‘Militant secularist’ has become the ‘neo-con’ of the 2010s: a know-nothing label that signifies extremism, >without explaining where the extremism lies

I agree about secularism but not about Neocon. That was not a "no nothing" label. There was a well organized group with their own web site and a statement of principles with the names of the leading Neocons at the bottom. If you want to see who the leading Neocons are and what they wanted to do just check out that link.

Its important to remember this because with hindsight we can see that the Neocons were wrong about virtually everything. There are countless quotes of the people on that list saying the Iraqis would greet the US with open arms, that the Iraq war would be short and virtually costless. And now many of the same people are using similar arguments to push for a US war on Iran.