What makes them so dangerous?

What makes the neocons and the Bush administration so dangerous? It's not so much their lust for power as it is the fact they are clueless. They don't have a clue as to what makes the middle east click and refuse to listen to anyone who does. Juan Cole reports:

the secular Iraqiya list of Iyad Allawi so far seems only to have 8% of the seats in the new parliament, though that tally may increase slightly when the 230,000 or so votes of expatriates are counted. (I doubt it will increase much). Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress did not get enough votes even to win a single seat, so far.

The neocons were predicting that Allawi would do well but:

Note that I was often contradicted by observers on the ground in Iraq, who kept saying they perceived a groundswell for the secular party of Allawi, even in the Shiite-dominated provinces. This allegation never made any sense to me. Michael Rubin of the AEI was predicting 5 percent for Chalabi (the neocon favorite) and 20 percent for Allawi, a prediction that demonstrates that after 2 1/2 years the neocons still just can't understand anything about contemporary Iraq.

In other words the neocons don't have a clue in part because they are still only listening to people who tell them what they want to hear. Leon Hadar explains:

For several months – actually, since the US invasion of Iraq – neoconservative propagandists have been trying to counter-spin the depressing reality in Mesopotamia that we've been watching on television by celebrating several "tipping points" that were supposed to mark the victory of freedom in Baghdad: The bringing down of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad; the capture of the Iraqi dictator (remember the intrusive examination of his mouth and beard?) and the killing of his sons; the "handover of sovereignty" to a provisional Iraqi government; the parliamentary election on Jan 30 and the voters happily waving their purple fingers; the recent adoption of an Iraqi constitution and the start of Saddam's trial.

In a way, each image of a "turning point" should have affirmed the broader story of what American leaders promised would be a war of liberation to unseat a brutal dictator and free his imprisoned people, who would respond with gratitude and friendship, allowing American troops to return very quickly home (well, let's forget about those missing weapons of mass-destruction).

But each time, the celebrated turning-the-corner image dissolved into thin air. As reality started biting, it became difficult to fit the "pseudo events" into the storyline promoted by the neocons.

And Hadar tells us it's not just Iraq:

even Israeli officials, who are not great fans of Syrian President Bishar Assad, have warned the Americans that their drive towards "regime change" in Damascus could end up bringing to power radical anti-American (and anti-Israeli) Islamic groups.

So as you can see it's not the Bush administration's goals that make them so dangerous it is instead there ignorance of the situation in the middle east, their unwillingness to listen to those who know and their incompetence.