Bret Stephens in the WSJ brags that "we're (almost) all neocons now," reflecting the silly conceit of that crowd that any use of force or any encouragement of regime change justifies their entire dogma. This is like declaring that all American unionists in the 1930s were puppets of Stalin. The belief in the utility of one common aspect (the worker) does not imply belief in the entire misbegotten ideology (Stalinism).
The neocons were, and remain, about so much more than just the use of force or the concept of regime change, two means used by every president of recent decades. They were about primacy. They were about using force to maintain US primacy. The goal of primacy? More primacy.
Their ideology, as a means of expressing what has been the US grand strategy, with one notable lapse, since the turn of the 20th century (Open Door), is inherently anti-American. It takes the exceptionalism argument to extreme lengths. It places little to no faith in waiting on economics to determine politics. But, again, at the end of the day, it demands that the US remain the prime power in the system - ad infinitum. So it fundamentally rejects the outcome of the Open Door grand strategic impulse, which is peacefully rising great powers all over the map.
Also, because it demands primacy, it demands unilateralism in decision-making (not seen in Libya) and requires near-monopolistic ownership of the resulting situation. The US owns Afghanistan, not NATO, and it has sought to limit the ability of neighboring powers (Iran, India, Turkey, China, Russia) to influence the evolution there. Same story in Iraq, where we obsess over Iranian influence and worry over the Turks - and the Chinese as they move in. In short, we still run both situations in far too much of a neocon fashion - Obama included. So there the charge lingers.
But not on Libya. Not by a long shot.
The neocons hated the Balkans show, and hated Clinton's takedown of Milosevic. This resembles that far more than Iraq, which was run incredibly badly primarily to avoid the perception of a repeat of the Balkans. And we paid plenty in blood and treasure - unnecessarily - for that ideological vanity.
Stephens would do better than to offer such a weak defense of a very discredited ideology.