Manifest Destiny and Neoconservatism - Two Idealogies or One?

As I read the account of President James Polk and the Mexican-American War, it was hard to resist a comparison between the deceptive actions and false pretenses of Polk and our modern day President George W. Bush and 'his' Iraq War. The book Out of Many points out that Polk’s behavior and the alleged misleading of congress into war marked “the history of congressional concern over the way presidents … exercised their war powers” and shortly thereafter mentions our contemporary issue of the Iraq War.

Polk, in his statements before congress, claimed that Mexico was a threat to the United States, and that “Mexican forces … assumed a belligerent attitude” toward the US forces. President Bush claimed that Iraq posed a serious threat to the United States, a pretense based on the existence of W.M.D’s, and even made correlations between the 9/11 attack and Iraq’s support of Al Qaeda. Both Bush’s and Polk’s justifications for military action came under intense scrutiny and criticism as being self-serving and holding a hidden agenda, and their claims for the need for warfare later proved false or exaggerated.

As the Mexican-American war raged on, initial patriotic fervor waned to party-based antagonism and then turned to outright opposition of the war, both in congress and among the people. In the Iraq War, the war was initially built on patriotic appeal based on recent terrorism attacks; but after the war was perceived to drag on past the administration’s first estimates and the initial concerns over W.M.D’s were exposed as spurious, the sentiment soon turned to raw opposition.

But can the similarities be deeper than circumstantial coincidence? The answer lies in a comparison of the ideals that drive the actions of the presidents in question. The two views are Bush’s ‘neoconservative view’ and the Manifest Destiny of Polk’s era. These two ideologies share a common foundation, and some have even argued that neoconservatism is a reworked, less overt form of Manifest Destiny with just less of an emphasis on racism and ethnocentrism.

Manifest Destiny was coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O'Sullivan, who stated in the New York Morning News “And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence [God] has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us” and established the divine mission of the great experiment of liberty (May). Note that the ideology was both moral and religious.


Strikingly, modern neoconservative views specifically relating to foreign policy were described by Irving Kristol in 1983 with very similar terms when he stated that "Neoconservatives believe that the goals of American foreign policy must go beyond a narrow, too literal definition of `national security'. It is the national interest of a world power, as this is defined by a sense of national destiny, not a myopic national security" (Prashad, italics my own).

Most notably, though, both the expansionist ambitions of Manifest Destiny and neoconservative foreign policy are inherently oriented around military force. “Manifest Destiny is… aptly equipped for conflict. Indeed, many have argued that war is inherent in this doctrine… Manifest Destiny drew upon centuries old themes of American civil religion; it proffered America's superior and chosen nature and its duty to redeem the continent and perhaps the globe, (1) as justification to expand America's geographical and political boundaries. Relying on these tenets, Presidents Polk and Tyler added more than 800 million acres of Mexican land to the United States in the mid-1800s through war and confiscation” (Coles).

Irving Kristol summarized the foreign policy of neoconservatism this way:

For a great power, the ‘national interest’ is not a geographical term… A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the … United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns.

The two ideologies also share themes of (1) a chosen nation, noted for its “political uniqueness” (2) concepts of “civil millennialism” where the US is viewed as the agent of God’s activity. Both ideologies create missions of divine direction to both serve as the example to the world and lead others to the freedom of the democratic savior (Coles).

In Joaquin Cabrejas’ Behind Bush’s drive to war – US Pres George W. Bush, the article notes that Bush’s neoconservative view of religion makes him “more likely to embrace the idea of a lust war” and create a case for a moral war, aside from the absence of secular and national security interests (e.g. absence of W.M.D’s).

A neoconservative view of religion can be seen in Bush’s comments: “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them” (Winkler), and at the 2002 State of the Union speech, where he stated that “We've come to know truths that we will never question: evil is real, and it must be opposed” and identified this evil with Hussien and Iraq (Whitehouse.gov).

Additionally, Bush also referenced the prophet Isaiah when speaking to the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, demonstrating further evidence of a neoconservative view of religion as it relates to US foreign policy:

All of you -- all in this generation of our military -- have taken up the highest calling of history. You're defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope -- a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "To the captives, 'come out,' -- and to those in darkness, 'be free.'"

Thus George W. Bush’s appeal to the moral and civil religious aspects in an attempt to further national secular interests can be compared the to the shrouded motives of the appeal of President Polk who constructed a case for war and conquest on the patriotic and religious ideology of Manifest Destiny. The similarities between the Manifest Destiny ideology and modern neoconservatism are thus made apparent, and one can discern that perhaps neoconservative views may have arisen from the imperialistic ideology that once furthered the expansion of the United States on continental soil and may now be serving to further the global democratic expansion of the United States in its foreign policy.


Sources:

Cabrejas, Joaquin. “Behind Bush's drive to war - US Pres George W. Bush”. LookSmart.com. Humanist. Nov-Dec 2003. Gale Group. 25 July 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_6_63/ai_110459876.

Center for American Progress. “In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat”. Americanprogress.org. 29 January 2004. 25 July 2007. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b24970.html.

Coles, Roberta L. “Manifest destiny adapted for 1990s' war discourse: mission and destiny intertwined”. LookSmart.com. Sociology of Religion. Winter 2002. Association of Religion. Gale Group. 25 July 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SOR/is_4_63/ai_96254889.

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

Kristol, Irving. “The Neoconservative Persuasion”. WeeklyStandard.com. 25 August 2003. The Weekly Standard, News Corporation. 25 July 2007. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=3000&R=785F27881.

Lobe, Jim. “Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception”. PeuplesMonde.com. 19 May 2003. Peuples & Monde. 25 July 2007. http://www.peuplesmonde.com/article.php3?id_article=159.

May, Robert E. “Manifest Destiny”. PBS.org. 14 March 2006. KERA Unlimited. 25 July 2007. http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/md_manifest_destiny2.html.

Polk, James. “James Polk Speech - War Message”. FamousQuotes.me.uk. 11 May 1846. 25 July 2007. http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/presidential-speech-james-polk.htm.

Prashad, Vijay. “The age of `neocons'”. Flonnet.com. 17 January 2004. Frontline. 25 July 2007. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2102/stories/20040130000506400.htm.

White House, The. “President Delivers State of the Union Address”. Whitehouse.gov. 29 January 2002. Office of the Press Secretary. 25 July 2007. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html.

White House, The. “President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended”. Whitehouse.gov. 1 May 2003. Office of the Press Secretary. 25 July 2007. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html.

Winkler, Carol. “The Use of Religious Arguments in Contemporary U.S. Presidential Discourse”. WFU.edu. 25 July 2007. http://users.wfu.edu/hazen/Documents/Winkler%20paper.doc.