Description

This paper begins with a depiction of the neoconservative understanding of the ‘national interest,’ including the stature bestowed upon ethical considerations such as democracy promotion and human rights. This description also elaborates upon why ethical considerations were an integral component of the neoconservative strategic rationale for war, insofar as they were believed to strengthen U.S. security interests. Additionally, while neoconservative theory does value ethical considerations as an end goal, ethical claims also represent a means of achieving the national interest, by legitimising what the administration expected to be a unilateral and illegal intervention. By obscuring its ulterior motives and lending legitimacy to the Bush doctrine’s pursuit of regime change, ethical considerations are reminiscent of Plato’s favoured concept among notable neoconservatives (Drury 2003), of the ‘noble lie.’ The ‘noble lie’ represents a story with perhaps misleading or fictitious details, at the heart of which lies a profound truth (ibid). Paraphrased by former Secretary of Defence, and renowned neoconservative Donald Rumsfeld, in regard to the Iraq war, ‘strategic truths sometimes need to be defended by a “bodyguard of lies”’ (Mason 2004:1). In this capacity ethical justifications were utilised by the Bush administration to deflect criticism, appeal to a domestic audience and legitimise an unsanctioned regime change. The profound truth of the Bush administration’s ‘noble lie’ is that ethical considerations are an important end goal of the neoconservative agenda, as well as the means used to legitimate their genuine, but ultimately misguided, motives.