Fukuyama: Neocon'ism has evolved into something I can no longer support

[grytpype]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1715179,00.html

This is an extended excerpt from Frannie's new book about the colossal screwup that is neconservatism, in which he finally learns what everyone else knew all along...

Neoconservatism has evolved into something I can no longer support

The US needs to reframe its foreign policy not as a military campaign but as a political contest for hearts and minds
Francis Fukuyama
Wednesday February 22, 2006

As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems unlikely that history will judge the intervention or the ideas animating it kindly. More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratising Iraq and the Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that, in the coming months and years, will be the most directly threatened.

...

The way ended shaped the thinking of supporters of the Iraq war in two ways. First, it seems to have created an expectation that all totalitarian regimes were hollow and would crumble with a small push from outside. This helps explain the Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the insurgency that emerged. The war's supporters seemed to think that democracy was a default condition to which societies reverted once coercive regime change occurred, rather than a long-term process of institution-building and reform. Neoconservatism, as a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.


...

Finally, benevolent hegemony presumed the hegemon was not only well intentioned but competent. Much of the criticism of the Iraq intervention from Europeans and others was not based on a normative case that the US was not getting authorisation from the UN security council, but on the belief that it had not made an adequate case for invading and didn't know what it was doing in trying to democratise Iraq. The critics were, unfortunately, quite prescient.

The most basic misjudgment was an overestimation of the threat facing the US from radical Islamism. Although the ominous possibility of undeterrable terrorists armed with WMD did present itself, advocates of the war wrongly conflated this with the threat presented by Iraq and with the rogue state/proliferation problem.

...

Promoting democracy and modernisation in the Middle East is not a solution to jihadist terrorism. Radical Islamism arises from the loss of identity that accompanies the transition to a modern, pluralist society. More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalisation and terrorism. But greater political participation by Islamist groups is likely to occur whatever we do, and it will be the only way that the poison of radical Islamism can work its way through the body politic of Muslim communities. The age is long gone when friendly authoritarians could rule over passive populations.

[kenny blankenship]

1. It evolved? I thought FF was one of those anti-dialectical thinkers

wouldn't it be more proper, Francis, to say that your thought was always fucked up?

[Orrin_73]

2. FF was one of the intellectual fathers of the neo-con

movement. He now tells that can not recognise his own movement. Oh my! How could that be. Something tells me that this movement he created is hated all over the world by everyone that he is now scared about it that people also hate him. Therefore he tries to distance himself from it.

[phantom power]

3. It's the conservative MO.

Their policies are, predictably, becoming unpopular. And so they will disown them, like a lizard breaking off it's tail, only to rise again another day.

He're another example:

the allegedly conservative party has enthusiastically supported a president who believes that you can wage wars, lower taxes and expand government all at the same time. That's not just radical, it's magical. And they can hardly raise their heads even today to oppose an administration that is radically expanding the police powers of the federal government. But it's starting to happen. They can adjust their principles to anything except failure. A president at 40% simply cannot be a conservative. Conservatism is, after all, supposed to be tremendously popular in this country.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_digbysblog_archive.html#114046209507725887

[cliss]

4. Thank you gryt for posting this.

I read an excerpt of this article on another thread in the LBN. I just couldn't shake that excerpt: "they are LENINISTS" he said.

I kept thinking about this article all day; now I can read the rest of it. Just scary stuff.

[skip fox]

5. I was screaming about his _The End of History_ nearly 20 years ago

and now this midget says "Oops. Sorry" after squandering American and Iraqui lives and fortunes and probably split the world in two for 100 years (as of now)!


Sorry is not close to even the consideration of a adequate response in my opinion.

[GliderGuider]

8. His next book: "The End of Relevance"

[Fovea]

6. The End of Francis Fukuyama.

Now let's run over his dogma.

[elduderino]

7. i am confused

there are two things about fukuyama that i am confused about that maybe someone can enlighten me on. i always thought that his own understanding of neoconservatism was hijacked by the 'peacocking neocons' (perle, kristol). is this true?

secondly - only in reading SOME of his work - one interesting thing he touched on (before the iraq war i think - my memory fails me) - was LEGITIMACY in the eyes of the ordinary Arab on the street. i.e. the path to bagdad was through jerusalem (and all these type of theories). did he belive this...?

If so - i feel that if there was enough effort made in 'LEGITIMACY' of the democratic effort - i.e. demonstrating to the average Arab that removing Saddam is for the greater cause - and the political will to solve the Likud and Palestinian issue was taken with a view to pleasing the Arabs - then the greater good would've surely benefited Israel aswell in time.

The bottom line for me is very simple now. Now that the geo-political power struggle between China, Russia is gaining momentum) - can the US afford to have one quarter of the worlds consumers hearts and minds (muslims) against them. esp if they have the cheapest energy resources.

i do believe the US needs definately needs to re-think its foreign policy. We (the US) need to think realistically.

:shrug: