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consolidating or overriding these powerful forces generated out of
self-interest. In fact, the neoconservatives never challenge the very
system of self-aggrandizement that is unable to generate a consistent
and rational foreign policy.
But there are other, serious difficulties to which the neoconserva–
tives do not have an answer-and the nature of their position
precludes an answer. Even if we assume their basic premise-and it
may be correct-that the survival of American and of Western
democracy depends on thwarting Russian or communist expansion in
Africa and Asia, as well as in Europe, they have no means for solving
the political problems inherent in such a policy. Again, the difficul–
ties lie within the American system and way of thinking,
to
which the
neoconservatives are committed. Iran presents a typical example of
what America is up against.
If
we back regimes like that of the Shah,
we are put in the position of supporting a government that cannot
withstand popular revolt, whether with or without communist mili–
tary or political assistance, unless we are prepared for all out military
and political intervention . On the other hand, we cannot ally our–
selves with radical movements, hoping they will be anticommunist
and pro-American. For one thing, they do not trust us. But more
important is that we carry with us the ideology of a business
civilization, while the Russians supply indigenous forces of revolt
with a revolutionary ideology and a corps of organizers. Thus we
could not keep the Shah in power, and we are thought of as an enemy
by the new government. A country like Saudi Arabia, to take another
example, is unstable and vulnerable to communist manipulations and
Arab fervor enlisted in overthrowing rightist regimes. Even Egypt,
whose interests lie with America and Israel, has to keep one eye on the
Soviet exploitation of Arab discontent.
Nor is domestic policy free of the same contradictions as foreign
policy, and the two are not disconnected. For the loss of American
power and pres tige, which the neoconservatives decry, is also due to
the inflation, about which nothing is being done, and the energy
crisis, which is being solved by inertia. Here, too, the neoconservatives
have no solution. Nor can they have one, for they tacitly acquiesce in
the social mores that prevent a rational solution. For clearly it is the
greed of big business and the complicity of politicians that are
preventing the control of inflation and a curb on the use of oil-not
to mention that the inflation increases the government's tax revenues.
Norman Podhoretz, in a piece in
Commentary
on "The Present
Danger, " pulls no punches in criticizing politicians of both parties as
