I think "neoconservative" in its original sense was just a part of a larger and older tension between two ideas in foreign policy: "Realism," which is highly pragmatic, and tolerates "our thugs" if it helps reach a larger foreign policy goal, and "idealism," which believes that in the long run realism is counterproductive, and that you have to support free and democratic societies and not tolerate tyranny of any kind.

This is a gross oversimplification, and you can factor in the concepts of "interventionism" and "isolationism," but I think you get the gist of the two points of view. There are, of course, some ranges between these.

I have seen both of these viewpoints in both Democratic and Republican leaders over the history of our country.

I think Carter turned out to be an idealist, and so is Bush. Not sure about Clinton--I'm open to input on that. I think most Cold War presidents were an odd combination of realists/idealists, dealing with many authoritarian nations against the communists, but pushing for freedom for communist nations.

Now that the Cold War is history, realists believe that Saddam, the Shah, and rulers of places like Turkey and Egypt have historically kept Islamists out of the picture, despite non-democratic regimes, and interfering with this stability may be a bad idea. Idealists believe that radical Islamists are nourished and gain popular support under such tyrannies and that democracies are needed in these countries to ultimately suppress this kind of thinking.

It's obvious that there are problems with both of these points of view. Tyrants are mortal, and sooner or later the situation changes whether you like it or not.

On the other hand, it's obvious that injecting democracy into some cultures without an existing tradition of freedom to support it is not as easy as it was cracked up to be, and often just tends to vote in new tyrants. If we didn't learn this with Russia, we're learning it now.

That it is eventually possible was proven after WWII, but it ain't easy, and largely depends on the culture you're starting with. I think it's still possible with Iraq and Afghanistan, but the idea that we could just go in and throw a switch to "democracy" was badly flawed. Maybe so is the idea that European-style democracy is the only model that could deliver the freedom the population needs. I'm wondering if some kind of tribally-oriented Iceland-stye "althing" model wouldn't be more effective in the Middle East.

As for "neoconservatives," I think they originally fell under the idealist "exporting democracy" line of thinking, and the very real problems with that concept are basically the problems of the neoconservative movement.