Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

| June 20, 2014

These guys were wrong about every aspect of Iraq. Why do we still have to listen to them?

From 2001 until sometime around 2006, the United States followed the core neoconservative foreign-policy program. The disastrous results of this vast social science experiment could not be clearer. The neoconservative program cost the United States several trillion dollars and thousands dead and wounded American soldiers, and it sowed carnage and chaos in Iraq and elsewhere.

One would think that these devastating results would have discredited the neoconservatives forever, just as isolationists like Charles Lindbergh or Robert McCormick were discredited by World War II, and men like former Secretary of State Dean Rusk were largely marginalized after Vietnam. Even if the neoconservative architects of folly are undaunted by failure and continue to stick to their guns, one might expect a reasonably rational society would pay them scant attention....

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For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Walt, Stephen M..“Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry.” Foreign Policy, June 20, 2014.

The Author

Stephen Walt

Stephen M. Walt

  • Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
  • Member of the Board, Belfer Center
  • Faculty Affiliate, Future of Diplomacy Project
  • Faculty Affiliate, Middle East Initiative
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