Some quick thoughts as I fly from New England to California this morning.
In the Times Literary Supplement is a fascinating review of Francis Fukuyama’s new book After the Neocons. (“Doomed International” TLS 09/20/06, thanks to Arts and Culture Daily for the link) Whether you love him, loathe him, used to loathe him and now love him, or some variation thereof, Fukuyama always makes for an interesting read. In his new book he argues that the Bush doctrine failed for several reasons, the most important of which was a profound distortion of true Neo-Conservative principles and Fukuyama’s own ideas. The End of History was descriptive not prescriptive. That is, Fukuyama argued that History had reached a certain point in time where ideological struggles within modernity had disappeared in favor of Western Liberal Capitalism. This did not, however, account for challenges to this New World Order from forces “outside modernity” nor did it mean that inside every Iraqi there was an American just dying to get out.
“According to Fukuyama, a misinterpretation of neoconservative principles led the Bush administration to refight the last war – ie, the war on Communism – mistakenly believing that the Iraq war would fundamentally have