Robert Parry — Neocons Have Trump on His Knees

After slapping Donald Trump around for several months to make him surrender his hopes for a more cooperative relationship with Russia, the neocons and their liberal-interventionist allies are now telling the battered President what he must do next: escalate war in the Middle East and ratchet up tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

Star neocon Robert Kagan spelled out Trump’s future assignments in a column on Sunday in The Washington Post…

And confrontation is surely what Kagan has in mind, adding:

“Instead of being a one-time event, the missile strike needs to be the opening move in a comprehensive political, diplomatic and military strategy to rebalance the situation in Syria in America’s favor. That means reviving some of those proposals that Obama rejected over the past four years: a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians, the grounding of the Syrian air force, and the effective arming and training of the moderate opposition, all aimed at an eventual political settlement that can bring the Syrian civil war, and therefore the Assad regime, to an end.

“The United States’ commitment to such a course will have to be clear enough to deter the Russians from attempting to disrupt it. This in turn will require moving sufficient military assets to the region so that neither Russia nor Iran will be tempted to escalate the conflict to a crisis, and to be sure that American forces will be ready if they do. …

“Let’s hope that the Trump administration is prepared for the next move. If it is, then there is a real chance of reversing the course of global retreat that Obama began. A strong U.S. response in Syria would make it clear to the likes of Putin, Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong Un that the days of American passivity are over.”…

[The neocons] will not be satisfied with anything short of a massive U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and a full-scale confrontation with Russia (and perhaps China).

This sort of belligerence is what the neocons and liberal hawks had expected from Hillary Clinton, whom Kagan had endorsed....

Now, with the neocons regaining influence on the National Security Council via NSC adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster, a protégé of neocon favorite Gen. David Petraeus, the neocon holding action against the New Détente has shifted into an offensive to expand the hot war in Syria and intensify the Cold War with Russia....

America elected Donald Trump and got Hillary Clinton instead in less than three months. Tell me there isn't a US Deep State.

Consortium News
Neocons Have Trump on His Knees
Robert Parry

See also

Fort Russ —  Op-ed
Trump has obviously decided to join Neo-Cons and Netanyahu

Vladimir Golstein

Dan Wright — Film Series "A Very Heavy Agenda" Sheds Light On Neoconservatives Old And New

Enter Robbie Martin’s film series A Very Heavy Agenda.

The three-part series begins in the weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when neoconservative thought leaders opportunistically used the country’s anxiety about another attack to push their agenda.

A Very Heavy Agenda Part 1: “A Catalyzing Event,”details how Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and others shaped the policy response to the 9/11 attacks utilizing a playbook written at The Project For A New American Century (PNAC) well before the attacks .

Part 2: “How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The New Neocons,” picks up at the end of the Bush presidency, when the neoconservatives largely discredited by the Iraq War re-brand themselves and seek to resurrect past Reaganite glory by instigating conflict with Russia. PNAC is re-branded as The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), which pursues the same agenda with new lines of attack and operatives who make up for their lack of intellectual rigor with a savvier understanding of media manipulation.…

Part 3: “Maintaining the World Order,” is set to be released in February and will provide an in-depth look at the role of the Kagan family and other neoconservative actors, who are still influencing and implementing US foreign policy. What are the ultimate ends and motivations for their very heavy agenda?

Mint Press

Film Series Sheds Light On Neoconservatives Old And New
Dan Wright

Dan Sanchez — How Russia's Syria Campaign Shocked the Neocon Quest for Empire

Good read.

Russia Insider
How Russia's Syria Campaign Shocked the Neocon Quest for Empire

Dan Sanchez

Robert Parry — Seeking War to the End of the World

Neocon Washington power couple Kagan and Nuland on the march.

If the neoconservatives have their way again, U.S. ground troops will reoccupy Iraq, the U.S. military will take out Syria’s secular government (likely helping Al Qaeda and the Islamic State take over), and the U.S. Congress will not only kill the Iran nuclear deal but follow that with a massive increase in military spending.

Like spraying lighter fluid on a roaring barbecue, the neocons also want a military escalation in Ukraine to burn the ethnic Russians out of the east and the neocons dream of spreading the blaze to Moscow with the goal of forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin. In other words, more and more fires of Imperial “regime change” abroad even as the last embers of the American Republic die at home.…

On Friday, Kagan’s column baited the Republican Party to do more than just object to President Barack Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal. Kagan called for an all-out commitment to neoconservative goals, including military escalations in the Middle East, belligerence toward Russia and casting aside fiscal discipline in favor of funneling tens of billions of new dollars to the Pentagon.…

 Consortium News
Seeking War to the End of the World
Robert Parry

Daniel Larison — Jeb Bush and Regime Change

When trying to pin down what Jeb Bush thinks about regime change in Iran, it is useful to review what the former governor has said about this in the past.…. 

Because Bush now pretends not to have a position on U.S. support for regime change in Iran, it is even more important to remember what he was saying on this subject just a few years ago. 

The American Conservative
Jeb Bush and Regime Change

Jeb Bush’s Continuing Evasions on Foreign Policy
Daniel Larison

Also

The former Florida governor hasn’t yet signed on to regime change in Iran, which suggests his foreign policy just might be more like Ronald Reagan’s than Tom Cotton’s.

Jeb Bush, Realist?
W. JAMES ANTLE III

Jeb's neocon credentials are impeccable. Has he left the fold? Inquiring mind would like to know. Ted Cruz is going to rip apart any candidate that doesn't forthrightly state his position on key issues. Jeb had better get a story straight fast.

Signers of PNAC's founding Statement of Principles

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Dick Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

Heather Digby Parton — Jeb’s quiet wingnutty past: Why he has to distance himself from… himself

[Jeb] happens to be the only Bush who was a card-carrying member of the PNAC [Project for a New American Century]. He was a neocon long before neocons were cool. In fact, one must suspect that his early defiance of his father and brother in this regard signals the act of a True Believer. He didn’t need to do it. He was Governor of Florida, not head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He must have really thought the cause was righteous.…

Why Jeb is likely to the nominee. His wingnutty past is a feature rather than a bug in the GOP.

Ready for another Bush/Cheney administration?

Salon
Jeb’s quiet wingnutty past: Why he has to distance himself from… himself
Heather Digby Parton | Hulaballoo