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Flunking History
"End of History" author Francis Fukuyama, who believed that the world was headed toward liberal democracies, was one of the hottest intellectuals of the 1990s. Now, the Fuke has a new book out, "America at the Crossroads," in which the most prominent defector from the neo-con ranks talks about his second thoughts on the Iraq war.
Christopher Hitchens demolishes Fukuyama and his arguments:
"The three questions that anyone developing second thoughts about the Iraq conflict must answer are these: Was the George H.W. Bush administration right to confirm Saddam Hussein in power after his eviction from Kuwait in 1991? Is it right to say that we had acquired a responsibility for Iraq, given past mistaken interventions and given the great moral question raised by the imposition of sanctions? And is it the case that another confrontation with Saddam was inevitable; those answering 'yes' thus being implicitly right in saying that we, not he, should choose the timing of it? Fukuyama does not even mention these considerations. Instead, by his slack use of terms like 'magnet,' he concedes to the fanatics and beheaders the claim that they are a response to American blunders and excesses.
"That's why last week was a poor one for him to pick. Surely the huge spasm of Islamist hysteria over caricatures published in Copenhagen shows that there is no possible Western insurance against doing something that will inflame jihadists? The sheer audacity and evil of destroying the shrine of the 12th imam is part of an inter-Muslim civil war that had begun long before the forces of al-Qaida decided to exploit that war and also to export it to non-Muslim soil. Yes, we did indeed underestimate the ferocity and ruthlessness of the jihadists in Iraq. Where, one might inquire, have we not underestimated those forces and their virulence? (We are currently underestimating them in Nigeria, for example, which is plainly next on the Bin Laden hit list and about which I have been boring on ever since Bin Laden was good enough to warn us in the fall of 2004.)
"In the face of this global threat and its recent and alarmingly rapid projection onto European and American soil, Fukuyama proposes beefing up 'the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National Endowment for Democracy and the like.' You might expect a citation from a Pew poll at about this point, and, don't worry, he doesn't leave that out, either. But I have to admire that vague and lazy closing phrase 'and the like.' Hegel meets Karen Hughes!"
Christopher Hitchens demolishes Fukuyama and his arguments:
"The three questions that anyone developing second thoughts about the Iraq conflict must answer are these: Was the George H.W. Bush administration right to confirm Saddam Hussein in power after his eviction from Kuwait in 1991? Is it right to say that we had acquired a responsibility for Iraq, given past mistaken interventions and given the great moral question raised by the imposition of sanctions? And is it the case that another confrontation with Saddam was inevitable; those answering 'yes' thus being implicitly right in saying that we, not he, should choose the timing of it? Fukuyama does not even mention these considerations. Instead, by his slack use of terms like 'magnet,' he concedes to the fanatics and beheaders the claim that they are a response to American blunders and excesses.
"That's why last week was a poor one for him to pick. Surely the huge spasm of Islamist hysteria over caricatures published in Copenhagen shows that there is no possible Western insurance against doing something that will inflame jihadists? The sheer audacity and evil of destroying the shrine of the 12th imam is part of an inter-Muslim civil war that had begun long before the forces of al-Qaida decided to exploit that war and also to export it to non-Muslim soil. Yes, we did indeed underestimate the ferocity and ruthlessness of the jihadists in Iraq. Where, one might inquire, have we not underestimated those forces and their virulence? (We are currently underestimating them in Nigeria, for example, which is plainly next on the Bin Laden hit list and about which I have been boring on ever since Bin Laden was good enough to warn us in the fall of 2004.)
"In the face of this global threat and its recent and alarmingly rapid projection onto European and American soil, Fukuyama proposes beefing up 'the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National Endowment for Democracy and the like.' You might expect a citation from a Pew poll at about this point, and, don't worry, he doesn't leave that out, either. But I have to admire that vague and lazy closing phrase 'and the like.' Hegel meets Karen Hughes!"
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