They were on top of the world. The neocons dominated the Bush administration’s foreign policy team, they successfully put Iraq at the forefront of the U.S. agenda, and their man Ahmad Chalabi was a driving force for the future of Iraq. You could almost hear champaign bottles popping when Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” — the neocons realized it was their mission he was referring to.
What a difference a year makes.
Paul Richter has a terrific article in the LA Times today about how far the neocons fallen out of favor.
“Neocons” — best known for advocating aggressive foreign and military policies — are in the painful zone between distinction and disfavor in Washington. They are losing battles on Capitol Hill. Their principles have stopped appearing in new U.S. policies. And where neoconservatives were once seen as having a future in Republican administrations, the setbacks in Iraq could make it difficult for the group’s leading members to win Senate confirmation for top posts in the future.
Some are even thinking ahead and predicting a less-than-bright future.
Other neocons worry that the real trouble for them could begin if President Bush is not reelected and, among conservatives, the finger-pointing begins — in their direction.
“Bush could end up looking like the worst president since Jimmy Carter because of Iraq, and people are going to say, ‘You got us into this mess,’ ” said one Washington source who considered himself a neoconservative and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It’s going to be nasty and bitter and brutal.”
You read that right. A DC neocon compared Bush to Jimmy Carter in the same sentence.
The article had a few other interesting tidbits. For example, Paul Wolfowitz is — thank goodness — no longer in line to be the next Secretary of State.
Last year, Wolfowitz, a former senior State Department official, was frequently mentioned as a leading candidate to replace Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in a second Bush term. Now, congressional officials and neoconservatives agree there is little chance that Wolfowitz, seen as a primary advocate of the war, could survive a Senate confirmation.
“No way,” said a senior Republican congressional aide.
And check out Doug Feith trying to back out of his relationship with Chalabi.
Feith, the No. 3 Pentagon official, has been struggling to put to rest what he regards as unfair charges that he was trying to create a separate intelligence network in the Pentagon to guide administration decisions, and that he was an “intimate” of Chalabi. Feith met with Chalabi fewer than 10 times, said a spokesman.
That’s genuinely amusing. “I met with him nine times to secretly plot the future of Iraq and I completely fell for all of his completely bogus information, but I didn’t know he was an Iranian spy and I hardly think this should be held against me.”