The Elliot Abrams business Jeff uncovers does raise some interesting historical points:
1. Some who bill their foreign policy preferences as “neo-Reaganite” today were fairly critical of Reagan’s actual foreign policy in the 1980s, even as they remained part of the Reagan coalition.
2. The neoconservatives were an important part of that coalition, but Reagan didn’t always do everything they advised.
3. This should remind us that Reagan really deserves a lot of the credit he gets for his handling of the Cold War. He threaded the needle on confrontation vs. accomodation with the Soviets almost perfectly, in contrast with his opponents and even some of his supporters.
