Robert Kagan has long had a knack for capturing public attention with bold pronouncements about American foreign policy. In 1996, together with William Kristol, he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “Toward A Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy” that chided the Clinton administration for insufficient martial vigor and argued that the Pentagon budget should be doubled. As a charter member of the Project for the New American Century and a regular contributor to the Weekly Standard, Kagan became an eloquent champion of the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq war.
Now, in an article in the Atlantic, Kagan has once more created a stir – this time by arguing that the Trump administration, far from solidifying American power, has irrevocably undermined it by prosecuting a failed war against Iran.
In decrying the Iran war, Kagan has opened up a new front in the fierce internal dispute within neoconservatism
“There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done,” Kagan wrote. The war has not only strengthened Iran’s position – new reports indicate that it retains a majority of its missiles forces – but also endangers Israel. On the news show PBS Kagan observed, “This war has the potential of ending in a very disastrous way for Israel precisely because the leverage in the region and the influence in the region is going to shift away from the United States and Israel and toward Iran and its supporters.”
Kagan’s verdicts are seldom less than sweeping – and whether American global sway has suffered a permanent diminution remains an open question. But it is difficult to quarrel with his dolorous summation of a war that began in folly and appears to be ending in calamity. Indeed, a number of Kagan’s points have also been made by other critics of the war, including Robert Pape and Francis Fukuyama.
Why, then, all the fuss over Kagan’s sallies against Trump? One reason is that it isn’t so much what is being said as who is saying it and where. As someone who has been a war hawk, Kagan is now being seized upon by critics of the war, whether on the right or left, as offering valuable validation for opposition to the Iran escapade. A representative sample of the reaction to his essay is Rod Dreher’s: “Bob Kagan wrote that. Bob Kagan!” It is also the case that the Atlantic, which is edited by Jeffrey Goldberg, a prominent proponent of the Iraq war, has also been widely viewed as sympathetic to liberal hawk and even neocon precepts. Another reason is that in decrying the war, Kagan has opened up a new front in the fierce internal dispute within neoconservatism.
The divide, as David Klion, who is writing a major new history of the neoconservative movement, told me, is fundamental. According to Klion, “In the Trump era, the neocons have largely polarized over whether to categorically oppose the MAGA right or to work with it against the left, which major figures landing in both camps. On foreign policy specifically, the NeverTrumpers are more committed to the priorities of the Cold War liberal establishment, like maintaining traditional alliances and checking Russia in Ukraine, while the MAGA-friendly neocons align closely with the Israeli right and support Trump’s aggression against Iran.”
Former Trump national security adviser Fred Fleitz has thus weighed in to denounce Kagan. Fleitz is a pro-Israel hawk who stated on Newsmax on Sunday that Trump should issue an “ultimatum” to Iran rather than engaging in protracted negotiations over its nuclear program. Fleitz scoffed on X that “I don’t take Robert Kagan seriously because he works for the liberal Brookings Institution, is a neocon who wants never-ending US wars, and is married to Victoria Nuland who is largely responsible for the Ukraine mess. Kagan also can’t deal with criticism or conservative points of view which is why he quit Twitter. In his new article, Kagan seems to be arguing for US ground troops to invade and occupy Iran. The mainstream media may love Kagan, but his ideas are nonsense.”
Fleitz’s objurgatory tone is indicative of how personalized the internal rifts among the neocons are over Trump. The notion that Victoria Nuland is somehow culpable for the Ukraine war defies reality. What’s more, the elevation of the Iran war, which has featured ever-shifting rationales, from seizing the oil to regime change, over Ukraine, which has fearlessly fought a rapacious Russia to a standstill, represents a colossal strategic misjudgment.
Fleitz is right to note that Kagan’s apparent endorsement of going all-in in attacking Iran is odd advice. Kagan doesn’t use the word invade, but says Trump should “engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime.” But this seems more like a nostalgic reflex than a serious blueprint for action. As the neocons trade volleys, the intellectual battle over Iran appears more acute than the military conflict in the Middle East itself.
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