The author, Jacob Heilbrunn, is an utter mediocrity, the sort who builds a reputation by writing banal opeds in the New York Times, in which he lampoons the people the New York Times wants to see lampooned, while coming across as a serious, responsible person. He built a reputation for himself as a critic of the neocons.

Of course, he never was opposed to the neocons. It was all a piece of theater, rather like the comedians who pretend to be against the Establishment, but crave to be accepted by the Establishment and make gazillions of dollars as reward for having done so.

On the strength of writing a silly, shallow book about the neocons--a subject that has been done to death ever since this group of Israel-Firsters emerged on the scene in the 1970s--Heilbrunn got himself a gig as editor of The National Interest.

This magazine, as the title implies, was created sometime during the 1980s to advocate for a "realist" U.S. foreign policy in opposition to excessive U.S. foreign policy activism. The problem was that the magazine was set up by the neocons. Its founder, publisher and editor was "godfather of neoconservatism" Irving Kristol. And while Kristol had little time for promoting democracy, human rights, global liberalism--or even NATO come to that--he was no non-interventionist. America needed to do whatever it needed to do to get rid of the bad guys and to support Israel.

Kristol was very crafty. He had been knee-deep in all kinds of CIA activities during the 1950s and 60s. He was the founding editor of the Congress for Cultural Freedom's flagship publication, Encounter. However, during the 1980s, he acquired a notoriety by seemingly opposing continued U.S. participation in its most famous post-1945 construct: NATO. Countless neocons would fulminate against Kristol. How dare he betray U.S. principles in this way? Kristol mischievously delighted in this little contretemps that he had caused. Kristol knew perfectly well that there was not the remotest chance that the U.S. would ever withdraw from NATO. What he sought to do--and what he largely achieved--was to get the wormy Europeans to stop criticizing the U.S. and to embrace, with a little more enthusiasm, whatever project Washington intends to cook up.

So, The National Interest was always largely a fraud. Today it's run by the Nixon Center. Ah Nixon! So it must be advocating for "realism"! It must be waxing nostalgic for the great days of masterful U.S. diplomacy. No, it is not. It's the same warmed-over neocon foreign policy stew available everywhere.

That's why its editor is Heilbrunn, a neocon who fooled everyone into believing that he was against the neocons. In this New York Times oped he gets in every cliche known to man about Trump's supposed "isolationism." This after Trump cheered on the latest Ukraine package, and this after Trump has signed off on Israel's maximalist agenda.

Most amusing of all, Heilbrunn berates Trump for his disdain for democracy and his love for autocracy. Wasn't the whole point of The National Interest that Americans should stop fretting about democracy and authoritarianism and instead focus on what is in the national interest of their country?

https://archive.ph/G7V9P