‘If only it were true!’, says Max Boot about claims that the Bush administration is pursuing a neoconservative foreign policy:

“The influence of the neoconservative movement (with which I am often associated) supposedly comes from its agents embedded within the U.S. government. The usual suspects are Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense; Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy; Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff; Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council staffer for Near East, Southwest Asian, and North African Affairs; and Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board. Each of these policymakers has been an outspoken advocate for aggressive and, if necessary, unilateral action by the United States to promote democracy, human rights, and free markets and to maintain U.S. primacy around the world.

While this list seems impressive, it also reveals that the neocons have no representatives in the administration’s top tier. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice: Not a neocon among them.” — Max Boot, Foreign Policy

Boot says the notion is superficially appealing because of the coalescence of Bush’s Iraq agenda and neo-con aims. But he doubts we will pursue a similar course with North Korea, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. IMHO, the argument destroys some ‘straw-man’ myths about the neo-conservative conspiracy (like the ‘Jewish’ innuendoes) without substantively addressing their ideological influence on US policy.