Secret club in the White House

Recently the idea that the US administration is divided into the two camps – liberals and conservatives (neo-conservatives, to be exact) has gained popularity.
The neo-conservatives and liberals allegedly have constant arguments over the influence to President Bush, and the neo-conservatives usually win. This fact can be proved by the direction of the US foreign policy.Meanwhile, some analysts have doubts about the key role of the neo-conservatives in shaping the policy of the current administration. These analysts believe the power of the neo-conservatives is overestimated. Nevertheless, there is a formal attribute allowing to distinguish the “neo-conservative” from the “ordinary conservative”: these people are consistent in promoting the active, aggressive and, if necessary, unilateral эти люди последовательно выступают за проведение активной, иногда агрессивной foreign policy of the USA under the slogan of protecting democracy and human rights and, at the same time, firm establishment of the US dominating in the world.  

According to the neo-conservatives, the key points of the US foreign policy are as follows:
1) struggle to preserve the US domination in the world;
2)  the opportunity to conduct preventive military strikes;
3) global struggle with terrorism and dissemination of the weapons of mass destruction.

Deputies of the US Minister of Defense Paul Wulfowits and Douglas Fate, Head of the Administration of Vice-President Lewis Libbi, former high-ranking officials and current employees of the Institute of American Entrepreneurship Gin Kirkpatrick and Richard Perl are considered to be the most well-known neo-conservatives.  

However, the neo-conservatives do not always have the key influence on the US foreign policy. For example, they have always criticized “Road Map” plan for solution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, considering it being impossible to implement under current conditions. Meanwhile, the White House supported this plan and continues providing support to it.

Another favorite idea of the neo-conservatives – overthrowing the regime in the North Korea – has not been implemented either despite the impression that Washington considered this option after its quick victory in Iraq.  

US historian John Erman wrote that the neo-conservatives have no certain political institution, lobby or informal club. It is common to connect them with the ruling Republican Party, although many neo-conservatives’ ideas on foreign policy are accepted by the leaders of the Democratic Party. Moreover, many neo-conservatives do not like to be called in this way. Many critics consider neo-conservatives to be a secret club or secret community, and also an informal Jewish political lobby which conducts the policy in favor of Israel.  Meanwhile, this is far from reality. Many neo-conservatives are Jews, but there are Jews in other political camps of the USA as well, liberals have the biggest number of Jews. In addition, the majority of neo-conservatives are Anglo-Saxons, the descendants of German  emigrants or emigrants from Asia and Middle East.

Neo-conservatives have no solid financial foundation and have no strong support among the population of the USA despite the fact that they involve a number of well-known scientific organizations, think tanks, newspaper columnists and TV reporters.
 
То be exact, nobody has tried to measure the level of supporting the neo-conservatives by the US population because their ideology is vague. They have more or less well-defined ideas on the US foreign policy, which has not been of interest for the majority of Americans so far. The press published by the neo-conservatives has low circulation. The newspapers and magazines published by the left liberals overtake the conservative press in circulation.

Source: http://www.washprofile.org/