Neoconservatives and their supposed love of freedom in other countries

Daniel Luban makes an important point about the neoconservatives rhetoric about their burning concern for human rights - in some countries - in Saint Elliott Speaks LobeLog Foreign Policy 03/24/10:

Both neoconservatives and their critics have increasingly come to identify neoconservatism with democracy promotion – the neocons because it lets them cast themselves as heroes fighting the good fight for freedom, the critics because it lets them cast the neocons as naive idealists unfamiliar with the world as it really is. In reality, neoconservatism has little to do with democracy promotion as such. Like other aggressive nationalists the world over, neocons like democracy when it will overturn hostile regimes and bring allies to power. When democracy does not bring the desired results, however, neocons have shown little compunction in endorsing the most brutal repressions of democratic movements by friendly autocrats.

Tags: neoconservatives