Worldwide Fundamentalism, the Middle East and Neoconservative Notions

How is it possible that contemporary political ideas in the United States effect the relationship between Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah?

First, ideas in this the most powerful nation on earth (for now, at least) are bound to effect other nations. Second, while Postmodern social theory describes a cultural universe that is relativistic, the actual cultural drift during the last decade of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st Century has been toward worldwide fundamentalism. Whether we talk of evangelical Christian dogma in the United States, radical Islam in the East, entrenched Catholicism in the West, we see that the trend toward dogmatic fundamentalism is constant. Third, the political arena does not operate in isolation. Rather, it is one ingredient in the worldwide fundamentalist cultural soup being brought to the boiling point in the Middle East. Fourth, George W. Bush is an evangelical fundamentalist, as is Carl Rove, Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff. His administration was elected as part of an evangelical fundamentalist move into the United States’ political arena. As placed into operation by the Bush II administration, our flailing and failed foreign policy, The National Security Strategy of 2002, implements Neoconservative theory as, I maintain, part of an evangelical Christian worldview. Fourth, the Neoconservative vision of politics in the 21st Century as put into practice in Iraq - and according to some political theorists of other persuasions including Neo-neoconservatives - has served to destabilize that part of the world including Israel and Lebanon. *It may not be politically correct to draw these facts together in the second half of the first decade of the 21st Century. It is however, the political reality.

Readings

Bush, George W. The National Security Strategy of the United States. The White House, Washington D. C., 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. Visited Sunday, July 16, 2006, 10:15 AM EDT.

Fukuyama, Francis, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2006.

Marty, Martin E. and Appleby, R. Scott, The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press. 1992.