Neocon group rises again

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- The Project for a New American Century, the nonprofit foundation that conspiracy theorists -- not to mention many Democrats -- believe hatched the US invasion of Iraq has re-emerged on the Internet, sparking Beltway chatter that neoconservatives may soon have their old perch back to criticize President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy.

The group's website was relaunched last month after a year in hibernation, though there is no evidence so far that its founders have big plans for the self-described "educational organization" that gained an almost mythic reputation --and a highly exaggerated one, defenders insist -- for being the intellectual incubator for architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Gary Schmitt, one of the founders and now a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, does not rule out a resurrection of sorts to provide a vehicle for airing new commentary on US global leadership.

"We're not bringing the bandwagon out of the barn yet," Schmitt told the Globe. His co-founder, neoconservative commentator William Kristol, could not be immediately reached for comment.

PNAC, when it first emerged in 1997, included among its members Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, ex-Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz, former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and current UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad -- along with a collection of other denizens that advocated a muscular US foreign policy, including pre-emptive war.

PNAC published, among other documents, a letter to President Clinton in 1998 that called for "implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power." That would not happen until many of the signatories were enlisted to serve in high government positions under President George W. Bush.

The group has not published anything since 2006.

"I think the timing is interesting," Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the left-leaning New America Foundation and author of the Washington Note blog, said of the website's return. "The only reason it makes sense to bring it back is to criticize Obama's foreign policy decisions."