Book Alert / They Knew They Were Right

They Knew They Were Right -- The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrun, Doubleday '08, $26, 320 pages, ISBN #0385511817. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

In the tongue-in-cheek prologue to his new book, journalist Heilbrun describes George W. Bush running a victory lap through foreign capitals in early 2009, as he celebrates the end of the most popular two-term presidency in modern times. Bush basks in the glow of the Iraqi invasion of 2003, which secured all WMDs, ousted Saddam Hussein, and installed, to mass public acclaim, a democratic regime in Iraq as the model for democracy throughout the Middle East.

No, you haven't lost your mind. This is the scenario, Heilbrun writes, that the neoconservatives envisioned when they helped elect Bush 43 president in 2000. This hardy and secretive band, some of them former liberals, were poised for an era of political power, only to watch it unravel like a ball of cheap string. Who were these would-be leaders, asks Heilbrunn. Where did they come from? And why did they fail?

As Heilbrun, a senior editor at The National Interest, tells it, neoconservatism has its roots in the 1930s when followers of Trotsky and Stalin diverged and continued to battle during the Cold War years. The faction that became the neocons made a home in the interventionist wing of the Democratic Party, eventually deserting it for Ronald Reagan and the Republicans, "combining the agenda of 'family values' with a crusading foreign policy."

The neocons wandered in the wilderness during the Bush 41 and Clinton years but grasped the reins of power through Bush 43. They seized 9/11 as an opportunity to entrench themselves. One cannot understand the neocons, Heilbrun argues, without  tracing their route through the Holocaust and the assimilation of Jews into American culture and politics. They won't die with George W. Bush, Heilbrun believes: "....like Old Testament prophets they thrive on adversity."