Neocon’s new lie

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/25/neocons_new_lie/


Dick Cheney and Elliott Abrams (Credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The rulebook for conservative punditry is straightforward. Push for a policy. When it turns into a disaster, defend it. When the defense becomes untenable, ignore it. Finally, when something unrelated but positive occurs, take credit for it.

The newest conservative myth is that the upheavals in the Middle East — called the Arab Spring but occurring too in non-Arab countries like Iran — are a result of the Iraq War. The “freedom” that George W. Bush brought to Iraq had a domino effect on other countries in the region, the argument goes. Neocon Robert Kagan told Salon recently that “[t]here were repeated free elections in Iraq and that undoubtedly had some effect on how neighboring people views their government.” Said Kagan: “I think Egyptians said. ‘If the Iraqis can have elections, why can’t we have elections?’”

Kagan wasn’t the first to make this argument. Bush’s Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams wrote in January 2011 that “the revolt in Tunisia, the gigantic wave of demonstrations in Egypt and the more recent marches in Yemen all make clear that Bush had it right.” Bush’s speechwriter Peter Wehner claimed “vindication for Bush’s freedom agenda” when the uprising began. Even Dick Cheney said that “I think that what happened in Iraq, the fact that we brought democracy, if you will, and freedom to Iraq, has had a ripple effect on some of those other countries.”

Few things could be more condescending than the argument that Middle Easterners had never thought of freedom or democracy before George W. Bush began speaking about it. Countries from Algeria to Iran had held elections or saw large-scale protests long before any former Texas governor illegally invaded Iraq.