[Mb-civic] FW: Inside the Committee that Runs the World

[Golsorkhi]

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From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 19:53:31 -0500
Subject: Inside the Committee that Runs the World

FP

Inside the Committee that Runs the World


By David J. Rothkopf


  March/April 2005

September 11, 2001, was a catalytic event that revealed the core
character of the Bush administration¹s national security team. As rival
factions fought for the president¹s ear, the transformative ideals
espoused by the neocons gained ascendancy‹triggering a rift that has
split the Republican foreign-policy establishment to its foundations.


The inner circles of the U.S. national security community‹members of
the National Security Council (NSC), a select number of their deputies,
and a few close advisors to the president‹represent what is probably
the most powerful committee in the history of the world, one with more
resources, more power, more license to act, and more ability to project
force further and swifter than any other convened by king, emperor, or
president.

At the same time, the political party controlling that committee has a
grip on power in Washington unprecedented in recent history. For the
first time in nearly eight decades, the Republican Party has won
control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives in two
consecutive elections. Yet, despite this political monopoly, the elites
who exert the most influence on this little-understood, shadowy
committee are being buffeted and pulled apart by forces from within.

An increasingly bitter philosophical debate pits the supporters of the
policies of former President George H.W. Bush and many of his one-time
team of foreign-policy experts, led by former National Security Advisor
Brent Scowcroft, against those who back views embraced by President
George W. Bush and his team, led by Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. What Scowcroft calls the ³traditionalists² of the
Bush 41 team are pitted against the ³transformationalists² of the Bush
43 team, pragmatists vs. neocons, internationalists vs. unilateralists,
the people who oversaw the end of the Cold War against those who
oversaw the beginning of the War on Terror. Of course, the irony is
that many of these people were not too long ago seen as parts of a
whole. All are or once were close. What happened?

To read the full article:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2601.php

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