[MD] Neoconservatism

[david buchanan]

The Philosophy of Leo Strauss: Oligarchs with Myths. The author's real name 
is hidden. He is an "ephilosopher" who calls himself Monty Cantsin. (but I'd 
bet he can.)

Leo Strauss was born in Germany during the last year of the 19th century, 
where he studied philosophy, natural science and mathematics. By 1932 though 
he left his native country and gained a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship 
through the personal recommendation of the Nazi legal philosopher Carl 
Schmitt. Eventually Strauss made his way to the United States of America 
where he gained work as political philosophy professor at the New School for 
Social Research, and then, the University of Chicago. Through Strauss’s 
years of teaching at these institutions he gained a following of devoted 
students who became in turn teachers and implementers of his political 
philosophy. Through this essay we will analyse the influences on Leo Strauss 
and what came to be the political philosophy he supported. Furthermore we 
will look at the influence Straussian philosophy is having on world politics 
through its influence on the American consciousness.

1

Strauss came to age during a time of great turbulence; the Treaty of 
Versailles kept the liberal Weimar Republic in constant economic depression 
leading to high unemployment and street fights between the Freikorps, Brown 
Shirts of the Nazis against the communist party’s Red Front. It was during 
these times that he became concerned with the crisis of modernity.

This Crisis of modernity is a phenomenon that many great thinkers have 
analysed and given answers to elucidate it. Karl Marx saw the crisis of 
modernity as the Frankenstein nature of capital and its institutions, 
conjured by the bourgeoisie “like the sorcerer who is no longer able to 
control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his 
spells”(1). For Albert Camus the crisis was the absurdity of life, like 
Sisyphus working constantly for a meaningless cause. Martin Heidegger views 
it as an existential crisis of ‘the forgetting of Being’. But for Strauss 
theses thinkers have misdiagnosed the crisis of modernity, the problem as he 
views it is the problem of relativism.

The relativism of our modern age leads us into the abyss of nihilism, where 
everything is subjected to ruthless criticism by individuals who believe in 
nothing, thus subverting the shared values that underpin society and uphold 
‘the natural right’. Furthermore According to Strauss the weakness of 
liberalism is its compromising nature which is a materialisation of 
relativism which if left unchecked will lead into the decay and eventual 
collapse of society. This is how Strauss analysed the Weimar Republic which 
decayed and collapsed under pressure from communists to ultranationalists 
and militarists. He viewed American liberalism as in the same boat as the 
weak compromising relativism of the Weimar republic.

The relativism of modernity comes about because modern philosophers are 
unable to find essential truths but only accidental truths, thus finding no 
absolute moral values. Thus Strauss turns to classical antiquity. -

“It is not self-forgetting and pain-loving antiquarianism nor 
self-forgetting and intoxicating romanticism which induces us to turn with 
passionate interest, with unqualified willingness to learn, toward the 
political thought of classical antiquity. We are impelled to do so by the 
crisis of our time, the crisis of the West.” (2)

This return to classic political philosophy focused mainly on Platonism, 
because the crisis of modernity was formed not by material processes as Marx 
would have it. But by modern philosopher starting with Machiavelli and 
Hobbes who eventually led to the “third wave” of modern philosopher such as 
Nietzsche or Heidegger were values and morals are contained only within 
human-subjectivity. Moreover when Sartre declares “if I regard a certain 
course of action as good, it is only I who choose to say that it is good and 
not bad”(3) this leads to certain conclusions in the realm of political 
philosophy of having no essential values and thus nothing to bound society 
together and give it direction. The relativism and histrionism of modernity 
lead Strauss to Plato because “Platonists are not concerned with the 
historical (accidental) truth, since they are exclusively interested in the 
philosophic (essential) truth” (4).

Plato’s notion of truth is based on the relationship between "intellectual 
illumination" or “The Form of the Good” and “representations” and “shadows” 
(5). In Plato’s theory of forms “the form of the good” is pure knowledge as 
an abstraction or a priori which is a higher form then matter. Matter is 
just a representation or substandard copy of the form of the good and thus 
an imperfect form. Thus opinions based on perception based stimuli are 
flawed and can never be knowledge even though humans have a divine spark of 
the form of the good within them. Plato’s notions of truth were expensed 
with metaphors and allegories, most famously in ‘the allegory of the cave’. 
In which prisoners are kept from childhood shackled in a cave immobilised 
with a fire burning behind them which they cannot see, all the while on a 
raised path way man carry shapes of animals and various objects. These 
objects project shadows upon the wall which the prisoners see and play a 
game naming them, at the same time when the man carrying shapes speak the 
prisoners believe the noises come from the shadows. For the prisoners this 
is their reality, knowing nothing of the world outside of the cave. Plato 
thought that because they lived their whole life without direct light to 
turn and look at the fire would hurt their eyes but to leave the cave and 
see the sun would blind them, thus the prisoners would rather live in their 
cave. This draws very closely with Plato’s metaphor of the sun, the 
illuminating form of the good which we cannot understand because we are 
trapped within our own “cave”. Thus for Strauss with all his talk of 
essential truths we find a man walking around in the back of a cave trying 
to find knowledge while it’s the illuminating light which he shies away 
from.

But while Strauss has problems finding knowledge as in the highest form of 
truth that doesn’t stop him from disseminating ‘truths’ to the people. 
Strauss thought that society needs two pillars of mythology in which to give 
it strength, direction and the continuation of the natural rights. The myths 
that hold strong societies together must be propagated by a vanguard of 
“philosopher kings” as Plato would have it and Strauss encoded. Though the 
philosopher kings don’t actually have to believe in the noble lies they 
propagate that is why they must have an esoteric side to their writings to 
communicate with other philosophers or “superman” if we want to highlight 
the influences of Nietzsche on Strauss and his followers. Furthermore their 
exoteric deceptions propagate myths which bind society to the ideal of 
natural rights.

The First pilar in the mythology of strong societies is the use of religion. 
Strauss would agree with Marx famous dictum ‘religion is the opium of the 
masses’ (6) but he would see it as a necessary illusion. A religious belief 
system puts morals out side the realm of human-subjectivity which 
characterises the existentialist philosophy (which is the ‘third wave’ of 
modernity). Thus making a binding self of values by which society is 
directed and individuals invested. This is also a continuation of Strauss 
wars with the modern on behalf of the ancients. Plato envisioned a caste 
society which institutions of education dispensed an ideological imprint on 
its individuals going as far as to ban certain poets and artist who break 
with the ideological hegemony of his perfect society. Such banned artist 
would be Homer or Hesiod because they present gods in a bad image, as 
plotting and fighting which according to Plato is against the nature of 
divinity. This kind of religious reasoning was used by monarchist to justly 
the rule of the king, claiming a divine right. But the enlightenment sort to 
overthrow notions of divine right and religious reasoning which was seen as 
hiding material vested interested which should be called despotism. Deism 
was championed by moderate critics such as Voltaire to install an age of 
reason in which church and religion were separated from the affairs of state 
where secularism would reign. Some enlightenment thinkers went as far to 
expound a mechanical materialism such as Denis Diderot. In the realm of 
political philosophy Rousseau thought that sovereignty should be held by the 
general will of the people and that law should be their will 
universalised(7). But for Strauss this view of things is unacceptable 
because it was part of the development of relativism which weakened society 
and the “superman”, “the herd” (8) dimension (the natural rights).

The second pilar of mythology for strong society was the notion of 
patriotism. The ideal of the nation was for Strauss a tool to unite the 
people against the relativism of modernity. Hermann Goering once said:-

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the 
leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple 
matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist 
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no 
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This 
is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and 
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country 
to danger. It works the same in every country.” (9)

Strauss would agree with this statement, furthermore he sees it’s as a 
necessary illusion for manipulation of peoples consent and thus obedience. 
The manufacturing of an enemy is used throughout history to galvanise and 
unite the people. The threat doesn’t have to be a real threat, did the 
Spanish blow up the United States ship U.S.S. Maine that exploded in Havana 
Harbour? We don’t know but the United States of America went to war and 
managed to greatly increase it influence. The assassination Franz Ferdinand 
by the Narodna Odbrana a Serbian terrorist group lead to world war one, but 
it was just the excuse for the war. Europe was set to explode which was well 
known, the second international met in 1912 two years before the war to work 
out a policy on the coming imperialist conflict. War has always been used as 
a tool long before and after Carl von Clausewitz wrote in the 
Eighteen-hundreds:-

“War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a 
continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other 
means. ... for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the 
means must always include the object in our conception” (10)

Strauss considered himself a conservative scholar (opposed to philosopher 
who originate systems of thought, scholars just judge and reason with 
pre-existing systems, at least this is Strauss own categorisation) who 
returned to classical philosophy for an answer to the crisis of the west, of 
modernity. Strauss believed that the enlightenment along with it’s 
relativism that undermined societal unity and values brought a new 
conception of nature and the relation of philosophy to society. Strauss 
wanted to return the Platonist conception of nature opposed to the tradition 
of the enlightenment epitomised by thinkers like Rousseau who felt human 
nature shifted under different material contexts. This idea was taken 
further by Karl Marx, who felt nature was a temporal condition that was 
negated by the actions of mankind determining their own human nature and 
conditions. Though this was a two way street of conditions influencing the 
individual and the individual influencing the conditions:-

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do 
not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances 
existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all 
dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” (11)

The revolutionary humanism of Marx in the tradition of the enlightenment 
though of cause a critical adaptation of the tradition was of the political 
movements which Strauss sort to guard against. Strauss was an 
Anti-histrionist who saw Marx ideas us based on accidental truths in attempt 
to undermined ‘natural rights’. Thus Strauss whished that bring forward the 
ideals of Plato ironically would address current historical problems. The 
natural rights which are being subverted by revolutionary humanism and 
liberalism were the ideal that society must be hierarchical that the masses 
must be lead by a vanguard of philosopher kings. The philosopher kings must 
guard their intentions though and maintain their deception and myths, 
Straussian Esotericism does not go us far as that of Ammonius Saccas (12) 
who wrote nothing of his ideas and is only known according to his followers. 
Though another irony of Leo Strauss is through his works and teaching his 
philosopher of deceit has become well-known in circles who don’t hold 
favourable views on his aims. Another why in which the enlightenment 
challenged Strauss views was in the relation of philosophy to the city or 
society. For enlightenment thinkers philosophy was to become exoteric even 
though they wrote in an esoteric way something of a historical constraint 
(avoiding censorship and such, Denis Diderot was haunted by the police). For 
Marx philosophy and theory was consciousness of material forces:-

“We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. 
We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will 
give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is 
really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, 
even if it does not want to.” (13)

Which is quite contrary to Strauss who thought truth was only grasped in the 
abstract. Furthermore Marx felt philosophy to have any relevance must be 
gripped by the people, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in 
various ways;
the point is to change it”(14). While Strauss saw all philosophy as 
political this is not the use he would see it put.

The philosophy of Leo Strauss is based on Plato who incidentally the liberal 
democrat Karl Popper called a “proto-totalitarian”, (15) this philosophy is 
an attempt to resecure the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie from subversive 
and dangerous philosophical-political movements of the moderns.

2

The philosophy of Leo Strauss found its practical expression in a group of 
his students and readers who rallied together in infiltrating political 
philosophy departments, think tanks and government institutions and have 
became known as “Neo-conservatives”. Though there is no group who 
self-identifies as “Neo-conservative”, even though the press is ready to 
label them and plain conservatives to draw distinctions. This section of the 
essay will focus on major events and figures in the history of the 
Straussian conservative movement and its effect on the workings of 
government and world affaires.

Karl Marx once wrote that new revolution grown of new struggles find their 
sprit in old revolutions:-

“Thus the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of 
glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the 
given task in the imagination, not recoiling from its solution in reality; 
of finding once more the spirit of revolution, not making its ghost walk 
again.”(16)

The neo-conservatives are not like normal conservatives being as they see 
themselves as closer to revolutionaries contrary to the normal conservatives 
who want stability in world affairs and at home. Claes Ryn sees the 
neo-conservatives as a variant of Neo-Jacobinism, while other see them as 
trying to create a new roman empire. Others draw the neo-conservative drive 
for ‘democratic revolution’ as an adaptation of Trotsky’s “permanent 
revolution” (17) seeing that early Neo-conservatives such as Irving Kristol 
(sometimes called the godfather of the neoconservative movement) was himself 
a member of the Fourth international (Trotskyist international, opposed to 
the third [Stalinist] international). Furthermore Neo-conservatives have 
been greatly influenced by the ideas of Max Shachtman a non-orthodox 
Trotskyist who argued with Trotsky over the class nature of the soviet 
republic drawing the conclusion that it was a Bureaucratic collectivist 
state which should not be supported even critically (contrary to Trotsky’s 
notion of deformed workers state). But also the ex-Trotskyist thinker James 
Burnham who declared “the war of 1914 was the last great war of capitalist 
society” and that “the war of 1939 is the first great war of managerial 
society” (18), his notion of “managerial revolution” (19) is capitalism has 
been slowly eroding away and that Nazi Germany, Soviet union and the united 
states under the new deal represented a new society – “Managerial society” 
(20).

Within this new world order however someone wishes to characterise it, two 
of the most prevalent and longest standing politicians in the 
Neo-conservative movement are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Both having 
served under many administrations. Donald Rumsfeld served under the Nixon 
administration but started to make real headway for the neo-conservative 
movement during the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. In the position of White 
House Chief of Staff Member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975); and the 
13th U.S. Secretary of Defence (1975-1977). It was during this time that 
Rumsfeld and Cheney became evolved in controversy surrounding the death of 
CIA scientist Frank Olson who was involved in Project MKULTRA a now 
uncovered operation researching mind control drugs, experiments often 
carried out on non-consenting victims (American and Canadian, Theodore 
Kaczynski the Unabomber is thought to be a victim). Cheney and Rumsfeld 
helped organise the white house response to Olson’s death, which was not 
accepted by the Olson’s family and close friends. The government offered 
settlement out of court which the family accepted. In 1994, Professor James 
E. Starrs of The George Washington University determined that Olson had 
suffered some form of blunt force trauma prior to falling out of the window, 
and called the evidence “rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide”. In1996 
Manhattan district attorney opened a homicide investigation into Olson's 
death but was unable to find enough evidence to file charges. Eric Olson 
still believes his father developed moral qualms about his work and then the 
United States government had him killed. But also amidst the controversy in 
these positions Rumsfeld is attributed a large role in increasing the power 
of the military within the government at the expanse of the CIA and Henry 
Kissinger, who traditionally has been an enemy of the neo-conservatives 
because he supported a pragmatist approach to stability rather then 
revolutionising the world order. Rumsfeld achieved this power play victory 
by propagating the view or noble lie that the Soviet Union was spending more 
on arms and that the appropriate response was a United States arms 
production increase. This view was contrary to all reports done by the CIA 
at the time who concluded that the Soviet Union was suffering from economic 
decline that would lead to collapse of the system. Furthermore at his time 
Rumsfeld paved the way for the idea’s of Leo Strauss to become more 
accepted, though the neo-conservatives never attained much weight in 
directing foreign policy until the Reagan’s administration and the end of 
Détente.

The Détente ended with a chain of events one being the Islamist revolution 
in Iran led the United States populace and government to believe they were 
losing power and their position in the world. During Reagan’s presidency the 
neo-conservatives were considered only a small faction within the 
administration. But Reagan was an anti-communist throughout his life, during 
his acting career he informed on many people he considered ‘un-American’ or 
‘disloyal’ becoming a FBI informant under the code name "Agent T-10". On 
becoming president Reagan heated up the rhetoric of the cold war and 
increased defence spending, thus producing a renewed arms race between the 
Russian soviets and themselves. Furthermore the Reagan administration 
outline to win the cold war was one to increase the negotiating position of 
the United States by increased strategic position through arms superiority. 
Too bring out the arms race would lead to increased soviet spending on 
defence which would contribute to its already declining economy. Three was 
support of clandestine Anti-soviet forces and right-wing dictatorships 
(fascism) to Holt any increase in the Anti-USA power bloc (which included 
many countries and ideologies).

The new foreign policy of the Reagan administration basic aim was the same 
as all American foreign polices for the last century differing only in scop. 
The basic aim of American foreign policy is to continue its ideological 
hegemony and support it’s “interests”. Thus a country that doesn’t pose a 
military threat to the United States and its citizens can still be a 
legitimate target because it doesn’t comply with United States ideological 
alignment and thus represents an alternative. The change in scope however is 
the area in which this ideological hegemony must be continued and interest 
maintained. Before world war two the United States ‘sphere of influence’ was 
largely limited to the western hemisphere, though there are occasions were 
they bent their own rules. But after world war two the United States became 
what Burnham called “receiver” (21) of the British Empire. During Reagan’s 
Administration there was further imperialist aggression, supported by the 
neo-conservatives.

It was during this time that many world events were shaped and shaped the 
neo-conservatives. This was the time of the Iranian Islamist revolution, the 
Iran-Iraqi war, Iran-contra affair, arming of the Contras (short for 
counter-revolutionaries) in Nicaragua, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 
Lebanon’s civil war and soviet intervention in Afghanistan along with many 
other events notwithstanding the fall of the Berlin wall. The 
neo-conservative line was much the same as Reagan’s policy, differing on one 
issue. That issue was the Iraqi-Iran war, during which the Reagan white 
house openly supported the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and supplying arms 
to fight the Iranians. Richard Perle a leading neo-conservative policy 
advisor said “I was actually rather uncomfortable with the support that we 
gave Saddam during the war between Iraq and Iran” (22). Perle in explained 
the reasoning of the Reagan administration and the action he felt should 
have been taken:-

“the view was that the mullahs in Tehran were worst than the tyrant in 
Baghdad, and I understand that argument. I don’t agree with it, but even for 
those who accepted that view, the right course immediately after the end of 
that war would have been to say to Saddam, now we’ve had enough of you too, 
and we’re not gonna to tolerate it.” (23)

The reason why Perle was critical of Reagan’s handily of the Iraqi-Iran war 
was because he believes in using American military power as a means of 
toppling tyranny, war as a political instrument of cleansing evil elements 
within the world community. Though Perle was up in arms over this and 
combating American hypocrisy, other Neo-conservatives have been rather 
selective in their criticisms of nations they see to be evil, while 
supporting right-wing dictatorships and nations willing to help them in 
their “war on terror”. The Soviet-Afghanistan war is one that 
neo-conservatives are rather proud of.

The soviet-Afghanistan war has often been referred to as the Russians 
Vietnam because of the gradual evolution from military advisors to full 
blown intervention but also because it ended in a virtual stalemate. The 
soviets were draw into the war because the Marxist-Leninist government of 
the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was under attack from 
supporters from the old regime and the conservative Islamic peasantry. 
Supporters of soviet foreign policy claim that the intervention was a 
pre-emptive strike aimed at Islamist terrorist to stop them from taking 
control of the government. In response to the events in Afghanistan the 
United States administration under the influence of the neo-conservatives 
supported the Islamic resistance called “the Mujahideen”. Reagan referred to 
the Mujahideen as "freedom fighters ... defending principles of independence 
and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability." (24). 
Though Mikhail Gorbachev warned Reagan that democracy would not be realised 
in Afghanistan with the United States support of the Mujahideen. The white 
house went ahead with their plans to support the Mujahideen supplying them 
with billons of dollars worth of light guns and stinger missiles among other 
armaments primarily through Pakistan.

After the withdrawal of soviet troops was completed on February 2, 1989 it 
was expected that the central government in Kabul would collapse but these’s 
hopes were dashed when the Mujahideen was unsuccessful in taking provincial 
capitals or Kabul. The civil war continued until PDPA was no longer able to 
hold together the factions that constituted their government, thus in 1992 
the Mujahideen who had only been united through anti-communist sentiments 
took power divided in two main groups, the radical Taliban which created the 
central government and the Northern Alliance controlled provincial areas. As 
Gorbachev had warned the Mujahideen victory would not result in anything 
approaching democracy, which was correct because the result was an Islamic 
republic which the soviets had originally feared. As an aside to the victory 
of the Mujahideen Osama bin Laden and the more militant supports from his 
Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters into 
Afghanistan during the war) formed a group influenced by Sayyid Qutb (an 
Islamist thinker with a hate for Liberalism not far removed from Leo 
Strauss’s ideals). The group Aimed to install Islamist republics in the Arab 
world, through attacking the ‘far’ enemy the United States which it see’s as 
the corrupting source of liberalism and anti-Islamic values. Through all 
this though the Neo-conservatives were more assured of their ideals, 
believing that they had defeated the ‘evil empire’.

After the Reagan administration the Neo-conservatives found themselves 
outsiders in the George H.W. Bush administration. It was during this 
administration that the United States invaded oil rich Kuwait to oust the 
Iraqi armed forces who had invaded early on the order of Saddam Hussein 
(Colin Powell opposed the USA lead invasion suggesting sanction would be 
more appropriate ) . The neo-conservatives pushed for the army to invade 
Iraq proper and remove Hussein from power. But Bush had a more traditional 
approach to foreign policy aiming for stability rather then an aggressive 
moralist stance supported by the ‘hawkish’ Neo-conservatives. During the 
Clinton administration they remained outsiders but managed to tap into 
puritan politicalization lead by protestant fundamentalists in groups like 
“the moral majority”.

The puritan upsurge within the United States has been beneficial to the 
right-wing of politics, providing a kind of McCarthyite scare tactic. Since 
the end of the cold war there was not a major outside enemy but the myth of 
religion was creating a galvanising force in reaction to the ‘lax’ morality 
of bill Clinton. Some of the attacks on Clinton’s personal indiscretions 
turned out to have truth behind them, such as the Monica Lewinsky affair. 
But a lot of the allegations levelled at Clinton were complete fabrications 
such Whitewater. But while Clinton was hounded by theses alligation it 
represented a wider social change and focus on moral based issues playing 
into the hands of the Neo-conservatives.

The next president was George W. Bush of whom many of his critics feel was 
illegitimately elected in 2000. The new administration was a great victory 
for the Neo-conservatives with many of its top positions being filled by 
members of the neo-conservative movement (Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, 
Dick Cheney and others). The presidency of George w. bush has been a very 
controversial one from it’s conception, the influence of the 
neo-conservatives can been seen throughout this administrations actions, 
Afghanistan invasion (using the northern alliance), operation Iraqi 
liberation, puritan religious rhetoric.

The events of September, 11, 2001 will ever remain in the mind of those who 
lived through theses times. The events of that day are having a far greater 
effect the death of few thousand innocent people, they have been used has 
the basis for the invasion of two different countries. Firstly the invasion 
of Afghanistan because they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden the man 
believed to be behind the September 11th attacks, though the United States 
provided no evidence to support their claim. But secondly the invasion of 
Iraq which the neo-conservatives have been backing for years as outlined in 
a open letter to Bill Clinton on January 26, 1998 :-

“Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for 
its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the 
cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only 
acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be 
able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near 
term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is 
clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his 
regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign 
policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's 
attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from 
power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and 
military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and 
difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing 
to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. 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, American 
policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity 
in the UN Security Council.” (25)

This is not the last time neo-conservative expressed wishes to invade Iraq 
the same think tank from which the latter was sent “the Project for the New 
American Century” (PNAC). The PNAC produced a 90-page document in September 
2000 that states: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more 
permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with 
Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial 
American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of 
Saddam Hussein.”(26). This statement highlights the intention of the 
neo-conservatives, the excuse of war, links to terrorism and weapons of mass 
destruction have turned out to be completely false. But the premeditation to 
invade the Middle East remains clear and is part of the idea that America 
should be the sole world superpower and should maintain its ideology 
hegemony. This neo-conservative foreign policy finds it’s embodiment in the 
Bush Doctrine. This states the principles of Peremption: that the united 
state as the sole super power should be allowed to declare war if it feels 
threaded by terrorist or the states that support them. Unilateralism: the 
belief that the United States can take unilateral military action when 
bilateral action is not possible. Strength beyond Challenge: the notion that 
the United States is the strongest nation on earth and for security reasons 
must keep its defence above and beyond any rival power. Democracy, Liberty, 
and Security to All Regions: the notion that the United States has the right 
and duty to spread ‘democracy’ and other values it sees as good around the 
world through whatever means necessary.

We have seen that through the years of the neo-conservative movement they 
have been able to implement many of the notions of Leo Strauss. They 
supplied us all with noble lies about reasons for war and a constant threat 
which cannot be found but is there, so the nation unites against terrorism. 
They have managed to ride the wave of puritan outrage at their enemies in 
the Democratic Party. But above all they’ve been able to use the 
circumstances to their advantage as they new they would “The process of 
transformation,” according to the plan “is likely to be a long one, absent 
some catastrophic and catalysing event—like a new Pearl Harbour.” (27). but 
with respect to the underlying philosophical concerns of the 
Neo-conservatives of uniting the people in common mythology they have 
largely done this but not without complications. There is a minority but 
growing groups within the United States from both the left and right who 
oppose the policies of the neo-conservatives. The Neo-conservatives have 
long studied classical antiquity for answers to modern historical problems 
and particularly the Athenian philosophers. So it is an interesting to note 
that the arrogant city of Athens ruined itself in the pursuit of empire by 
the leadership of Alcibiades a student of Socrates. If we look at the world 
situation we see the neo-conservatives students of Plato and Socrates 
leading the United States in the pursuit of empire on a new Sicilian 
Expedition.

Notes to “The Philosophy of Leo Strauss: Oligarchs with Myths”



1) “The Manifesto of the communist party” by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels.

2) “The City and Man” by Leo Strauss.

3) “Existentialism is a Humanism” by Jean-Paul Sartre.

4) “"Farabi's Plato" by Leo Strauss.

5) All quoted from “The republic” by Plato (some translators consider “the 
state” to be a more accurate translation of the title)

6) This often quoted remark is actually a misquote what Karl Marx really 
wrote was, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression 
of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh 
of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of 
soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” In “Critique of Hegel's 
Philosophy of Right Introduction”.

7) George W.F Hegel blamed the influences of Rousseau on the French 
revolution for leading to its excesses of the terror. This is unwarranted 
because the Jacobins practiced representative “democracy” rather then direct 
democracy and thus they were not in line with Rousseau’s alternative social 
contract. Also the terror was at ends with Rousseau’s view on the use of 
violence in the attainment of said social contract.

8) For clarification the terms “Superman” or sometimes translated “overman” 
and “the herd” were employed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 
The first two terms depict people whose volition was strong, thus a strong 
sense of the “will to power”. While “the herd” were people with a weak “will 
to power” thus being lead as slaves by the “superman”. Some commentators see 
Leo Strauss as a closet Nietzschean, see Shadia Drury "The Esoteric 
Philosophy of Leo Strauss" Political Theory 13:3 (1985) 315-37 and The 
Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (New York, 1988); Laurence Lampert Leo 
Strauss and Nietzsche (Chicago, 1996); and Peter Levine Nietzsche and the 
Modern Crisis of the Humanities (Albany, 1995).

9) Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command, speaking at the Nuremberg 
Trials which took place after World War II.

10) “On War” by Carl von Clausewitz.

11) “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” by Karl Marx.

12) Ammonius Saccas lived during 3rd century AD and was a Greek philosopher 
of Alexandria, often called the founder of the Neoplatonic School, but is 
often confused with a Christian philosopher of the same name.

13) “Letter from Marx to Ruge” by Karl Marx in 1843.

14) “Theses on Feuerbach, Thesis XI” by Karl Marx.
15) “The Open Society and Its Enemies” by Karl Popper.

16) “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” by Karl Marx.

17) See Leon Trotsky’s “the Permanent Revolution”.

18) “The Managerial Revolution” by James Burnham

19) ibid

20) ibid

21) ibid

22) “Richard Perle: The Making of a Neoconservative” Aired 11/14/2002 on 
Think Tank a PBS program, interviewer: Ben Wattenberg.

23) ibid

24) “Proclamation 4908 -- Afghanistan Day” by Ronald Reagan, Filed with the 
Office of the Federal Register, 3:54 p.m., March 10, 1982.

25) January 26, 1998 PNAC Open Letter to the Honourable William J. Clinton
President of the United States, signed by Elliott Abrams, Richard L. 
Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula 
Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William 
Kristol, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr, Vin Weber, 
Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey and Robert B. Zoellick.

26) “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a 
New Century” produced by PNAC in 2000.

27) ibid

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