Perhaps they noticed that their favorite toys are spent, exhausted, weakened by time and fate. The retired generals have spoken their piece. Perhaps PNAC is not used to being spoken to in this way. The Pax Americana was not to be a Pax, afterall, some of them discovered. Prolonged war is not all it was plumped up to be.
Frankly, I don't believe it. PNAC was always way too public with their declarations and manifestos. It was always something of a façade for the smokey rooms wherein are hatched the real geopolitical monsters of the imagination and hegemonic schemes. There is nothing to prevent these tin pot globe trotters from continuing their designs, the next war or imperialist incursion, the raping of the planet.
Yet possibly, the corporations may have come into play. Corporations are linked by interlocking directors and directorates, and above all they understand one another, like wolves in a pack understand a herd of starving bison or elk. Perhaps PNAC was given orders from Wall Street that it could not ignore, but could not carry out. The mission is secure, they said, closing the door, the Project is finished—mission accomplished, but all that has happened is the elimination of the illusion of publicity.
The domestic agenda is now in full swing, of course. Habeus corpus has been successfully suspended, warrantless wiretapping is old hat, no-knock invasion of privacy has been vindicated, and elections are manipulated like pin-ball machines without a "tilt" mechanism. The country is tired of seemingly futile occupations and the mad chase of Bin Laden and his retinue. PNAC has, in fact, served its narrow purpose: the excuse for our bad behavior has been tendered. In "balance journalism" this is enough.