Neoconservatives and evangelicals converged on the Iraq invasion as their ideal perpetual war

Evidence

The neoconservative agenda meshed exceedingly well with evangelical militarism. To the chagrin of neoconservatives, Bush had campaigned on a more restrained foreign policy, but the terror attacks had changed everything. In his 2002 State of the Union, the evangelical president christened Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil” and suggested that preemptive war might be in order. Prominent neocons, including Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer, and Stephen Cambone, were already ensconced in the administration, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney were sympathetic to neocons’ calls for military action. The invasion of Iraq provided the state of perpetual war that neoconservatives—and many evangelicals—had longed for. And it transformed President Bush into a warrior president, an identity memorably enacted in his “Mission Accomplished” speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 521

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s project of showing the cultural apparatus behind evangelical militarism - this shows the supply-side neocon alliance that made it politically executable.