Neoconservatives and the Limits to Their Dream of Empire.

This paper is about the foreign policy thinking of neoconservatives, a group that distinguishes itself from others with its pessimistic outlook about world affairs and its belief that the U.S. should spread its values and ideals to the rest of the world, by unilateral force if necessary. This paper argues that the neocons? imperial project of imposing American values (especially democracy) on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, has certain limits. The most important limits are related to the nature and character of American society, politics, and government. Moreover, people on the receiving end of U.S. power may be ambivalent towards American values and ideals. In order to illustrate these points, I draw on the example of post-war Iraq. It has become clear in Iraq that the neocons overestimated the capacity of the U.S. for nation-building which is a necessary condition for building an empire and establishing a decent democracy. Neocons also underestimated the cultural difficulties involved in transforming the political landscape of Iraq and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]