I'm sympathetic to the neo-conservative vision. It's a liberal idea -- something that could have been suggested by the Left of the pre-Vietnam War era.
The neo conservative vision is sweeping: Democracy spread around the globe, civil liberties established in every nation, decisions made by presidents and parliaments. There would be no more pariah states, embargoes would end, and trade ships would connect the cities of the world.
I'm attracted to that vision -- even if I'm not sure it's one I share -- and there is a logic to it: America can advance her strategic interests, and the spread of democracy, at the same time. Whoever controls oil controls the world. That's still true, and has been true since at least World War I. Oil is still -- by far -- the cheapest and most plentiful source of energy on the planet. The largest concentration of that oil is in the Middle East.
At least three major areas need to important enormous amount of oil: Europe, East Asia, and America. Europe and Japan are much more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than America, since we're also a major oil producer. American strategic thought -- since the end of the Cold War -- has been that if America doesn't use her military to ensure the flow of oil, Europe and Japan will feel pressured to develop their own armed forces.
So, America protects the world's energy, while Europe uses that oil. Europe broadly agrees with American views regarding liberal democracy and the functioning of the nation state system, and is reduced to whining about the details on which they disagree -- since Europe, like Japan, doesn't want spend the extraordinary amount of money it takes to develop a strong military.
The neo-conservatives combined this strategic preservation of unique American military might -- where Europe and Japan get steady oil in return for not developing militaries -- with a vision of democratic nations. The United States would topple rogue and enemy states and rebuild them as liberal democracies. Economies would strengthen in these new economies, which would act as a carrot to invite increased economic liberty and democracy in surrounding countries, even as the American military provided the stick to this carrot.
Maybe it would have worked.
The neo-conservatives have been used -- used by a Bush administration that had a more traditional American approach to American foreign policy. While the neo-conservatives believe in a Middle East -- and a world -- of free nations, free trade, and civil liberties; the top people in the Bush administration have focused almost entirely on simply ensuring that these new countries are friendly to America. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's an incomplete goal, one that doesn't follow neo-conservative thought on how best to serve America's long term interests.
I don't think the Bush administration abandoned neo-conservatism's lofty goals because any opposition to democracy. The Bush administration simply cares less about nation building than it does about having allies in these new countries. The other problem is that the neo-conservative vision is just too expensive.
Rebuilding countries is expensive. It cost enormous amounts of money to rebuild Japan and Germany, and they had both been developed industrial powers for over half a century before the war. With government revenues down because of recession, the 9/11 attack, and tax cuts, the Bush administration is unwilling to spend the resources necessary to reconstruct a country; nor have they been willing to send the number of troops necessary to maintain the peace that would be necessary for such a reconstruction effort. Even if government revenues were higher, it's unlikely this president would have committed our country to such an expensive endeavor; just as Kerry is unlikely to, and just as no American leader since the World War II presidents has been willing to.
The neo-conservatives have been played. They threw their intellectual and moral weight behind the occupation of Iraq, when they should have known that neither Bush nor the American taxpayers is willing to bear the true cost of making Iraq a thriving liberal democracy.