It’s all very depressing, and there’s a tendency to blame it all on people like Wolfowitz and Perle. But we can’t blame them alone. Ironically enough, blaming these individuals only makes it easier for the future Wolfowitzes of the world to start new wars. To see where the rotten apples came from, you have to turn back to the tree.

All of these intellectual currents combined in spectacularly disastrous fashion in Iraq, with certainty being their theoretical foundation. The certainty of our own good allowed us to ignore obstacles to our desires (both laws and IAEA reports). Similarly, the certainty of the “Other’s” evilness allowed us to rationalize overthrowing a secular Arab nationalist regime in the name of fighting transnational radical fundamentalists who viewed them as infidels.

But back to the lecture at hand, the neoconservative certainty had a number of practical implications in both the Cold War and beyond. Pre-1989, excessive certainty about the evils of communism provided the foundation of the opposition to Kissinger’s détente (which also provided the impetus for Reagan’s challenge to Ford and his ultimate ascension). Post-Cold War, the same excessive certainty led to the Wolfowitz/Libby worldview that American foreign policy should consciously attempt to maintain a global monopoly on power. Even back in 1992, obstacles such as the UN were being theoretically jettisoned for ad hoc coalitions that some would later call “willing.”

The Straussian legacy that matters, then, is his absolute certainty in “our” own goodness and in the “Other’s” evilness. That’s the true theoretical underpinning of neoconservatism -- everything they espouse follows if you are certain that you are good and certain that you are fighting evil. If arms control treaties or the UN or torture statutes prohibit fighting evil, then they must be put aside. It’s as un-Burkean as you can get. As Andrew Sullivan has explained at length, doubt is a far better foundation for conservatives. [ UPDATE : One point I should have stressed better is that the most practical harm of neoconservatism is its extreme over-reliance on military force to solve problems and to pursue goals. This militancy, in turn, is made possible by underlying certainty of one's correctness.]

To back up, Mann does a good job laying out the basic intellectual foundations of neoconservatism, including its Straussian influences. Personally, I think the whole “Straussian noble lie” is a conspiracy theory too far. The real influence of Strauss upon modern politics was his Manichean worldview of absolute good and absolute evil. Evil (or tyranny) existed, Strauss believed, and strong action was necessary to confront it.

Rather inexplicably, I’m only now reading James Mann’s Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (it’s good). If anything, though, Mann’s book has made me somewhat less angry at the individual neoconservatives responsible for our disastrous Iraq policy. My net levels of anger haven’t changed -- it’s just that I’ve reallocated some of that anger from these individuals to the American public. Specifically, I’ve realized that neoconservatism is not so much a cause, but a manifestation of larger political movements. Wolfowitz did not lead a Lenin-esque vanguard -- he was himself created by underlying structural forces. Thus, blaming the individual neoconservatives lets the American public (and American nationalists in particular) escape their own culpability.

And indeed, the rot runs much deeper -- the overly nationalist American public is to blame for the rise of neoconservatism. These men were not merely agents of change, they were themselves caused -- they were superstructure upon larger underlying movements and resentments that gained strength in the venomous aftermath of Vietnam. That’s one point I’ve taken from Mann.

For instance, take détente. Many of the neoconservatives cut their political teeth opposing détente. Wolfowitz and Perle in particular got started opposing (in distinctive ways) Nixon’s arms control efforts. But the nationalist resentment toward détente pre-existed them both. Nixon and Kissinger faced increasing pressure from the right as the 70s progressed, and that pressure ultimately resulted in Ronald Reagan.

Indeed, Reagan himself was “structural” in this sense -- he too was a product of the certainties of our own goodness, and of the evil of our enemies. We needed that affirmation following Vietnam and Carter. But that comforting vision blinded us to some very un-American activities. For instance, why let things like statutory bans on funding “freedom fighters” stand in the way when evil was advancing in Latin America? Why seek peace with evil?

Neoconservatives, then, rose to power not so much because of their individual treachery, but because their worldview reflected much of the American public’s foreign policy worldview. Embittered and embarrassed by Vietnam, many Americans escaped reality by embracing a conception of America as the unambiguous Platonic ideal of good. These conceptions are only possible with an Other, so communism became -- or perhaps remained -- pure evil. (I’m certainly not defending communism -- it was a wretched system. The problem is the Manichean conceptions, which led -- and continue to lead -- to extreme actions.)

The larger point for today’s purposes is that the worldview underlying neoconservatism -- excessive certainty of good and evil -- is shared by too many Americans even today. Indeed, we saw it in full display in the run-up to, and aftermath of, Iraq. We had to go to war because Saddam was evil. The war was good because we are good and you’re blaspheming the troops. The names had changed, but the song otherwise remained the same.

Looking ahead, real progress requires us to shed the kindergarten view of both ourselves and our adversaries. What seems at first glance to be steely-spined moral clarity is actually a failure to engage with the grey complexities of the real world. We are good, but not perfect. Those who oppose America are not always good, but neither are they fantasy embodiments of pure evil (with certain exceptions). That’s not to say we can’t be proud of America -- there is much to be proud of. It’s just that overly simplistic abstract views are leading to horrible practical consequences.

If we don’t change this underlying view, nothing will change even if the Democrats win the White House. People like Wolfowitz may come and go, but the worldview that created him will linger on. For that reason, we’ll keep repeating history until that worldview -- that excessive certainty -- is confronted.

In particular, I fear the political aftermath of our eventual withdrawal from Iraq. Like Vietnam, it will trigger poisonous resentment among nationalists. The temptation will be to hide from -- rather than confront -- the cognitive dissonance by doubling down on a fantasy version of America. We may well see the rise of a new nationalism movement fueled by Iraq resentment, and a particularly nasty one at that.

This is all a long way of saying that it’s not enough for the public to oppose the Iraq War. The real goal is to change the mindset that led to the Iraq War. There are hundreds of aspiring young Wolfowitzes toiling away in the Bush executive branch as we speak, gaining valuable resume lines. The only way to make sure they don’t ascend to power is to make their preferred policies politically unviable, regardless of what party controls the government.

