Unite the right: LIberal/Tory merger on the horizon?

I don't think they wanted to make it official all these years past. Not while they were campaigning on the left and dictating on the right once elected. They fooled a lot of Canadians into thinking they were voting against a right wing political agenda by voting Liberal.

 Perhaps they realize that it's not working anymore and desire to beef up a united right-rightist party. Perhaps Bay Street has grown tired of funding a redundant conservative party that hasn't pulled its weight for several years, and will soon decide on a merger. I can see that.

Ignatieff isn't a neocon. He's a neoliberal institutionalist. He places a strong emphasis on international institutions (especially the UN), multilateralism, human rights, diplomacy as a first option (before violence),  in his advocacy of military intervention. Neoconservatism is similar, but its advocates do not care for international institutions or diplomacy, and advocate unilateralism or multilateralism through military alliances (like NATO) rather than the UN. They usually are more concerned with the realist (international relations theory) idea of the "National Interest" than any kind of moral issue, like human rights, autonomy for oppressed people, democracy (except in state propaganda, but I'm talking about what scholars say, not statesmen). Ignatieff is also opposed to weaponization of space, something that most realists would advocate.

Realists (and neoncons, they are pretty much cut from the same cloth) also usually place emphasis on Huntington's "clash of civilizations" meta-narrative, which explains their Middle East focus. Ignatieff if I'm not mistaken isn't concerned with interventionism only in the Middle East or to combat "Islam" or "Islamofascists" per se. He was a strong advocate of intervention in Kosovo and Rwanda. I would think in IR meta-narratives Ignatieff would come down more on the side of Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis than Huntington's "Clash." Admittedly, I haven't read Ignatieff's writing extensively but this is my general impression.

Bush's IR policy is a good example of neoconservativism in action. Obama seems to be trying to shift things back more toward the neoliberal side. Although he has two wars to deal with so this will take some time.