Dick Cheney, it seems, has passed away. Suffice to say, I was never a fan.
When he was "Vice" President of the USA ( 2001-09), the word "vice" clearly had two meanings, as one of the things I remember about him was an aura of apparent "evilness." Whether it was really there or not, he kind of amplified it with his characteristic lop-sided grimace that always put me in mind of a stroke victim.
Cheney will be remembered mainly as the premier Neocon in an age that has now, thanks to Trumpian "mad man" transcendence, made all the debates, battlelines, and moral values of that former age seem totally redundant. Whether this remains the case is an open question.
What then was the essence of that movement and of Cheney, its leading manifestation (as no one thinks George W Bush was calling the shots)?
To my mind the Neocons (and Cheney) were an odd amalgam of cynicism and idealism. Cynical, because they clearly believed that the ends justified the means and that the means involved blatantly lying to the American people; and idealistic because they believed in the naïve idea that large chunks of the Middle East could, in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, be invaded and made into burger-chomping democracies, fully plugged into the international "rules based" liberal capitalist system. Post-war Germany and Japan were the models apparently.
To my mind the Neocons (and Cheney) were an odd amalgam of cynicism and idealism. Cynical, because they clearly believed that the ends justified the means and that the means involved blatantly lying to the American people; and idealistic because they believed in the naïve idea that large chunks of the Middle East could, in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, be invaded and made into burger-chomping democracies, fully plugged into the international "rules based" liberal capitalist system. Post-war Germany and Japan were the models apparently.
From the vantage point of 2025, this all seems terribly naïve, while there are many who would even doubt they sincerely believed in such a project. But was it really nonsense? More on that later.
Regarding the idea of whether Cheney believed in his declared goals of democratising the Middle East, the enormous cost and persistence that the Bush administration put into the effort suggests that he did.
Regarding the idea of whether Cheney believed in his declared goals of democratising the Middle East, the enormous cost and persistence that the Bush administration put into the effort suggests that he did.
Cheney cynics tend to believe that this was just a cover for his "real agenda," namely to destabilize the Middle East and kill a lot of Muslims. But those goals could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost, so I am going side with the idea that Cheney and co. were sincere in their "nation building" schtick, and were probably devastated and puzzled when it didn't work out.
But why didn't it work out? Of course, there are many who believe that the Middle East can't be stabilized or democratised and, on the whole, I tend to side with them, but my 'minority opinion' is that the whole Neocon project -- and indeed any move to bring sanity to the Middle East -- was and is undercut by that other big thing that characterised the Neocons, namely their excessive deference to the State of Israel and Zionism.
In the case of Gaza and Palestine, Hamas was called into being (and even funded) by the existence of an Israeli State backed to the hilt by the Neocon movement in the US.
Is this not also true of ISIS and other Middle Easters "deplorables"?
The great irony of Cheney and the Neocons is that they might have succeeded in their greater goal of democratisation if they hadn't sunk so much of their ideological capital into worshipping the Golden Calf of a toxically Zionist Israeli state.
Is this not also true of ISIS and other Middle Easters "deplorables"?
The great irony of Cheney and the Neocons is that they might have succeeded in their greater goal of democratisation if they hadn't sunk so much of their ideological capital into worshipping the Golden Calf of a toxically Zionist Israeli state.
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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.
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