As the first scenes from the Gulf war were broadcast on American television, more than a few victory signs were probably raised in the editorial offices of magazines like Commentary or the New Republic and in the study rooms of think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute or the Hudson Institute.
Indeed, as in the headquarters of the Likud party in Tel Aviv, there was a sense of triumph and celebration at these centers of the neoconservative movement on the East Coast. For the members of this intellectual group, who during the Reagan era produced and implemented the militant pro-Israel and anti-Soviet agenda of the administration, the Persian Gulf war signaled the success of …