Ex-Neocon: Dispatches from the Post 9/11 Ideological Wars

by Scott McConnell

It has been said that neoconservatism is a career; once individuals become embedded in the well-subsidized world of neocon magazines, newspapers and think tanks, they don’t leave. If they have doubts about neoconservative projects (like high immigration or the Iraq War), they suppress them. Continuing their careers depends upon it. Scott McConnell is one of very few who were once part of this world and left it behind. In Ex-Neocon, a collection of essays, polemics and reviews written since 9/11, he explores the major divisions between neoconservatives — still dominant in the GOP establishment — and more traditional styles of American conservatism. Many of these essays first appeared in The American Conservative , the magazine McConnell helped found in order to give a voice to those who believed that the neocons were running the conservative movement, and America, off a cliff. Among the major topics covered are the ideological origins of the Iraq war, the question of how deferential the United States should be to Israel, how America’s changing demographics will alter its foreign policy, the importance of Walt and Mearsheimer. McConnell also explores the rise of the French National Front, what Americans can learn from de Gaulle, and the battles over the Iran nuclear deal. These essays provide a unique window into the politics of the post 9/11 period. Often personal as well as political, they reflect McConnell’s transformation from a committed Commentary -contributing "neocon" to a friend and colleague of Pat Buchanan and a skeptical, politically eclectic "Obamacon." Few books resemble this, for there are very few ex-Neocons. Anyone interested in the major American ideological battles of the past generation, which still shape the contours of the debates and issues of tomorrow's political campaigns, will find Ex-Neocon an invaluable guide.

264 pages, Paperback

Published January 15, 2016

Reviews

[The American Conservative]

I am an inveterate reader of ex-communist memoirs—from Benjamin Gitlow’s The Whole of Their Lives to the more well-known Witness by Whittaker Chambers—for reasons that are uncomfortably akin to voyeurism. The prospect of entering a subterranean world known only to its inhabitants, with its obscure rituals and secret handshakes, is inherently thrilling to those of us with a taste for ideological hegiras told in the first person. And so I approached Scott McConnell’s Ex-Neocon anticipating a juicy morsel indeed. After all, the neocons, unlike the communists, have left an indelible imprint on our contemporary world, as even a casual glance at the smoking ruins of the Middle East will confirm. And yet I found something quite different—and far more satisfying.

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