Have the Neocons Learned Their Lesson? --- Just over ten years ago, the United States was beginning what would be two lengthy military campaigns in the Middle East. On one hand, in Afghanistan, intelligence suggested that the Taliban had been supporting Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, effectively abetting them in their attack on the World Trade Center. On the other hand, in Iraq, less-reliable intelligence suggested the presence of WMDs, and it was decided that while securing these weapons, the U.S. should depose the violent dictator who had ruled the country for decades, Saddam Hussein. -- In both cases, eventually, neocons suggested that these campaigns were, more broadly, necessary evils in order to preserve democratic ideals and promote American interests abroad. There was an outpour of this type of justification as the death tolls and monetary costs continued to grow, and while popular support gradually waned, Americans begrudgingly accepted these justifications as truths. --- Today, America watches as Iraq implodes, with the militant faction ISIS inching ever closer towards Baghdad as the government scrambles to establish a more inclusive parliament that represents the interests of the complex array of sects and ethnicities that make up the constituency. --- And in Afghanistan, what appeared to be a promising democratic election threatened to erupt into chaos when the results were dismissed as illegitimate, and both leading candidates declared themselves the rightful winner. It appears that Secretary of State John Kerry has, for the time being, successfully ameliorated the tension, but a stable, legitimate government still seems a ways off. -- These are just two examples of a broader failure in foreign policy: the popular neoconservative notion that America must project its hegemony on the rest of the world in an effort to promote American interests, even if those values must be projected by military force. Once the dominant thought process in American foreign policy, this paradigm has time and again proven not only to fail but, in its failure, to actually hurt American interests abroad. The Bush Doctrine of 2002, which justified the use of military force to protect America against terrorist threats at home and abroad, is retrospectively one of the most damaging doctrines to define a presidential administration in the last several decades. The overestimation of America's ability to militarily intervene in other states, and the dangerous optimism about the effortlessness of transition from authoritarian regime to democracy, have done substantially more harm than good for the American people -- especially in the past decade. --- When looking at the initial goals of the invasion of Afghanistan, which were to fight the terrorist threat that had been overlooked to the point of producing the 9/11 attacks, the United States ultimately failed. Not only does al-Qaeda still exist, but offshoot terrorist cells have spread as far as Asia and throughout Africa. Admittedly, this is not necessarily the fault of the United States -- by nature, terrorism is pervasive and transcends traditional state boundaries -- but when looking at the specific goals of the Afghanistan invasion, it is easy to see they were not met. -- More, Colin Wolfgang, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colin-wolfgang/have-the-neocons-learned-their-lesson_b_5591331.html?utm_hp_ref=afghanistan