Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows

But the aide went on to repeat, with emphasis, some of Bush's words that put democratization of other countries at the center of his foreign policy. "It is a top priority for his second term," the aide said. "He's raised the emphasis. He's raised the profile.... He's made it clear that he's going to turn up the pressure a bit. He's going to try to accelerate the process."

The administration would begin unveiling specific steps to increase the pressure for democracy in undemocratic countries, the Bush aide said, but he refused to describe any at this point.

At her confirmation hearings this week, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice named six countries as "outposts of tyranny" that would get special attention from the second-term Bush administration: Cuba, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe.

On Friday, the senior official who briefed reporters said the administration also would be pressing friendly regimes to institute democratic reforms; he mentioned Russia, China, Pakistan and Egypt "as illustrations." Much of the pressure, he said, would be private rather than public, and the administration would be careful to avoid undermining a leader like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whom it counts as a democratic reformer.

Another senior official -- a prominent neoconservative who also refused to be named -- said Bush's theme reflected several "lessons learned" in the last 30 years. Chief among them, he said, was an argument that neoconservatives often made about the Soviet Union and, more recently, Iraq: that a central goal of the United States should be "systemic change" -- changing hostile states' regimes, not merely their policies.

Still, he cautioned, "A policy promoting democracy also has to be a realistic policy.... We have to consider ... what are the risks of overly rapid change? What's the downside?"

The definition of neoconservatism has been hotly debated in recent years as the neocon camp has grown in numbers and influence. One of the movement's fathers, Irving Kristol, once defined it -- in contrast to traditional conservatism -- as "forward-looking, not nostalgic ... cheerful, not grim." In domestic affairs, he wrote, neocons tend to accept the need for a strong federal government, not a weak one.

In foreign policy, they believe in a broad definition of the national interest, not a narrow one; they are more willing than most traditional conservatives to commit American power, including military power, to such causes as democracy and human rights.