it is so wrong. The story goes something like this: there is a gleaming city on a hill that is called the United States. The United States never does anything bad and is not to blame for anything that happens anywhere at any time. The U.S. has been targeted by evil doers called Islamofascists who hate America's freedoms and who attack our cities for absolutely no reason. Islamofascists also hate Israel, which is a splendid little democracy that the United States has a moral obligation to defend. The war in Iraq is a necessary struggle to keep the evildoers from coming over to the United States to carry out their attacks. If one criticizes the war at all, it is in the context of it being a poorly executed diversion of resources that is impeding the real struggle against the selfsame Islamofascists, which is going on everywhere all the time. Islamofascists have no rights. Torturing them is okay, as long as you don't call it torture and only if it produces "information that saves lives." The United States, already exceeding the rest of the world in military expenditures, must spend even more and build a bigger Army and Marine Corps to be truly safe. And then there is Iran. Manifestly evil and something like Nazi Germany. "All options are on the table," goes and mantra, including pre-emptive war and the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

There are, of course, variations on the theme, though generally speaking there is not much space between the various aspirants to the presidency when it comes to foreign and security policy. Some of the candidates like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards do not use the word "Islamofascist" because it is lacking in political sensitivity. Others like Mitt Romney revel in it. Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt all take the prize for the "America without guilt" syndrome, which sees everything in Manichean terms, enabling one to blame malevolent foreigners for whatever goes wrong in the world. John McCain, in particular, has never seen a war he didn't like.

Two out of three of the leading Republicans approve of torture for terrorism suspects and all three accept the need for extralegal overseas prisons like Guantanamo. Mitt Romney even wants to make Guantanamo bigger. Sadly, such fear mongering apparently plays well in places like South Carolina, where candidate Ron Paul, who dared to speak the truth about much of the above, was heckled. On the Democratic side, only former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel had the courage to criticize the other candidates for their moral relativism and their apparent willingness to repeat the unfortunate Iraq experience.

There are a few things that our leading politicians might consider. One is called "cause and effect," or to put it in Newtonian terms, "every action produces an equal and opposite reaction." Since 2001, the United States has been extremely active on the world stage, often recklessly so, and the action has produced a reaction that has ironically empowered terrorists, not weakened them. Terrorism is a major preoccupation of all the leading candidates yet not a single one deals with the issue with anything but slogans and sound bites. Ron Paul aside, no one has conceded that the terrorists might have some identifiable grievances that serve to motivate them and popularize their cause. Dealing with the terrorism problem in a realistic and effective way rather than simply taking the position that military force generously applied provides some kind of solution is clearly not on the political agenda.

The ultimate failure in U.S. policy has enabled Usama bin Laden to successfully use terrorism as a tool against the United States. He does so for very specific reasons that he has taken pains to enunciate. They are actually a reversal of the Giuliani-McCain-Romney assertion that if we don't get them over there we'll have to fight them in Peoria. Bin Laden attacks the United States precisely because we are over there, not because he is appalled by our sexual promiscuity. As he put it some years ago, if he wanted to attack a country because of its freedoms, he would have selected Sweden.

Bin Laden and the rest of the world are aware, even if the presidential candidates are not, that the United States has used its post-World War Two primacy to invade more countries than all other nations combined. The fact is that in only five years George Bush's go-it-alone America has become one of the most disliked countries in the world, universally reviled as a leading threat to peace. Everyone but America's politicians is seemingly aware that the United States supports corrupt, dictatorial regimes worldwide while at the same time talking hypocritically about promoting democracy. When democracy does occur and the result is unpalatable, as has occurred in Palestine and Lebanon, the U.S. pulls the plug.

And then there is Iran, which is really about Israel because Iran does not actually threaten the United States. The Iran agenda includes pre-emptive military action if necessary and the implicit deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Tehran's alleged weapons program, both issues that should make even the most hardened politician pause. But all the leading candidates have unflinchingly completed their obligatory obeisance to Israel and its principal lobby AIPAC. All have sworn to defend Israel to the last dead American soldier if that should become necessary though not a single one has bothered to make a coherent argument why that should be so beyond the usual assertions about terrorism, which, incidentally, have themselves been carefully crafted by Israel and its lobby to justify the "special relationship." The rest of the world sees it all somewhat differently. Israel is engaged in a brutal occupation that is clearly visible on satellite television nightly. Its repression of the Palestinians is enabled by the United States. If the candidates actually believe that the United States should go to war for Israel no matter what Israel does, perhaps they should say so unambiguously. Ignorance of the negative consequences of the U.S.'s writing of a blank check for Israel, which fuels much anti-American sentiment and terrorism, should not be acceptable.

And then there is the support of all the leading presidential candidates for a larger army. Why on earth would the U.S. need more soldiers? To fight more wars, obviously. The wearing down of the armed services due to never-ending involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted from a series of bad decisions, not because the world's most competent military was inadequate. More bad decisions to invade other places with a bigger army would not constitute a solution and increased resources only invite the politicians to engage in more mischief. Far better a lean and hungry Pentagon. The rest of the world is not confused by the patriotic rhetoric and crocodile-tear concern expressed by the candidates for "our troops." It is simply following the presidential debates to learn "Who's next?" on the Pentagon hit list.

Philip Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a regular contributor to www.antiwar.com in a column titled “Smoke and Mirrors” and is a Contributing Editor who writes a column called “Deep Background” on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues for The American Conservative magazine. He has written op-ed pieces for the Hearst Newspaper chain, has appeared on “Good Morning America,” MSNBC, National Public Radio, and local affiliates of ABC television. He has been a keynote speaker at the Petroleum Industry Security Council annual meeting, has spoken twice at the American Conservative Union’s annual CPAC convention in Washington, and has addressed several World Affairs Council affiliates. He has been interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s Independent Television Network, FOX News, Polish National Television, Croatian National Television, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, 60 Minutes, and Court TV. He prepares and edits a nationally syndicated subscription service newsletter on September 11th issues for corporate clients. Phil is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992 designated as the Agency’s senior officer for Olympic Games support. Since 1992, Phil has been engaged in security consulting for a number of Fortune 500 corporate clients. He is currently President of San Marco International, a consulting firm that specializes in international security management and risk assessment, and also a partner in Cannistraro Associates, a security consultancy located in McLean Virginia. Phil was awarded an MA and PhD from the University of London in European History and holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Chicago. He speaks Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish.