Scratch a Cameroon: find a neocon?

By Matthew Pennycook

An influential coterie of neo-conservatives surround the Tory leader – it’s time we begin to scrutinise the extent of their influence on Conservative foreign policy.

The PM’s speech on nuclear energy and proliferation last Tuesday was a timely reminder that even in these difficult times foreign policy is not completely dominated by economics. While responses to the global recession – for impeccable reasons – consume the attention of politicians and the commentariat, Britain continues to face a raft of traditional foreign policy questions which are daunting in their range and complexity.

The scale of these challenges and the growing ‘Westminster bubble’ consensus about a Tory government in waiting make it all the more surprising that the Conservative Party’s foreign policy has received so little scrutiny or criticism. In a notable exception to this trend in The Times two weeks ago Matthew Paris noted that, ‘…as Opposition leader, Margaret Thatcher defined herself in brutal and angry outline as a cold warrior.’ No comparable definition emerges from today’s Conservative Party whose intentions in European or international policy remain ominously vague.

In Europe, barring a commitment to hold a referendum on all future transfers of power to Brussels, a subtle hardening of policy towards the Euro, and the perturbing decision to withdraw Conservative MEPs from the mainstream European People’s Party the Conservatives are mute. No concrete outline exists of how a prospective Conservative government would engage with our European partners in the face of unprecedented global pressures which by their very nature require multilateral solutions.

This silence is even more deafening when it comes to Conservative intentions in the wider international arena. The plight of British forces bogged down in a bloody and decisive conflict in Central Asia has so far only provoked Conservative calls for cost sharing formula for NATO operations and a half-hearted critique attacking the lack of mission clarity. Conservative Middle-Eastern policy seems to consist of Mr. Cameron’s October 2007 proposal for a ‘Partnership for Open Societies in the broader Middle East,’ Mr. Hague’s desire to improve relations with moderate Arab states, and the distant possibility of a thawing of relations with Syria. With fighting intensifying in Afghanistan and the Middle East Peace Process floundering Tory policies seem deficient to say the least.

This pattern is echoed on issue after issue: on the critical issue of engagement with Iran, on meaningful ways to support Pakistan’s ailing democracy, or in terms of a vision of a new multipolar international order that truly incorporates rising powers like China, India, and Russia. Given the salience of these issues for the future prosperity and security of British citizens, the crude prerogatives of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition are not enough to justify Tory reticence.

On those rare occasions when it has been mentioned Cameron’s personal foreign policy outlook is presented as moderate. After the excesses of the last decade it would no doubt be welcomed by many. An appreciation that we are not engaged in an existential clash of civilisations, that liberty ‘cannot be dropped from the air by an unmanned drone,’ that democracy cannot be easily imposed from outside, and a call to institute a ‘solid but not slavish’ relationship with the United States all seem sensible, nuanced positions.

Yet beyond these general pronouncements the precise contours of Cameron’s ‘liberal conservative’ foreign policy remain opaque. Preoccupied with refashioning his Party domestically and devoid of any real imperative to do so Cameron has resisted placing flesh on the bones of his ‘liberal conservative’ foreign-policy skeleton. It is thus far from certain that his stated desire to move ‘beyond neo-conservatism’ will come to define the foreign and defence policy of a possible Conservative government.

What makes this uncertainty particularly ominous are the instincts and views of those Conservatives closest to Mr. Cameron, many of whom remain highly influential in setting the direction of Conservative Party policy. Two prominent examples:

Frontbencher and Cameron confidant Michael Gove MP has placed in the public domain his belief that militant political Islamism represents an existential threat to Western civilisation. He has conflated the issue of regime-change in Iraq with the threat from these terrorists. He supported the war in Iraq as part of a forward Western policy in the war against terror and has extolled the benefits of ‘exemplary military force’ in depriving terrorism of the means of advance. And he has attacked the realism of those-including the Obama administration-who recognise that there is a necessary role to be played by those regimes, however objectionable they may be, in working for peace and security around the world.

Similar patterns of thought are evident in the analysis of George Osborne MP who wrote in August 2004 that the mere possibility of a future productive capability, not actual possession, of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein’s regime warranted a military invasion; a regime-change justified because the creation of a ‘prosperous, democratic, successful Islamic state in the Middle East…would be a mortal blow to terrorists.’

More disconcertingly, the unreservedly neo-conservative viewpoints of two of the core drivers of the New Conservative Project are supported by other shadow cabinet ministers such as Liam Fox MP and a significant number of Tory backbenchers. They allude to a Manichean strategic orientation that sees a war on terror as the only logical response to a clash of civilisations between Islamism and liberal democracy. They extol the necessity of not only pre-emptive but preventative unilateral military action as an appropriate and sometimes necessary component of meeting this civilisational threat. And they fervently believe-despite the pitfalls of selectivity in a world awash with authoritarian regimes-that regime-change and the imposition of liberty and democracy by the sword is the best guarantee of future peace and stability.

In the lead up to April’s London G20 summit it is inevitable that the nations’ attention should be focused on meeting the challenges of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. However, we cannot let this crisis distract our attention from the long list of pressing foreign policy issues that confront us.

Most importantly, it cannot serve to distract our attention from seeking justification on whether the views of prominent neo-conservative shadow ministers-so at odds with those viewpoints intermittently expressed by the leader of their Party-are to have any part in the foreign policy of a possible Conservative government. Superficially, the Conservative Party may have followed the majority of the globe in moving beyond neo-conservatism but if it hasn’t the potential implications for Britain and the world could be disastrous. It is high time we forced Cameron to abandon his strategic reticence and demanded some answers.