There was a time when it looked as if Washington's neocons were in full retreat, discredited by the catastrophe in Iraq. The cabal of pro-Israeli foreign policy hawks at the heart of the Bush Administration were beginning to face sharp criticism. They were blamed for having carried the United States into war on false, and even fraudulent, premises.
As the huge costs of the war mounted, the notion of reshaping the Middle East's political order by armed force to suit US and Israeli interests under the cover of promoting "democracy" had, for many observers, come to seem a grotesque confidence trick.
At the same time, an acrimonious debate started in the United States about the role of Israel's army of American lobbyists in influencing American Middle East policy in an anti-Arab and pro-Israeli direction.
A trigger for this debate was a lengthy paper, highly critical of the Israel lobby, which two prominent American academics, John Mears-heimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, published last March. Their work aroused a storm of protest from Israeli sympathisers and continues to be the subject of fierce controversy.
In the meantime, however, several Washington's war-mongers had moved or been moved to other jobs. Paul Wolfowitz, the main architect of the Iraq war, had left the Pentagon for the presidency of the World Bank.
His side-kick, Douglas Feith whose "Office of Special Plans" had hyped false intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had also left the Pentagon. Richard Perle a leading advocate of the idea that American military power should be used to destroy Israel's enemies had been stripped of his chairmanship of the Defence Policy Board.
Scourge of 'rogue regimes'
The fiery John Bolton, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, who had been the scourge of "rogue regimes" and Arab radicals, was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations, where his many critics hoped he would do less harm.
It was even thought that the appointment of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State in the second Bush administration would serve to moderate the aggressive nationalism and war-like instincts of Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and even those of President George W. Bush himself.
Some pundits were even beginning to predict a change in American foreign policy as Washington woke up to the great hostility its policies had aroused around the world.
Optimists even suggested that the notions which had so far underpinned Bush's foreign policy would now be reassessed and, in some cases, discarded notions, for example, of "American empire", of US world domination through armed force, of the right to resort to pre-emptive war, of contempt for international treaties and international institutions, of reshaping and imposing democracy on the Middle East.
It was even thought that the neocons' central belief that American and Israeli security interests were identical would now be re-examined and that America might adopt a more balanced posture in the Middle East.
Some wishful thinkers even dared to hope that America, chastened by the Iraq war, would rediscover the liberal, generous, internationalist values which had guaranteed American popularity and American leadership after the Second World War.
These hopes, dreams and Utopian predictions have been in vain and without substance for one important reason. Pro-Israeli foreign policy hawks remain strongly entrenched inside the Bush Administration where, in conjunction with an array of supportive right-wing think-tanks, they continue to shape US policy, especially on the Middle East.
Men such as Eliott Abrams, director of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council; David Wurmser, Cheney's Middle East adviser, and John Hannah, Cheney's chief-of-staff, remain active and influential.
In addition, two other senior American officials closely allied to the neocon camp now play a central role in America'a self-proclaimed "Global War on Terror", and its bitter contest with Arab and Muslim opponents.
Stuart Levey, Under-Secretary at the US Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and Robert Joseph, Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs at the State Department (John Bolton's old job) are spearheading America's campaign against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
In the run up to the Iraq war, Robert Joseph was the US government official responsible for inserting into Bush's 2003 state of the union speech the fraudulent allegation that Iraq had bought uranium from Niger. This charge played a key role in convincing Congress and the public that war against Saddam was necessary.
Joseph is well-known for his association with pro-Israeli think-tanks in Washington, such as Frank Gaffney's Centre for Security Policy. His often repeated argument is that America's "new adversaries [Iran?] seek only enough destructive power to blackmail us so that we will not come to the help of our friends [Israel?] who then become victims of aggression".
Judging from their speeches, activities and testimonies to Congressional committees, both Levey and Joseph are Israel-centric hard-liners, determined to shatter the Iranian and Syrian economies and cut off the flow of funds to all Islamic movements, organisations and charities.
Parroting Israeli leaders, Robert Joseph has warned that Iran's nuclear programme is approaching a "point of no-return" and that a nuclear-armed Iran "cannot be tolerated". Together with Levey, he has been blackmailing and threatening foreign banks with fines and lost business if they continue dealing with Iran.
One of the greatest scandals of the present situation is that Arab banks fearful of being boycotted and punished by the US as supporters of terrorism have refused to transfer money to the starving Palestinians. Even the proposed European aid package has first to be approved by Israel. In the words of an Israeli spokesman, Mark Regev, it must give Hamas "neither legitimacy nor recognition".
These then are among the reasons for thinking that the US is still a very long way from rethinking its foreign policy. In Washington, the neocons still reign supreme.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
