Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 8 (IPS) - Is U.S. foreign policy being run by 
followers of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher whose 
views were elitist, amoral and hostile to democratic government?  

Suddenly, political Washington is abuzz about Leo Strauss, who arrived 
in the United States in 1938 and taught at several major universities 
before his death in 1973.  

Thanks to the oeWeek in Review'' section of last Sunday's 'New York 
Times' and another investigative article in this week's 'New Yorker' 
magazine, the cognoscenti have suddenly been made aware that key 
neo-conservative strategists behind the Bush administration's 
aggressive foreign and military policy consider themselves to be 
followers of Strauss, although the philosopher - an expert on Plato 
and Aristotle - rarely addressed current events in his writings.  

The most prominent is Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now 
widely known as ''Wolfowitz of Arabia'' for his obsession with ousting 
Iraq's Saddam Hussein as the first step in transforming the entire Arab 
Middle East. Wolfowitz is also seen as the chief architect of 
Washington's post-9/ 11 global strategy, including its controversial 
pre-emption policy.  

Two other very influential Straussians include 'Weekly Standard' 
Chief Editor William Kristol and Gary Schmitt, founder, chairman and 
director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a 
six-year-old neo-conservative group whose alumni include Vice President 
Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, as well as a number of 
other senior foreign policy officials.  

PNAC's early prescriptions and subsequent open letters to President 
George W. Bush on how to fight the war on terrorism have anticipated 
to an uncanny extent precisely what the administration has done.  

Kristol's father Irving, the godfather of neo-conservatism who sits on 
the board of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where a number of 
prominent hawks, including former Defence Policy Board chairman 
Richard Perle, are based, has also credited Strauss with being one 
of the main influences on his thinking.  

While the Times article introduced readers to Strauss and his disciples 
in Washington, interest was further piqued this week by a lengthy article 
by The New Yorker's legendary investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, 
who noted that Abram Shulsky, a close Perle associate who has run a 
special intelligence unit in Rumsfeld's office, is also a Straussian.  

His unit, according to Hersh, re-interpreted evidence of Iraq's alleged 
links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and possession 
of weapons of mass destruction to support those in the administration 
determined to go to war with Baghdad. The article also identified 
Stephen Cambone, one of Rumsfeld's closest aides who heads the new 
post of undersecretary of defence for intelligence, as a Strauss follower.  

In his article, Hersh wrote that Strauss believed the world to be a place 
where ''isolated liberal democracies live in constant danger from hostile 
elements abroad'', and where policy advisers may have to deceive their 
own publics and even their rulers in order to protect their countries.  

Shadia Drury, author of 1999's 'Leo Strauss and the American Right', 
says Hersh is right on the second count but dead wrong on the first.  

''Strauss was neither a liberal nor a democrat,'' she said in a telephone 
interview from her office at the University of Calgary in Canada. 
''Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical (in 
Strauss's view) because they need to be led, and they need strong 
rulers to tell them what's good for them.''  

''The Weimar Republic (in Germany) was his model of liberal democracy 
for which he had huge contempt,'' added Drury. Liberalism in Weimar, in 
Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.  

Like Plato, Strauss taught that within societies, ''some are fit to 
lead, and others to be led'', according to Drury. But, unlike Plato, 
who believed that leaders had to be people with such high moral standards 
that they could resist the temptations of power, Strauss thought that 
''those who are fit to rule are those who realise there is no morality 
and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to 
rule over the inferior''.  

For Strauss, ''religion is the glue that holds society together'', said 
Drury, who added that Irving Kristol, among other neo-conservatives, has 
argued that separating church and state was the biggest mistake made 
by the founders of the U.S. republic.  

''Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing'', because 
it leads to individualism, liberalism and relativism, precisely those 
traits that might encourage dissent, which in turn could dangerously 
weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. ''You want a 
crowd that you can manipulate like putty,'' according to Drury.  

Strauss was also strongly influenced by Thomas Hobbes. Like Hobbes, 
he thought the fundamental aggressiveness of human nature could be 
restrained only through a powerful state based on nationalism. 
''Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,'' 
he once wrote. ''Such governance can only be established, however, 
when men are united - and they can only be united against other people''.  

''Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united 
by an external threat,'' Drury wrote in her book. ''Following Machiavelli, 
he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be 
manufactured. Had he lived to see the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
he would have been deeply troubled because the collapse of the 'evil 
empire' poses a threat to America's inner stability.''  

''In Strauss' view, you have to fight all the time (to survive),'' said 
Drury. ''In that respect, it's very Spartan. Peace leads to decadence. 
Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in.'' 
Such views naturally lead to an ''aggressive, belligerent foreign policy'', 
she added.  

As for what a Straussian world order might look like, Drury said the 
philosopher often talked about Jonathan Swift's story of Gulliver and 
the Lilliputians. ''When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over 
the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput 
from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by 
such a show of disrespect.''  

For Strauss, the act demonstrates both the superiority and the 
isolation of the leader within a society and, presumably, the 
leading country vis-a-vis the rest of the world.  

Drury suggests it is ironic, but not inconsistent with Strauss' 
ideas about the necessity for elites to deceive their citizens, 
that the Bush administration defends its anti-terrorist campaign 
by resorting to idealistic rhetoric. ''They really have no use for 
liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the 
name of liberalism  and democracy,'' she said. (END/2003)

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Source: Information Clearinghouse ...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3284.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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