With President Bush near the six-year mark and his poll numbers sagging, especially on his handling of the war in Iraq, will his neoconservative brand of foreign policy continue to dominate the ideology of the Republican Party after he leaves office and the overall shape of US foreign policy or is “neoconservatism” on its way out? What will US foreign policy look like in the post-Bush years?

Since the President has clearly stated that troops will remain in Iraq beyond 2008, and with no resolution to both the North Korean and Iranian nuclear standoffs in sight, this question is a timely one. While there is no doubt that other issues will factor in the 2008 US presidential election, national security and the War on Terror will remain to be paramount issues in the race. The next president will not only need to resolve these pressing issues—or some may charge, clean up the mess—but also oversee the second phase of the War on Terror.

Neoconservatism is often difficult to define and is frequently used by critics as a loaded term, associated with anti-Semitic and oil conspiracy theories. However, neoconservatism is not solely centered on a hard-line foreign policy, better known as the “Bush Doctrine,” considering most neoconservatives have a shared ideological outlook on US domestic issues as well. To make matters more confusing, prominent neoconservatives and former neoconservatives have disagreed amongst themselves, including on the Iraq war. Some neoconservatives label their school of thought as distinctly American, while others claim it is a derivative of leftist and Marxist ideologies. Between these two neoconservative groups, another faction considers the doctrine as merely a continuation of familiar strands of US foreign policy.

Regardless, both critics and supporters would agree that neoconservatism unapologetically encourages the United States to embrace the burdens of a superpower and to be unafraid to resort to military action. Neoconservatives also wish to give “moral clarity” to US foreign policy, hence the language in Bush’s speeches on freedom and liberty. Neoconservatives want greater political and military flexibility for the United States to act unilaterally and preemptively because they share a disdain for what they see as ineffective international organizations that have failed to spread democratic values and curb oppressive regimes.

The internal feuding on the right is a telling sign that suggests neoconservatism, regardless of the identity of the next president, is posed to lose some of its ideological salience, but not its rhetorical power, as a guiding force behind US foreign policy in the next administration. While it will still remain an intellectually resonant and opinionated school of foreign policy, neoconservatism is on its way out.

The ebbing of neoconservatism’s influence will be due to both the failure of the Bush Administration to follow through on its stated principles and an incongruity between ideology and the ever shifting reality. These flaws reveal the constraints of implementing neoconservatism from theory to practice. In other words, these past years have shown us that there remain problems on the execution level and the theoretical level. Neoconservative politicians may aspire to retain neoconservative influence within the Beltway, but neoconservatism is unlikely to get approval from voters when other foreign policy approaches present themselves.

The inability (or incompetence; take your pick) of the Bush administration to act on lofty goals of democratization has opened neoconservatism to charges that it only pays lip service to ideals of liberty and democracy. While the United States has created two new democracies—Afghanistan and Iraq—on paper, neither in its current condition could survive on its own. To claim liberal democracy, the United States needs to do more than stage an election; it requires a serious commitment from the United States and the citizens of these emerging democratic states themselves to push for an open and tolerant society. Unfortunately, the current US administration, believing in a rosy picture of post-war Iraq, has neglected to do serious planning beyond military operations, making winning the peace a much harder task than previously thought.

But the shortcomings of the Bush administration do not stop there. While Bush declared “not on my watch” in reaction to genocide during the 1990s, in reality, he has done little on Darfur until late. He has been slow to push Egypt toward greater democratic reforms, and now has stopped speaking of reform in that region. He has said almost nothing about Russia’s move toward autocratic rule since he famously remarked that he could see in Putin’s eyes and see his soul.

President Bush has actually worsened national security by mouthing the platitudes without walking the walk. Foreign policy and intelligence experts see only efforts on paper, such as creation of new bureaucracies, rather than seeing actual efforts toward securing our ports and borders. These policy failures not only have meant that the public has lost its confidence in the Bush administration, but it also shows that for all of neoconservatism’s talk of the power of ideas, concrete results and details matter. Voters undoubtedly will recognize the lack of results and thus reject the Bush brand of neoconservatism.

The possible decline of neoconservative influence lies with the ideological strands as well. Policymakers are realizing that the tough talk is over-inflammatory, creating more animosity and emboldening enemies, not scaring them. Politicians and pundits are asking, why continue to believe in neoconservatism when its results have been rather disastrous?

First, hard-line policies that prefer isolation tactics over collaborative diplomatic strategies cause greater polarization between the United States and its allies and between the United States and its enemies, often strengthening rather than weakening the hands of extremist elements. The government of Iran actually tried to open a dialogue with the United States before the current nuclear crisis, only to be rebuffed by the Bush Administration, which has radicalized its stance. Now, the same has occurred in North Korea. As the United States continues to place near impossible conditions on negotiation efforts, it forces countries that are seeking solutions (not war games), such as China, Russia, and South Korea, to abandon the middle ground or risk splintering the coalition. The administration’s track record—a more aggressive Iran, a nuclear-armed North Korea, a civil war-torn Iraq, and the unfolding crisis in Lebanon and Israel—will mean the potential 2008 Republican candidates will be crafting foreign policy that distances themselves from neoconservatism. Indeed, the Bush administration itself, if we are to judge it by its words, already seems to be dropping neoconservatism as its foreign policy guide.