For Francis Fukuyama, there is life after the neocons by Peter Nolan

CURRENT EDITION | SPECIAL SERIES | ARCHIVES | YOUTH VIEWS

On Muslim-Western Relations

For Francis Fukuyama, there is life after the neocons

by Peter Nolan

25 April 2006

	Print
	Email

London - History may not repeat itself, but historians certainly replicate each other and few scholars have been talked about by their peers as much as Francis Fukuyama. The American social scientist became famous for writing in 1989 that the world had reached an ideological "end of history". First fascism and then communism had been defeated, as was dramatically proven a few months after his article appeared in the journal The National Interest, when the Berlin Wall fell. The great ideological struggles that convulsed the 20th century were over, Fukuyama argued, leaving liberal democracy as the sole credible model for organising society.

Although his optimistic message was later welcomed by both the Clinton Democrats and internationally minded Republicans, Fukuyama has long been counted among the neoconservative school of foreign policy. In the 1970s, Fukuyama and his mentor, Paul Wolfowitz, worked together on nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. Under President Ronald Reagan, he worked on Palestinian autonomy negotiations following the Camp David Accords, and on Lebanon. Later, he followed Wolfowitz to teach at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. In 1998, along with Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, Fukuyama signed open letters calling for Saddam Hussein's overthrow, published by the Project for a New American Century.

More recently, however, Fukuyama changed direction, questioning the Bush administration's policies, in particular the invasion of Iraq. What ensued was a vitriolic debate with Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a steadfast neocon, one battle in an all-out civil war in the American right. In a new book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy", Fukuyama finalised the break: "Having long regarded myself as a neoconservative, I thought I shared a common worldview with many other neoconservatives - including friends and acquaintances who served in the administration of George W. Bush ... I have concluded that neoconservatism ... has evolved into something that I can no longer support."

Fukuyama now argues that the international community should have continued to contain Iraq. "There was a lot you could have done to keep Iraq bottled up without invading them," he told me recently in London. The Clinton administration's regime-change strategy was largely restricted to giving financial support to the Iraqi opposition. With a new impetus after September 11, 2001, Fukuyama noted, United Nations sanctions on Iraq would have been sustainable without embarking on another war.

In "America at the Crossroads", Fukuyama tries to reclaim some neocon principles. He maintains the neocon belief that dictatorships are dangerous to the world because of their totalitarian aspirations and behaviour, while democracies live in peace with each other. Fukuyama also writes scathingly about the UN: the left, he believes, overemphasises the international organisation's potential to do good, while he largely agrees with critics on the American right that the UN is often corrupt and has only rarely offered a solution to international security problems, with the Korean War and the 1991 invasion of Kuwait as exceptions, when America was in the driving seat at the Security Council.

Instead, Fukuyama offers, as an alternative, something he calls "realistic Wilsonianism", named for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who sought to advance a more ideals-based foreign policy and was the main force behind the post-World War I League of Nations and the promotion of self-determination. Fukuyama describes U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as "moving towards that position, because [the administration has] made democracy promotion a fairly important part of the foreign policy and they've been multilateral." British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he believes, understands this approach instinctively, as he pushes Bush into taking the Palestinians seriously and working multilaterally. Of Democrats in general, he says that their constituencies want more protectionism and "I don't particularly trust any of them."

Fukuyama's past dealings with the Middle East help nourish a variety of contrasting views on leading regional issues. "Lebanon," Fukuyama says, "is the one part of the Arab world where the scenario is working as the Bush administration had hoped. I always thought that it was very different, the Maronites in particular, from other Arab countries."

However, in the rest of the region, it's the Islamists who have gained the most from greater openness. Hamas' election victory, notes Fukuyama, was a setback in the short run, ending any chance for a peace process for a long period. However, he was sceptical about past policies, saying that relying on Fatah to build a Palestinian state and suppress Islamists when it had no legitimacy and was extremely corrupt was unrealistic. "We now have to hope for an evolution on the part of Hamas over time and I've no illusions that that will be a quick process or an automatic one."

On Turkey, Fukuyama has mixed feelings. "I always thought the Islamic world needed something equivalent to Christian Democracy," and to him Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party shows promise. However, Fukuyama also underlines that Turkey was now infected to some degree by the same paranoia prevalent in the rest of the Islamic world. With tensions rising in Europe with Muslim immigrant communities, he doubts that Turkish entry into the European Union would be possible.

On Saudi Arabia, Fukuyama expects little real change. America's partnership with Osama bin Laden's homeland has been troubled since September 11, and is under attack in both countries. Fukuyama says that American influence over the kingdom's domestic politics will probably be minimal. "I don't think that we can affect Saudi Arabia. It's such a bizarre society; I think that most of the usual rules don't apply there."

For Fukuyama, Osama bin Laden is a keen evangelist of the idea of a "clash of civilisations". In his view, it's not the "Madison Avenue selling of the United States that is the problem" with America's image in the Arab world. The problem is Washington's underlying policies - not taking the Palestinian issue more seriously and invading Iraq. From a former neocon, such strophes help explain why Fukuyama's split with his former comrades was so powerful.

###
* Peter Nolan (Peter.Nolan@thefi.org) is an investment analyst based in London and is a director of the Freedom Institute, an Irish public policy research organisation. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be found at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Daily Star, April 19, 2006

Visit the website at www.dailystar.com.lb

Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).

Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


	Blogger of the Month Rita Chemaly is a Lebanese blogger, writer and researcher. Click here to read her article about Lebanese bloggers generating social change.


	FEATURED VIDEO After plans for Park51, the controversial Islamic community centre in New York City, cleared an important hurdle to build near Ground Zero, Mayor Mike Bloomberg gave an inspiring reminder of the unfailing spirit of religious freedom, as seen in this video.


	SPECIAL SERIES Spiritual Leaders and Interfaith Dialogue - 2010


	QUESTIONS FROM AMERICA Inspired by CGNews, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, wrote his own six part series addressing ijtihad.