How Things Actually Work

Drezner has a nice piece from a couple of days ago about neoconservative and libertarian cabal paranoia.

He points out something that should be fairly obvious, but gets easily lost in hyperbole: the Bush admin is NOT run by a cabal of neoconservatives with respect to Foreign Policy. In fact, if anything, the Bush administration is acting like any other administration, with it's own interests and they happen to coincide, at this point in time with Straussian ideas for using American power.

So while Bush's motivation for going into Iraq may be as simple as finishing up his father's dirty work - the consequences and rationale for the war also fit neatly into the Wolfowitzian world view. These partners have different motivations, but agree on the action...and jointly celebrate or mourn the consequences.

This is how the world works, in partnerships with varying motivations and rationale.