Neocon Rat deserts sinking ship...

Snickers Man

..or alternatively Fukuyama fuks off

Former high priest of the neoconservative movement and founder member of the Project for the new American Century, Fancis Fukuyama has done an about face, proclaiming that the Americans have screwed up in Iraq, that most of the Europeans who criticised America were right and that imposing a system of government by force, however well intended that system may be, is counter productive and dangerous.


Writing in todays Irish Times, (sub needed) Fukuyama says among other things that:

"Neoconservatism, as a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support."

Well halle bloody luijah. No Poo Sherlock. Welcome back to the real world, Frankie.

"Much of the criticism of the Iraq intervention from Europeans and others was ..[based]..on the belief that [the US] 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."

We don't even need to say ''Told you so"; he said it himself.

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.

We don't even need to say ''Told you so"; he said it himself.

The US needs to come up with something better than "coalitions of the willing" to legitimise its dealings with other countries

The flapping sound you can hear is that of America's staunchest allies (like Tony Blair) being hung out to dry.

Memo to any future UK prime minister. REad up on the story of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Stafford who ruled Ireland on behalf of Charles I and later got executed for his pains. Especially his famous last words: "Put not your trust in princes" Or, presumably in megalomaniac messianic good ol' boys who blag their way into the White House.


Ohh I'm loving this.

Orizio

Presumebly then Fukuyama should have gone into self denial and lied about the incompetence of the Bush admin simply to save face?

I'll admire his (and Zakaria who basically did the same thing) moral courage and continue to read both authors analysis because I know ultimately both have some kind of moral backbone and thirst for the truth-as opposed to 99% of political commentators these days.

Snickers Man

Orizio wrote:

I'll ...continue to read ..[his] analysis because I know ultimately [he has]some kind of moral backbone and thirst for the truth-as opposed to 99% of political commentators these days.

Well if you want to read stuff like the following quotes:

"The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, but in the overmilitarised means by which it has sought to accomplish them.

"The administration and its neoconservative supporters also misunderstood the way the world would react to the use of American power."

"Americans are not, at heart, an imperial people."

"First, we need to demilitarise what we have been calling the global war on terrorism and shift to other policy instruments."

"Meeting the jihadist challenge needs not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world"

"What we need are new ideas for how America is to relate to the world - ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of US power and hegemony to bring these ends about."


No need to go to Fukuyama. The likes of Kennedy, Clinton, Kerry, Sonntag, etc etc have been saying similar things for years, only to be labelled as soft-minded pinko lefties who would 'put us all in danger' by not 'standing up for' what "we" believe in.

Fukuyama: the slow learner's liberal

And how dare he imply that "belief in the universality of human rights" is a particularly neocon tenet. Anybody who argues for those rights to be extended to those in Quantanamo Bay or those travelling on 'special rendition' flights is immediately castigated for being a 'whinging anti-American' inhabitant of never-never land.

The Neocons are on the run. Cut them down without mercy. Bastards!!

Akrasia

An awful lot of stuff seems to have happened since he declared the end of history a decade ago, I guess he was wrong eh? The poster boy for neo cons is famous for being spectacularly wrong.

(ps, I'm talking about the new socialism of south america and Kerala in India as well as the frightening shift to the extreme right of the U.S. government. liberal economic 'democracies' are not the final destination for human society)