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Return of the Neocons
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Return of the Neocons

Foreign policy is a legitimate topic in the 2012 campaign. But the architects of the debacle that occurred in the George W. Bush administration should emulate their Democratic counterparts from the Vietnam era and gracefully exit the stage.

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In the 1976 presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter criticized the Nixon-Ford administration on several foreign policy issues. One was Ford’s decision to sign the Helsinki Accords, which in his view legitimized Soviet control of Eastern Europe.

But what if Democratic candidate Carter had called on national-security veterans of the Democratic administrations of presidents Kennedy and Johnson—such as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow—to criticize the Nixon-Ford administration on issues such as Vietnam, Cambodia, the Soviet Union, China or the defense budget?

The above excerpt was originally published in The National Interest. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Lawrence J. Korb

Senior Fellow