Getting It Right

Whoa! What the heck is going on here?!

As best understood, the wild wack Neocons had pretty much ruined the entire planet. Hooking up with Chalabi and chasing 'democrazy' - a buzz that never was - while gleefully smashing up realpolitik's wonderful corrupt cult of stability, threatening despots far and wide, with a crazy penchant for annihilating creepy regimes and even creepier non state actor outers.

Au contraire mon frer!

FoPo commissioned CFR's Ottoman Expert to share something all the cool kids knew eons ago:

The daemoneocons were totally correct!

"It has become fashionable to say that the Bush administration made "egregious" errors promoting democracy in the Arab world.

"Still, Bush's forceful, public support for freedom and democracy in the Middle East had a profound effect on politics in the region. It did nothing less than change the terms of the debate in a way that Arab leaders could no longer control and allowed democracy activists to pursue their agendas in new ways.

"Of course, democracy and reform in the Middle East did not begin when the Bush administration discovered the issue on or about September 12, 2001, or when the neoconservatives began pressing the issue.

"With Washington watching, Arab authoritarians had to position themselves as reformers, making it more difficult for them to crack down on the real reformers.

While strangely giving the recent elections in Iraq a 40 meter detour, neocons are given strong marks for enemy identification and recognition.

Like slave trading, Palestinian abusing Syria and Dr General Pres for Life Bashar:

"Neoconservatives had a healthy understanding of what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regime's is all about: violence, repression, and duplicity. The neocons can read recent history pretty well, and they understood that endless shuttle diplomacy of various U.S. secretaries of state (with the exception of James Baker) brought the region no closer to peace and did nothing to alter Damascus's strategic posture.

Dissing Iran with a 'talk to the hand, be otch' swagger was totally correct too:

"Look at the ontology -- yes, ontology, the metaphysical nature -- of the Iranian regime. The Islamic Republic was founded in many ways on opposition to the West, and in particular, the United States.

"A good portion of Iran's revolutionary narrative identifies the United States' perfidy in undermining the aspirations and identity of the Iranian people. The litany of Tehran's complaints against Washington is long. This is precisely why the Iranian leadership cannot make a deal with the United States.

"To do so would undermine the reason for the revolution and the Iranian leadership's own reason for being. The neoconservatives seem to have innately understood -- perhaps for different reasons -- that the Iranians were quite unlikely to respond to U.S. overtures.

There is plenty for neocons to add to this piece - specifically in regards to a wonderful neoconic view of American Exceptionalism (that America will go anywhere and do anything she wants, for starters) - this article is significant.

It's the start of the crack in the dam

History has yet to be written for the long view of the day after 911 era, when it is, the neocons may very well be accepted as doing the exact right things

"The neocons' perspective on the nature of the Syrian and Iranian regimes were largely accurate, and their forceful advocacy of democracy and freedom in the Middle East may have grated on many, but it did much to advance those causes in a region once described as "democracy's desert."

Pic "Freedom Agenda"