Don't blame it on the neo-cons.
The war in Iraq, instigated by the United States and supported by an ever-dwindling consortium of its allies, may mark the dead end of Western idealism. Very few may still believe it was a desire to spread freedom and democracy that motivated this alliance to invade Iraq, or that it is this desire keeping its soldiers there. It was the neo-conservative strategists in Washington who, through their spokesman George W. Bush, spread the message that America's destiny was to secure a foothold in Iraq, occupy the moral high ground, and teach the world a lesson it would not soon forget.
The lesson was simply this: That history had bestowed on the U.S. a mission to impress its version of democracy on every member of the human race, whatever values they may cherish.
At the time of the opening of hostilities in Iraq in 2003, the core neo-cons were: Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense; Donald Rumsfeld, his boss; Douglas Feith, Pentagon tactician, formerly of the National Security Council; Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's right-hand man; Richard Perle, Pentagon architect of the policy of "creative destruction" in the Middle East; and John Bolton, a leading Department of State official who saw Iraq as a stepping stone to the imposition of American ideas of governance "beyond the axis of evil."
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