A powerful neoconservative voice has risen against the prophet of neoconservatism--George Bush. Francis Fukuyama, known all over the world for his provocative and yes, celebratory thesis about the end of history, has written a withering attack on Bush and the betrayal of the neoconservative agenda. The carapace of ideas such as preventive war,benevolent hegemony, war against terror are analysed and critiqued in great detail in thois booik. When the Iraq Qar was attacked on humanitarian and strategic grounds the neoconmen retaliated with sarcasm and felt that humilisating the messenger was enough to discredit the powerful arguments against the direction USA was tsaking as a consequence of neocon ideas of unilateralism and shock and awe.We may recall that Francis Fukuyama was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war and when he starts lamenting the horrendous cost of the wat even neocons must take note.
Traditionally conservatives trace their intellectual legacy to Edmund Burke and have always opposed overseas expansion and entangling commitments, a phrase we even find in the speech of George Washinton. Preemtive war and war to build democracy argues Francis Fukuyama render American foreign policy hostage to extra political interests. History cannot be accelerated through American agency, he writes. Like the Communists of old, the neoconmen too believed that they were on the right side of history and the chosen instruments of American destiny in the poist USSR world.
The major contribution of Francis Fukuyama lies in his treatment of the decision to wage war in Iraq without the approval of the UN. The main justification for the war the weapons of mass destruction allegedly possessed by Saddam has turned out to be a mere will-o-the whisp. Indeed the standing o9f the only superpower has taken a huge blow due to the false case made out by the neoconmen to justify the war. The foreign policy establisment seems to have been side lined and neocon thik tanks and ideologues like Paul Wolfowitz created the blue print for the war without a broadbased national debate over crucial issues. As Fukuyama maintains the US armay was woefully ill prepared for the war and did not expect the resistance. Those of us who have been following the war from a different perspective knew that the real challenge lay after the fall of Bagdad,
This book must be read by everone interested in Iraq.