Certainly in the Bush administration, it is safe to say that Rumsfeld as well as Cheney took on neuconservatism trappings, after 9/11 especially or specifically,

You will want to stop digging now...

The neocons have existed in roughly their current configuration since the late '70s/early '80s, with essentially unchanged ideological priorities.

but to associate his nonpolicy work during the Reagan administration as neoconservative in retrospect is inaccurate. Rumsfeld was just not a policy maker at that time.

I suppose it's possible to imagine that the second-in-command of the American war department does not play any major role in shaping American foreign policy. Stranger things have happened - after all, you just had two presidents in a row who didn't seem to play any major role in shaping American foreign policy...

But it really is a case that you need to make in slightly greater detail than by off-hand assertion.

Clearly the attempt to use Saddam against Iran was not an attempt, obviously, to democratize Iraq,

Well, duh.

Why is that relevant, again? The neocons have never, outside certain parts of their agit-prop, had any concern what so ever for democracy.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.