Just as was the case with the John Birch Society in the '60s, most conservatives even now don't know anything about PNAC and consequently must learn about it from sources antagonistic to the group--if they even care.
Unlike the JBS, any mention of which in those days elicited their condemnation from Democrats as well as from Republicans of a Nixonian bent, PNAC's policy prescriptions were not so far off the course of American policy being followed in the middle east and elsewhere as to cause the media to brand the organization as extremist, kooks or even a little radical. Perhaps the fact that so many big names were signatories inoculated the organization against intense media coverage?
At any rate, PNAC was largely swept under the rug both before and after 9/11/01. And, as you said, the site has been taken down, the organization disbanded. Mission accomplished.
However, anyone who missed PNAC the first time around can still visit the site as it existed circa 2006 via the Wayback Machine. Most of the memos and papers are still downloadable, along with the 88-page "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document which is basically a blueprint for policing the world. I would hope that some conservative writer with a sense of contrition may someday visit and supplement the IPS's summary with his own, filling in a few gaps along the way.
Thanks, that wayback link will be helpful.
IPS is a group so far to the left that they likely see Obama as rightwing. But that piece they have posted on PNAC seems to be a pretty fair rendering of PNAC’s history as I remember it.
It would be useful if we had some conservative site host something similar. Chronicles magazine would be a good choice, they were never fans of the PNAC crowd.
“, PNAC’s policy prescriptions were not so far off the course of American policy being followed in the middle east and elsewhere as to cause the media to brand the organization as extremist, kooks or even a little radical. “
That’s a good point. PNAC was selling something similar to conventional postwar liberal internationalism. But it was that policy on steroids and it added more than a little ‘let’s rule the World’ to the mix.
They didn’t want to let America’s Sole Superpower moment go to waste, and they were willing to embroil us in a war to further their dream of converting the Middle East. The old policy of containing potential enemies wasn’t enough to suit them.
Our desire to avenge the 9/11 attacks gave the PNAC crew the opportunity to include their own agenda of conquering Iraq, something they had been openly promoting since 1998. Most Americans would have no reason to suspect that Iraq had zero connection to the Islamic terrorists of 9-11 so it was an easy sell. But it was deceitful, dishonest, and lot of GIs have paid a high price for that crowd’s desire to remake the world.