the stuff that's coming out about john bolton sheds more light on the iraq invasion and the nature of neo-conservatism than do any of these reports on "intelligence failings" etc. bolton drove the exaggeration or the sheer fictionalization of every threat: iraq, cuba, syria, and, one thinks, more. surely that represented the concerted strategy of the straussian cabal: wolfowitz, perle, and friends.
now let me give you, in ultra-simplified form, the political philosophy of the lovely leo strauss. the world must be run by an elite of superior intellectuals, inheritors of the grand tradition of western intellection. a la plato's republic, they care for lesser chumps through deception and manipulation. they are charged with responsibility for the world, and because most people are stupid and deceived anyway, there's no reason not to use their stupidity and gullibility for their own good. i would think the republican straussians have done about as thorough a job of this as is possible, starting perhaps, with their use of george bush as their folksy manipulative instrument.
now there a few drawbacks to this approach:
(1) it is almost nothing but a pure form of self-congratulation and repulsive egomania.
(2) it is profoundly, entirely, incompatible with freedom and democracy in any form.
(3) as one uses falsehood to wield power one becomes not only a liar butr unaccountable to anyone for the policies one then goes on to formulate on the basis of the lies one tells. in other words, abuse of power is built into the intellectual structure at its foundaqtion.