[lit-ideas] Re: Fukyama on Neoconservatism
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:54:56 -0800
I read the article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html?_r=1
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html?_r=1&oref=login&pagewan
t> &oref=login&pagewant ) from which you quote, Omar. I was very attracted
to Fukuyama?s thesis after reading The End of History and the Last Man
several years ago, but right after that I read Samuel P. Huntington?s Clash
of Civilizations and decided to keep both ideas in suspension to see which
one panned out. Thus far Huntington is in the lead. I never got caught up
in the issues Fukuyama describes in his article. I don?t see Iraq as a
Neocon experiment. We were going to remove Saddam?s regime and had to
substitute something. Perhaps the Neocons influenced that, but Iraq wasn?t
a Neocon project.
Fukuyama reminds me of Kenneth Pollack and Sandra Mackey who wrote powerful
books about why we should get rid of Saddam Hussein, but when Bush went
ahead and did it, they didn?t like it anymore. Fukuyama argued that
Liberal-Democracy would comprise the end of history. I?ll admit he wasn?t
an activist about his theory and the Neocons were, but how do you distance
yourself from someone who agrees with you and actively wants to foster your
theory?
The current head of the Pasdaran (Iran?s Revolutionary Guard) is very much
afraid of what is going on next door in Iraq. If democracy succeeds over
there, it may spread, he said, and he?s worried. Iran has been busy since
their revolution in 1979 exporting their Revolution. Khomeini died in 1989
but Rafsanjani and some others continued with his vision, that of a
pan-Islamic empire with Iran at its head. Iran has been exporting its
Revolution as much as it has been able. It exported it into Lebanon, into
the Central Asian States, and its attempts at exporting it into Iraq were
among the elements that precipitated the Iran/Iraq war.
The war against Militant Islam isn?t one we can sit out. Isolationism isn?t
an option. If we could turn back time and not invade Iraq, that might only
make things worse because it would make it easier for Iran to dominate the
region.
I see Fukuyama as distancing himself from his own term, ?Liberal-Democracy,?
and saying he really meant ?Modernism.? Fukuyama?s index has a great
number of references and subheadings under ?Liberal Democracy.? ?Modernism?
doesn?t appear in his index. Also, Fukuyama agreed with Alexandre Kojeve?s
belief that Hegel was right after all and that Capitalism represents the end
of history. We are to understand Capitalism in its modern sense, Liberal
Democracy.
And where does Fukuyama get his information that the war in Iraq is a
failure? Those who attempt to quantify (I?m not referring to lurid
Main-Stream Media reporting) the successes and failures come up with a
different result than Fukuyma does. Consider a current article from one of
Fukuyama?s former compatriots from American Enterprise Online:
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18977/article_detail.asp . I
suspect that American Enterprise is too Neocon for Fukuyama now, and he
probably hasn?t read it, but it corresponds with other reports I have read.
The war in Iraq is progressing very well, much better than other wars we?ve
fought. Since I don?t read the NYT or The Washington Post I am not familiar
with the colossal failures he refers to. It is true that it is too soon to
declare it a complete success as Zinsmister says, but there are no grounds
for calling the war in Iraq a failure.
I am reading The Losing battle with Islam by David Selbourne. He devotes
his first chapter to defining the nature of the war we are in. We don?t
have the option of sitting it out. Fundamentalist Islamists have declared
war against us and have the will to continue to attack us whether we fight
back or not. In view of the nature of this war and how many nations are
marshaled against us, looking at the Middle East as a Battle Field, it seems
a stroke of brilliance to take the most strategic land mass (Iraq) away from
the enemy. We have been warned that the attack against Iraq will only
increase the foe, but I haven?t seen any evidence of that; quite the
contrary. Zinsmister has some statistics showing a decrease in Islamist
support. Other things I?ve read indicate a decrease in support for Al
Quaeda.
Iran is critical right now, but their economy is in shambles. There may be
several ways to effect a regime change. If they do get some nuclear weapons
they may try a little blackmail and there are elements in Iran that would
use such weapons, but our heart still isn?t in this war and it might take
something cataclysmic to get our attention.
Fukuyama invokes the world as a judge against our so-called Neocon
enterprise, but who is this world? Is it the Islamists who have a vested
interest in our defeat? Is it such nations as China, France, Germany and
Russia who were in bed with Saddam and were supplying him with weapons and
enriching themselves with is oil? Who did I leave out? Oh yes, the Eastern
Europeans, Japan and some other nations like Denmark, but they support us.
I don?t follow Fukuyama?s argument in blaming the U.S. policy of Democracy
for the victory of Hamas in Palestine. I thought that was another case of
throwing a corrupt regime out and making a mistake in the process, much as
happened in Afghanistan and Iran.
I guess Fukuyama has a right to badmouth the Neocons if anyone does, but I
don?t think the Bush Foreign policy is a mistake. The most potent nation at
war against us is Iran and they fear what we?ve done and are doing in Iraq.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 8:01 AM
To: polidea@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Fukyama on Neoconservatism
I have numerous affiliations with the different
strands of the neoconservative movement. I was a
student of Strauss's protégé Allan Bloom, who wrote
the bestseller "The Closing of the American Mind";
worked at Rand and with Wohlstetter on Persian Gulf
issues; and worked also on two occasions for
Wolfowitz. Many people have also interpreted my book
"The End of History and the Last Man" (1992) as a
neoconservative tract, one that argued in favor of the
view that there is a universal hunger for liberty in
all people that will inevitably lead them to liberal
democracy, and that we are living in the midst of an
accelerating, transnational movement in favor of that
liberal democracy. This is a misreading of the
argument. "The End of History" is in the end an
argument about modernization. What is initially
universal is not the desire for liberal democracy but
rather the desire to live in a modern ? that is,
technologically advanced and prosperous ? society,
which, if satisfied, tends to drive demands for
political participation. Liberal democracy is one of
the byproducts of this modernization process,
something that becomes a universal aspiration only in
the course of historical time.
"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind
of Marxist argument for the existence of a long-term
process of social evolution, but one that terminates
in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the
formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the
neoconservative position articulated by people like
Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they
believed that history can be pushed along with the
right application of power and will. Leninism was a
tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned
as farce when practiced by the United States.
Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body
of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer
support.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html?pagewanted=all
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