Recasting a Neoconservative as a Liberal - the Dark Art of Political Manoeuvring

Written by Wazir Uddin

David Frum, a prominent Neoconservative, writes and speaks as if he now holds "new thinking" on US domestic and international politics, even recasting himself as a leftie. That politicians use speech purposefully would not be much of a surprise to most of us, but Neoconservative discourse is embedded in a philosophy of deception and lies that treats democracy and society at large with contempt.



Since the debacle of the Iraq war, illegal renditions, torture and Guantanamo Bay the Neoconservative clique, who debunked the establishment-type conservatives from the Republican Party after 9/11, have suffered from a legitimacy crisis in public opinion. This group of Straussian politicians that grabbed the strings of power are culpable for the death and misery of millions around the globe. In this article it is argued that these students of Leo Strauss (1899-1973) are defined by the politics of lies and deceptions that continues to this day in the declining US power.

A fundamental belief "of Strauss's ancients has to do with their insistence on the need for secrecy and the necessity of lies. In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons – to spare the people’s feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals. The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave, the husband over the wife, and the wise few over the vulgar many." (Drury, 2003)

Frum, a prominent Neoconservative and one of the de facto architects of the policies pursued by the Bush regime, unbelievably is now attempting to cast himself as a reformed political figure who has ideologically broken away from the Republican Party and its "extremists". This is another attempt to peddle a ‘noble lie’ in an attempt to manoeuvre back into a position of power within Washington. In a recent interview he makes a double move of undermining the current US administration while also recasting himself as reformed by basing his critique on pragmatic grounds. He argues that Obama has essentially failed due to administrative reasons: the "President has to be effective, and he has to use the instrumentalities of presidential power".

The Neoconservatives were of course masters at being instrumental in their usurping of the US state and the subsequent deployment of its massive military power to conduct illegal wars around the world. Unprecedented violence and destruction was visited upon Muslim societies in pursuit of the Neoconservative agenda of changing the balance of power in the Middle East in favour of Israel.

Knowledge of another key axiom of the Neoconservatives would reveal that being out of power is to be persecuted due to the deeply held notion that "justice" is merely defined by the "interests" of the stronger over the weaker, and hence the relentless political struggle to achieve power.

"Strauss shares the insights of the wise Plato (alias Thrasymachus) that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice. Leo Strauss repeatedly defends the political realism of Thrasymachus and Machiavelli (see, for example, his Natural Right and History, p. 106). This view of the world is clearly manifest in the foreign policy of the current administration [reference to the Bush government] in the United States.... The effect of Strauss's teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite and the persecuted few. And it does not take much intelligence for them to surmise that they are in a situation of great danger, especially in a world devoted to the modern ideas of equal rights and freedoms." (Drury, 2003)

It is due to this philosophical grounding that taking Frum or his fellow Neoconservative clique, on both sides of the Atlantic, on face value would be a massive error of judgement.

Justice, in stark contrast to the Straussian conception, can only be served by these Neoconservative politicians facing an international tribunal for waging illegal wars and human rights violations, a demand that liberal voices are particularly muted over. The litmus test of a reformed Neoconservative would have to be a voluntary confession at the Hague.