Rebranding

Brit Cats Edward Beaman and Douglas Murray recently explored the idea of rebranding neoconservatism since the term has nearly lost all meaning or identification among true believers.

"For left and right, neoconservatism has laid down the case which needs
answering. Ideologically it has few competitors and there is no school that
unifies people from such a wide range of the political spectrum.

That said, we might have to avoid flaunting the term around for a while. There’s
no doubt that the willful misrepresentations and misunderstanding of what
neoconservatism is, as well as the desire to pin the strategic mistakes made in
Iraq on the neocons have combined to blacken the term."

Willfull (and unknowledgable) misreps like old War Between the States Confauxderates that are flat out scared to death of long dead bolsheviks, or blatant daydream deceivers - even drive by players who are totally bass ackwards in the intelligentsia biz.

GB's FoSec the Right Honourable (and right Hot! ) David Milliband first cracked ice with a name change with the awsome ''Democratic Imperatives." Sweet! Though as Murray reminds us - the name may not be important.

Yet a catchy title with a hook would be nice too, right?

Great Satan's delectable Sec Of State (no shame in her game!) unveiled a killer cool title that infers a real look at where Great Satan has been in the last 8 years - and where she's headed into the new millennium.

Foreign Affairs shares her massive essay called "American Realism for a New World."

This is significant. Dr Rice, the original Vulcan (along with ex Sec of State Powell, ex Dep Def Sec Wolfowitz, ex Def Sec Rumsfeld, ex Dep State Sec Armitage and the ever avuncular VP Cheney) takes a page from the critics book and rebrands realism ala American neoconservatism and those crazy cool true believers in democrazy, Great Satan's unique status in the world and what Uncle Tony called the Universal Values of the Human Spirit.

Enclosed, please find a wicked sweet tease or twelve to satiate desires - both subtle and gross.

"The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it
is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly
by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that
tyranny has to be imposed.

The story today is rarely one of peoples resisting the basics of democracy --
the right to choose those who will govern them and other basic freedoms. It is,
instead, about people choosing democratic leaders and then becoming impatient
with them and holding them accountable on their duty to deliver a better life.

It is strongly in our national interest to help sustain these leaders,
support their countries' democratic institutions, and ensure that their new
governments are capable of providing for their own security, especially when
their nations have experienced crippling conflicts.

What about the broader Middle East, the arc of states that stretches from
Morocco to Pakistan? The Bush administration's approach to this region has been
its most vivid departure from prior policy. But our approach is, in reality, an
extension of traditional tenets -- incorporating human rights and the promotion
of democratic development into a policy meant to further our national interest.

What is exceptional is that the Middle East was treated as an exception for
so many decades. U.S. policy there focused almost exclusively on stability.
There was little dialogue, certainly not publicly, about the need for democratic
change.

For six decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, a
basic bargain defined the United States' engagement in the broader Middle East:
we supported authoritarian regimes, and they supported our shared interest in
regional stability.

After September 11, it became increasingly clear that this old bargain had
produced false stability. There were virtually no legitimate channels for
political expression in the region. But this did not mean that there was no
political activity. There was -- in madrasahs and radical mosques.

It is no wonder that the best-organized political forces were extremist
groups. And it was there, in the shadows, that al Qaeda found the troubled souls
to prey on and exploit as its foot soldiers in its millenarian war against the
"far enemy."

One response would have been to fight the terrorists without addressing
this underlying cause. Perhaps it would have been possible to manage these
suppressed tensions for a while. Indeed, the quest for justice and a new
equilibrium on which the nations of the broader Middle East are now embarked is
very turbulent.

But is it really worse than the situation before? Worse than when Lebanon
suffered under the boot of Syrian military occupation? Worse than when the
self-appointed rulers of the Palestinians personally pocketed the world's
generosity and squandered their best chance for a two-state peace?

Worse than when the international community imposed sanctions on innocent Iraqis
in order to punish the man who tyrannized them, threatened Iraq's neighbors, and
bulldozed 300,000 human beings into unmarked mass graves?

Or worse than the decades of oppression and denied opportunity that spawned
hopelessness, fed hatreds, and led to the sort of radicalization that brought
about the ideology behind the September 11 attacks? Far from being the model of
stability that some seem to remember, the Middle East from 1945 on was wracked
repeatedly by civil conflicts and cross-border wars.

Our current course is certainly difficult, but let us not romanticize the
old bargains of the Middle East -- for they yielded neither justice nor
stability.

"American Realism for a New World" is a clever name change - rebranding, revamping for future world and America Unbound while knocking the sword right out of the hands of anti Great Satan fans.

Like Beaman and Murray shared -

"But it doesn’t really matter what we call it. There’s never much point in
arguing over nomenclature.

What matters is that the case for democracy and universal rights as well as
the refutation of the lies and misunderstandings of our enemies – at home and
broad – continues. Most people who engage in this will not call themselves
neoconservatives. Many of them will not realize that is what they are.

That is fine. What matters is that the case is made – unashamedly,
unapologetically and by as many people as possible."