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Introduction
'Unless you live at the bottom of a well, you've probably noticed that 9 / 11 and Iraq have had a transforming effect on the American right. The short formulation is that so-called neoconservatism has triumphed' (Rauch, 2003, 1607). Supporters and critics of the Bush administration alike regularly assert that its foreign policy is now under 'neoconservative' influence (Schmitt 2002; Drew, 2003; Clarke and Harper, 2004; Dorrien, 2004; Hirsh, 2003; Kaplan and Kristol 2003; Kosterlitz, 2003) or that Bush has embraced the grand strategy of global hegemony and democracy promotion characteristically associated with neoconservatism (www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/interviews/gaddis.htm; Garfinkle, 2002; Lemann, 2002; Dunn, 2003, 285). This is a claim upon which even neo-conservatives and their critics agree. Richard Perle happily asserts that George W. Bush is following neo-conservative ideas on 'issue after issue' and William Kristol declares that Bush's 'is basically a neocon foreign policy' (see also Schmitt, 2002, 11; Panorama, 2003; Kaplan and Kristol, 2003). From the other side, Bush's critics claim that he is 'the callow instrument of neo-conservative ideologues' (Epstein, 2003, 13) and that there has been a 'neo-conservative coup' (Lind, 2003, 10) within the administration.
The objective of this article is to demonstrate the erroneous nature of these assertions. Neoconservatism, properly understood, has been a marginal influence on a foreign policy, which has been characterized primarily by a different kind of conservative ideology. In order to demonstrate this, the article firstly seeks clearly to define contemporary neoconservatism in the foreign policy context. This is done by comparing and contrasting it to an alternative 'conservative nationalist' ideology which, it will be argued, is the dominant influence on the Bush foreign policy. The second half of the article then examines the Bush foreign policy and its key elements in light of the alternative ideologies previously outlined.
It might be thought that the question of whether the Bush foreign policy is 'neo-conservative' or simply 'conservative' is a matter of hair-splitting. As long as the policy itself is understood, what does it matter which label is applied to it? Labels matter, however, because they shape our understanding of that which they describe. They are a shorthand means by which we identify the content of the object to which they apply, not by reference to the actual...