All in the Neocon Family
Jim Lobe, AlterNet
March 26, 200
What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot
Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who
have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they
are also part of one big neoconservative family -- an extended clan of
spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations.
Neoconservatives are former liberals (which explains the "neo" prefix)
who advocate an aggressive unilateralist vision of U.S. global supremacy,
which includes a close strategic alliance with Israel. Let's start with one
of the founding fathers of the extended neocon clan: Irving Kristol. His
extensive resume includes waging culture wars for the CIA against the Soviet
Union in the early years of the Cold War and calling for an American
"imperial" role during the Vietnam War. Papa Kristol, who has been credited
with defining the major themes of neoconservative thought, is married to
Gertrude Himmelfarb, a neoconservative powerhouse on her own. Her studies of
the Victorian era in Britain helped inspire the men who sold Bush on the idea
of "compassionate conservatism." The son of this proud couple is none other
that William Kristol, the crown prince of the neoconservative clique and
editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded the
Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a front group which cemented the
powerful alliance between right-wing Republicans like Dick Cheney and Don
Rumsfeld, Christian and Catholic Right leaders like Gary Bauer and William
Bennett, and the neocons behind a platform of global U.S. military dominance.
Irving Kristol's most prominent disciple is Richard Perle, who was until
Thursday the Defense Policy Board chairman, is also a "resident scholar" at
the American Enterprise Institute, which is housed in the same building as
PNAC. Perle himself married into neocon royalty when he wed the daughter of
his professor at the University of Chicago, the late Alfred Wohlstetter --
the man who helped both his son-in-law and his fellow student Paul Wolfowitz
get their start in Washington more than 30 years ago. Perle's own protege is
Douglas Feith, who is now Wolfowitz's deputy for policy and is widely known
for his right-wing Likud position. And why not? His father, Philadelphia
businessman and philanthropist Dalck Feith, was once a follower of the great
revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his native Poland back in
the 1930s. The two Feiths were honored together in 1997 by the right-wing
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
The AEI has long been a major nexus for such inter-familial relationships. A
long-time collaborator with Perle, Michael Ledeen is married to Barbara
Ledeen, a founder and director of the anti-feminist Independent Women's
Forum (IWF), who is currently a major player in the Republican leadership on
Capitol Hill. Richard Perle, Douglas
Feith, and another neo-con power couple -- David and Meyrav Wurmser --
co-authored a 1996 memorandum for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu outlining
how to break the Oslo peace process and invade Iraq as the first step to
transforming the Middle East. Though she doesn't focus much on foreign-policy
issues, Lynne Cheney also hangs her hat at AEI. Her husband Dick Cheney
recently chose Victoria Nuland to become his next deputy national security
adviser. Nuland, as it turns out, is married to Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol's
main comrade-in-arms and the co-founder of PNAC. Bob's father, Donald Kagan,
is a Yale historian who converted from a liberal Democrat to a staunch
neocon in the 1970s. On the eve of the 2000 presidential elections, Donald
and his other son, Frederick, published "While America Sleeps," a clarion
call to increase defense spending. Since then, the three Kagan men have
written reams of columns warning that the currently ballooning Pentagon
budget is simply not enough to fund the much-desired vision of U.S. global
supremacy. And which infamous ex-Reaganite do the Kagans and another leading
neocon family have in common? None other than Iran-contra veteran Elliott
Abrams. Now the director of Near Eastern Affairs in Bush's National Security
Council, Abrams worked closely with Bob Kagan back in the Reagan era. He is
also the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of the influential
conservative Jewish publication Commentary, and his wife, Midge Decter, a
fearsome polemicist in her own right. Podhoretz, like Kristol Sr., helped
invent neo-conservatism in the late 1960s. He and Decter created a
formidable political team as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger
in 1980, when they worked with Donald Rumsfeld to pound the last nail into
the coffin of detente and promote the rise of Ronald Reagan. In addition to
being Abrams' father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz is also the father of John
Podhoretz, a columnist for the Murdoch-owned New York Post and frequent guest
on the Murdoch-owned Fox News channel. As editor of Commentary, Norman
offered writing space to rising stars of the neocon movement for more than 30
years. His proteges include former U.N. ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick and Richard Pipes, who was Ronald Reagan's top advisor on the
"Evil
Empire," as the president liked to call the Soviet Union. His son, Daniel
Pipes, has also made a career out of battling "evil," which in his case is
Islam. And to tie it all up neatly, in 2002, Podhoretz received the highest
honor bestowed by the AEI: the Irving Kristol award. This list of intricate,
overlapping connections is hardly exhaustive or perhaps even surprising. But
it helps reveal an important fact. Contrary to appearances, the neocons do
not constitute a powerful mass political movement. They are instead a small,
tighly-knit clan whose incestuous familial and personal connections, both
within and outside the Bush administration, have allowed them grab control of
the future of American foreign policy.
June Deborah Meek
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