Despite the unsuccessful and disastrous Iraqi war launched under the George W. Bush administration, neocons still play the first fiddle in Washington, American investigative journalist Robert Parry emphasizes.
"If the neoconservatives have their way again, US ground troops will reoccupy Iraq, the US military will take out Syria's secular government (likely helping al-Qaeda and Islamic State take over), and the US Congress will not only kill the Iran nuclear deal but follow that with a massive increase in military spending," Parry underscored.
According to Parry this dubious strategy is personified by "a single Washington power couple" — co-founder of the Project for the New American Century Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland.
The spouses are two peas in a pod: while Kagan was sweating his guts out to propagate the necessity of the Iraq War, Nuland engineered the February coup in Kiev that started "a nasty civil war and created a confrontation between nuclear-armed United States and Russia."
Although "a sane person might trace the origins of the bloodthirsty Islamic State back to President George W. Bush's neocon-inspired Iraq War," Kagan and his fellow neocons do not acknowledge that they bear the responsibility for this "head-chopping phenomenon," Parry noted. Instead, Kagan is urging the American decision-makers to intervene in Iran and Syria.
So what is the root cause of Kagan's warmongering?
The arch-neocon wants the Obama administration to pour tens of billions of dollar into the US military-industrial complex. However, this is not enough for Kagan, who calls for even more military spending to counterbalance "growing Chinese power," an "aggressive Russia" and an "increasingly hegemonic Iran."
"There's also a family-business aspect to these wars and confrontations, since the Kagans collectively serve not just to start conflicts but to profit from grateful military contractors who kick back a share of the money to the think tanks that employ the Kagans," the investigative journalist revealed.
Meanwhile, Frederick's wife Kimberly founded her own think tank called the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in 2007. Among ISW's original supporters are right-wing foundations, national security contractors, such as General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and CACI and CIA-backed technological firms.
Curiously enough, while earlier ISW had specialized in the Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more recently the Institute has focused on the Ukrainian civil war.
"So, to understand the enduring influence of the neocons — and the Kagan clan, in particular — you have to appreciate the money connections between the business of war and the business of selling war. When the military contractors do well, the think tanks that advocate for heightened global tensions do well, too," Parry underscored.
