"Gingrich and company should look at themselves in the mirror," Kupchan said. "If you ask who is it who has set most of the world against the United States, it's not the (State) Department; it's the Pentagon and the neo-cons."

Gingrich's call for "bold dramatic change at the State Department" does, however, offer a preview of the ambitions of the neo-conservatives and their allies within the administration. "Calls for State Department reform are really a veiled way of trying to make permanent changes that would leave a certain ideological strain that could be called 'neo-imperial' in control not just of the Pentagon but of other parts of the government as well," Kupchan said.

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