A good way to gain an insight into the triumphalism of the 'neocons' is to focus on the 'Project for the New American Century' (PNAC). PNAC's Statement of Principles, issued on June 3, 1997, clearly says that its central aim is to 'make the case and rally support for American global leadership'. In order to do so, PNAC claims that American policy makers would need to increase defence spending significantly, forge closer links with democratic allies, challenge regimes hostile to American interests, promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad and accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international environment 'friendly to (its) security, prosperity and principles'. PNAC concludes its statement of principles by suggesting that a 'Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity' needs to be resurrected in order to build on US 'successes of this century and to ensure (its) greatness in the next'. In September 2000, PNAC released a document that offered a strategy for 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' that would ensure perpetual global pre-eminence.

On January 26, 1998, PNAC associates (18 in all), that included Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to Bill Clinton: '...if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do ...the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will be put at hazard'. The letter urged his Administration to implement '....a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power'. PNAC was confident that the 'US has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. 'In any case', PNAC noted in exasperation, 'American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council'. One need not belabour the point that the PNAC offered the intellectual blueprint for the current Bush strategy on Iraq.

Recent commentators on the 'neocons' have unfortunately decided to highlight the fact that some of the luminaries associated with this group are Jewish Americans. This has offered an opportunity for neocon insiders to smear its critics with anti-Semitic slander. Of course, one should readily reject the idea that US foreign policy is the product of a Jewish conspiracy as frankly ridiculous and repugnant. It is easy to debunk a Jewish conspiracy, as Bill Keller of the New York Times has so effortlessly done. After all, the neocons can enlist among their adherents' eminent practitioners of appropriate ethnic diversity, such as Francis Fukayama, Zalmay Khalizad, and Fouad Ajami. In particular, Ajami's pronouncements on Iraq and the Middle East are simply a more eloquent variation of Bush's vision of enforced democratisation through military conquests.

The neocons have been admirably transparent in propagating their views. Any interested reader can follow their highly visible paper trail and build up a coherent picture of what this group stand for. Their preoccupation with regime change in Iraq makes explicit what has, in the past, been implicit occasional, but covert, CIA-inspired efforts to install regimes perceived to be friendly to US interests. As Chalmers Johnson reminds us in his book Sorrows of Empire, this tradition of US-inspired regime change goes back to 1953 when the Prime Minister of a democratically elected government in Iran was assassinated, thus paving the way for the pro-American Shah of Iran.

The neocons did not suddenly emerge under the Bush Presidency. They have been around for a long time. As Robert Dreyfus (cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as the 'best unsung investigative journalist working in print') claims, they initially coalesced around Democratic senators Henry Jackson of Washington and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York before transferring their loyalties to the Republicans under Reagan.

It would also be naïve to suggest that the notion of American global leadership is merely a Republican cause. As Noam Chomsky has argued, the US decided to move from containment of Cold War enemies as a foreign policy tool to the aggressive enlargement of American ideals with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Democrat President Bill Clinton embraced the notion of enlargement, except that it primarily manifested itself through the ideology of American-led globalisation.

Thus, a characterisation of the neocons as a Jewish-led cabal of an exclusively Republican cause is both offensive and incorrect. Despite this, what concerns both neutral observers and vocal critics of American foreign policy is that some members of the PNAC, if not many of them, may be regarded as Israel's Likud party lobbyists. They should be clearly distinguished from the many voices and views that make up the diverse community of Jewish Americans, many of whom have long distinguished themselves as dissidents.

Several commentators have referred to the fact that some PNAC associates (such as Richard Perle) played a central role in proffering, in July 1996, a position paper for then-incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that called for a 'clean break'. The advice focused on a 'new strategy for securing the realm'. What were the elements of such a strategy? Rejection of the Oslo Accords as well as the underlying notion of 'land for peace'; permanent annexation of the entire West Bank and Gaza strip; regime change in Iraq followed by similar developments in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran. If Israel is surrounded by democratic and moderate states in the Middle East, then it provides one way of offering durable security for a core American ally, enabling Israel in turn to reduce its economic and military dependence on the United States. Whether the 'clean break' mindset has played a significant role in the invasion of Iraq will always remain a matter of debate. What is clear, however, is that such a mindset among key advisers in the current US administration has seriously impaired the capacity of the United States to act as an honest broker in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The late Edward Said lamented the ascendency of the neocons. To him, they represent a failure of American democracy. I am less pessimistic. Mature democracies have a habit of disengaging from extreme ideas, although such ideas may take hold temporarily. I suggest that the neocons will fade from prominence once the Bush Presidency passes away. I believe that the neocons are themselves aware of their fleeting prominence. Hence, their breathless haste to capitalise on the rare window of opportunity offered by the September 11 attacks (their 'Pearl Harbour'). Hence, their indecent obsession with Iraq.

As the world seeks to respond to the Reaganite resurrection of 'military might and moral clarity', critics of the neocons would have to do better than retreat to the disreputable terrain of conspiracy theories. They will have to firmly and relentlessly refute the anti-Semitic slander. They will have to argue that there is a credible, and well-established, alternative to the imperial tradition in American foreign policy. As Joseph Nye, Jr. has argued, American triumphalists both Jewish and non-Jewish - neglect the fact that global leadership derives from both 'hard power' (embodied in military might and economic prowess) and 'soft power' (embodied in values and institutions). Durable benevolent hegemony on the world stage in the 21st century requires the projection of 'soft power', enabling leading nations to co-opt adversaries and reinforce ties with allies. It requires a resolute commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation providing a forum for the voices of small actors to be heard in the diverse community of nations. It seeks to persuade and convince 'them' to join 'us' rather than coerce 'them' to support 'us'. A benevolent hegemon aims to be part of the world rather than aiming to own the world. If the US, as the unrivalled superpower, expects the world to accept its hegemonic embrace, then it must do so through inspiration rather than invasion.

The author teaches at the School of International Business and Asian Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.