Neoconservatives Declare War on Donald Trump - courtesy The Intercept

[Shard]

Neoconservatives Declare War on Donald Trump
<https://theintercept.com/2016/02/29/neoconservatives-declare-war-on-donald-trump/>

Zaid Jilani <https://theintercept.com/staff/zaidjilani/>
Feb. 29 2016, 7:08 p.m.

Donald Trump’s runaway success in the GOP primaries so far is setting
off alarm bells among neoconservatives who are worried he will not
pursue the same bellicose foreign policy that has dominated Republican
thinking for decades.

Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan — one of the prime intellectual
backers of the Iraq War
<http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/regime-change-trauma/> and an advocate
for Syrian intervention
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-crisis-of-world-order-1448052095> —
announced in the /Washington Post/
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-the-gops-frankenstein-monster-now-hes-strong-enough-to-destroy-the-party/2016/02/25/3e443f28-dbc1-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html>
last week that if Trump secures the nomination, “the only choice will be
to vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Max Boot, an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq War
<https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/iraq/no-need-to-repent-for-support-of-iraq-war/>,
wrote in the /Weekly Standard/
<http://www.weeklystandard.com/selling-america-short/article/2001271>
that a “Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a
great power,” citing, among other things, Trump’s objection to a large
American troop presence in South Korea.

Trump has done much to trigger the scorn of neocon pundits. He denounced
the Iraq War
<http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/15/the_war_in_iraq_was_a> as a
mistake based on Bush administration lies, just prior to scoring a
sizable victory
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-4151.html>
in the South Carolina GOP primary. In last week’s contentious GOP
presidential debate, he defended the concept of neutrality in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is utterly taboo on the neocon right.

“It serves no purpose to say you have a good guy and a bad guy,” he said
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/25/the-cnntelemundo-republican-debate-transcript-annotated/>,
pledging to take a neutral position in negotiating peace.

This set off his rival Marco Rubio, who replied, “The position you’ve
taken is an anti-Israel position. … Because you cannot be an honest
broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of the sides is
constantly acting in bad faith.”

The /Jerusalem Post/ suggested that Rubio’s assault on Trump’s views on
the Middle East was designed to win Florida
<http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Rubio-strikes-Trump-on-Israel-seeking-crucial-Florida-win-446266>.
If that’s the case, it’s apparently not working — in the /Real Clear
Politics/ averaging of GOP primary polls in the state, Trump is polling
higher
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/fl/florida_republican_presidential_primary-3555.html>
than he ever has.

In his quest to take up George W. Bush’s mantle, Rubio has arrayed a
fleet of neoconservative funders, ranging from pro-Israel billionaire
<https://lobelog.com/for-neocon-megadonor-paul-singer-israel-trumps-gay-rights/>
Paul Singer
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/31/paul-singer-backs-marco-rubio-in-boost-for-senator-and-blow-for-bush-campaign>
to Norman Braman
<http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-marco-rubios-far-right-neocon-donors/>,
a billionaire auto dealer who funds Israeli settlements in the West
Bank. His list of advisers
<http://fpif.org/marco-rubio-winning-neocon-primary/> is like a rolodex
of Iraq War backers, ranging from Bush administration alumni Elliot
Abrams and Stephen Hadley, to Kagan and serial war propagandist Bill
Kristol.

Kristol also sits on the board of the Emergency Committee for Israel — a
dark money group that assails candidates it perceives as insufficiently
pro-Israel. The group started airing an ad this weekend against Trump
portraying him as an ally to despots like Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein,
and Muammar Qaddafi — mostly because he argued that military invasions
of Libya and Iraq left those countries worse off:

Even when Trump echoes certain elements of neoconservative orthodoxy —
he repeatedly and emphatically calls for strengthening the military
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-1st-order-business-prez-building-military-article-1.2312826>
— he does so in a unique way. He talks not about spending more money but
defying the “special interests” who make the Pentagon order “missiles
they don’t want because of politics … because the company that makes the
missiles is a contributor.”

Jacob Heilbrunn, author of /They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the
Neocons/, suggested in July 2014
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0>
that neoconservatives might be preparing to ally with Hillary Clinton.

With Trump’s ascendancy, it’s possible that the parties will reorient
their views on war and peace, with Trump moving the GOP to a more dovish
direction and Clinton moving the Democrats towards greater support for war.

--
What would your mother say if she knew you were reading other people’s mail?