Actually, many of today's neocons *were* pretty opposed to Reagan's opening with Gorby.
Frank Gaffney, for example, was an Asst. Secretary at the Defense Dept and resigned in protest over Reagan signing the INF treaty. Richard Perle was also highly critical of Reagan in 1987-1988, less so of Bush who mostly took a slightly slower approach to Gorbachev in 1989 (until the wall came down).
Bill Kristol was also deeply skeptical. He was an advisor to VP Dan Quayle at the time, and as late as 1990 Quayle was arguing (presuably with advice from Kristol) that this whole perestroika thing was a ruse and the Soviets were just trying to lure us into disarming.
And internally, Cheney was indeed arguing for a considerably more hawkish position than that taken by Bush-Baker-Scowcroft-Gates. In particular, Cheney thought in 1990-1991 that we should be trying to encourage regional separatism and ethnic conflict in the USSR, in order to promote its fragmentation and collapse. He excplicitly argued that civil war in the USSR would not only be a risk worth taking, but might well be a good thing.
Current Events » in reply to So the first part of the speech means nothing?
Neocons were opposed
The whole thread (42 posts)
- You have got to be kidding me.
- re: You have got to be kidding me.
- Actually, it's too soon to comment.
- More moral support would be nice.
- I'm certainly glad you had something important to say. (n/t)
- Explain the moral high ground the US has here. Marsby, or anyone.
- The Voice of Iran
- There have been a few posts.
- Indeed.