NEOCONSERVATIVES

(Neocons)

   This is a U.S. political philosophy rooted in cold war anticommunism by which former liberals drifted toward conservatism by favoring an aggressive unilateral foreign policy. Unlike traditional conservatives, however, neocons were comfortable with some elements of the bureaucratic welfare state and thus the name neocons. Neocons were also very supportive of Israel.

   After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, President George W. Bush adopted most of the basic neocon concepts in response. The resulting Bush Doctrine of preemptive war led to the second Gulf War in 2003 that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and, as a fortuitous side effect for the Iraqi Kurds, the creation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as a constituent state in a new democratic federal Iraq. Given the horrific civil war that followed in Iraq, however, the neocons became very unpopular in the United States. In many ways the election of Barack Obama as the new U.S. president in November 2008 was a repudiation of the neocons. Ironically, however, the neocons and George W. Bush continued to be looked upon very favorably by the Iraqi Kurds.