To the editor:

In an article in these pages (“Neocons Rising,” Sept. 8, 2014) a few days ago a fellow member of the Harvard community commented on the discrepancy between the public’s disapproval of President Obama’s foreign policy and their apparent approval for individual decisions that he has made.

This mismatched position of concurrently feeling the president is weak while agreeing with his actions must have an explanation, and the author identified one. Yes, you guessed it: The dreaded neocons are on their way back, bringing their distortions and warmongering with them.

But are the neocons actually back? We can only hope so.

For liberals there is no bugbear quite like the neoconservative. When it comes to foreign policy they are blamed for almost everything. Spoken about almost invariably in conspiratorial terms, they are accused of everything from fabricating evidence surrounding WMDs in Iraq, to being subservient to Israel, to preferring war to peace. There appears to be no low to which they will not stoop in the liberal popular imagination.

In reality, there is nothing to be feared or disapproved of in the principles of the neoconservatives. They represent a clear, moral voice in our body politic, and one that has not given up on the vision of a better world, not just one that is more politically convenient.

Neocons believe in the promotion of democracy and human rights—not just in hollow speeches on the campaign trail, but as a priority for our foreign policy.

Neocons believe that at times in our world we are confronted with good and evil, and it is our duty to offer succor to one and dispatch the other.

If it is true that the American people are turning away from the Obama-view of the world, and embracing the principles of the Neoconservatives, it is hardly difficult to see why.

Perhaps it is because they see President Obama standing idly by as the Butcher of Damascus gasses his citizens, despite explicitly saying he would not allow it. Perhaps it is because they see Putin dismembering Ukraine and the Obama administration offering nothing other than empty rhetoric.

Probably it is because Americans demand more from their president than a shrug of the shoulders and a desire to avoid taking responsibility for anything in the international sphere.

It is not in the American character to shirk responsibility, but that is exactly what President Obama is doing. It took the brutality of ISIS being beamed onto our smartphones for the administration to even think about doing anything about this barbarism.

The threat to American (and indeed global) security today is not from the return of a stronger Neoconservative moment. Rather the true danger lies in a collapse into the isolationist navel gazing of which Obama is only the shallow water and Rand Paul the deep blue sea.

The American people recognize that Obama has taken us right to the brink. Only a principled and robust approach can drag us back. It is neoconservative ideology that offers it.

Philip A. Gardner

Masters student at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies