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Right Web | Analysis |
America's Crusaders
Tom Barry, IRC | February 23, 2007
IRC Right Web
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Ideology and faith are stirring new calls to arms among influential
political factions in the United States. At a time when the U.S.
public is questioning the interventionism and unilateralism of the
Bush administration, leading social conservatives and
neoconservatives insist that the United States needs to militarily
confront the purported threats facing the Judeo-Christian world order.
Leading far-right social conservative Rick Santorum, a devout
Catholic and former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, is heading
up a new initiative, called the "America's Enemies" program at the
neoconservative-aligned Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), to
awaken the slumbering public to what he sees as a "gathering storm"
of adversaries. At the same time, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a devout
Jew who co-chairs the Committee on the Present Danger, is calling for
a global political and military alliance to defeat the threat of
"Islamic extremism."
Ironically, while the ideology and faith-based politics of "America's
enemies" routinely come under attack by U.S. social conservatives and
neoconservatives as dangerous manifestations of radicalism, the
ideology and faith-based politics of America's would-be defenders are
presented as redemptive forces in world affairs.
Perhaps nowhere does this merger of ideology and faith come together
so clearly than at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where
Santorum is a program director. A strong supporter of the war in Iraq
and the Bush administration's war on terror, the EPPC has since the
mid-1990s sought to mix religion and politics-or more specifically,
to conjoin the Religious Right with a hawkish foreign policy. In its
own words, the center aims to "clarify and reinforce the bond between
the Judeo-Christian moral tradition" and the public policy debate.
Immediately after his electoral defeat in November 2006, Santorum
announced his plans to carry his crusading politics into private
life, which resulted in the creation of EPPC's "America's Enemies"
program. The program focuses on "identifying, studying, and
heightening awareness of the threats posed to America and the West
from a growing array of anti-Western forces that are increasingly
casting a shadow over our future and violating religious liberty
around the world."
Rather than regarding his overwhelming electoral defeat last November
as an indicator that his own extreme notions about domestic and
foreign policy were misguided, Santorum concluded that Americans are
slumbering while at the gates gather barbarians such as "Islamic
fascism."
"Iraq is only one front in a larger war waged against the Western
world," Santorum says. It is a war of ideas, according to him, waged
by Islamic fascists-whose tentacles extend beyond Iraq and
Afghanistan and into Iran and Venezuela. "We are under siege by a
people with an ideology, a plan, hundreds of millions of dollars, and
an ever-increasing presence on virtually every continent" (Santorum,
"Knowing Our Enemies," National Review Online, December 12, 2006).
Topping the list of priorities is the need "to confront Iran," says
Santorum, who was once described by the New York Times Magazine as
the "country's preeminent faith-based politician," after President
George W. Bush. War, said Santorum in a major speech on the Senate
floor, "is at our doorstep, and it is fueled, figuratively and
literally, by Islamic fascism, nurtured and bred in Iran" (December
6, 2006).
Likening the current array of countries that oppose the United States
to what Winston Churchill called the "gathering storm" before World
War II, Santorum paints a picture of enemies closing in on the United
States. "With the exception of the state of Israel, we are fighting
this battle alone, and I suspect we will for quite some time,"
laments Santorum.
Along with Islamic fascists, Santorum points to supposed threats to
U.S. national interests and security coming from Venezuela, Bolivia,
Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, and China. To support his alarmist rhetoric,
Santorum claims, apparently without evidence, that Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela "plans to spend $30 billion to build 20 military bases in
neighboring [sic] Bolivia," where Bolivian soldiers will answer to
Venezuelan and Cuban officers. In a speech last December, Santorum
warned that the "Sandinista revolution" in Nicaragua and the
"Bolivarian revolution" are constructing a 21st-century socialism in
the U.S. backyard.
Although Santorum played an important role in the Senate in building
support for confrontational resolutions on Iraq and Iran, he was
mainly known for his aggressive leadership in legislative efforts
against abortion, in favor of intelligent design, against gay ri
