Poor Francis Fukuyama. Just when I was beginning to feel sorry for him. His first book was outstanding,The End of History and the Last Man, but grossly misunderstood and misrepresented by people of all political and intellectual stripes. His much anticipated State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, was a massive letdown - uneven and disorganized. From bestselling `grand narrative' to failure in 10 years.

In America this book was published as America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. Over in the UK, it is designed to tap into the anti-Bush, anti-Neocon conspiracy theory crowd by being rebranded "After The Neocons". Billed as as an attack on `neoconservatism', it turns out to be a big disappointment for the anti-war brigade. Fukuyama basically argues that the current neocons are applying neoconservative PRINCIPLES WRONGLY. If I were looking for a Michael Moore rant or Noam Chomsky diatribe, I would have to look elsewhere and demand my money back. For those who believe Dick Cheney drinks oil and eats the corpses of Iraqi babies - then this is poor stuff. It's more of a `your not doing it properly', than a `get lost' thesis. An in-house argument.

Fukuyama advocates a neoconservatism which he calls `Realistic Wilsonianism'. In other words America should spend more time on international alliances and organizations, and concentrate less on the military exertion of its power. It should rethink its attitude to development and states that it should distribute more of its wealth. This is just another naïve call for new and rehabilitated international institutions, curbing American power, and promoting and multilateralism (though he does admit the UN was useless over Saddam). He tries to strike a balance between the utopian dreams of pro-UN fetishizers on the Left and anti-UN neocons on the Right. It is very unsatisfactory. A Community of Democracies would be a good first step though.

Even his democratization `in the long run' thesis suffers from a lack of imagination and conviction. It should be allowed to happen. He claims this "Marxist" interpretation of his "End of History" theory is what separates him from the Kristol and Kagan "Leninist" approach, which likes to encourage history on its way.
I passionately support the Kagan school which is moralistic and idealistic, compared with the rehashed Kissinger `realpolitik' (with a smidgen of self-righteousness). By doing nothing to remove dangerous tyrants and free oppressed people - we are allowing history to take its natural course. This is very appealing to liberals and conservative isolationists but is amoral, cowardly and hazardous. Democracy is the default mode of all societies, and most need a nudge to get there.

Fukuyama is pessimistic about democracy flourishing in the Middle East. No neocon ever believed that Jeffersonian democracy was going to flourish in that region or that Paul Bremner was Pericles. What they argued was that dictatorship, was and is, dangerous to the people who live there and threatening for those who don't.

Most people will agree with Fukuyama about which direction the world is going. The question is whether people need a hand in getting there. It is all very well to tell oppressed people that one day they will have freedom, but it is quite another - and a disgraceful thing, to tell the oppressed that though they deserve freedom, and though they may want it, they shouldn't expect it in their lifetime.

A disappointing and short-sighted book.

OK, I am not a neoconservative. However, I wanted to know a little more about this movement since many in the Administration are deemed neoconservatives. Fukuyama makes his point that real neoconservatives didn't want to go to war in Iraq. An element of the neoconservative movement made that decision much to the dismay of most leading members. He then cites the reasons why the Iraq War was not on the neoconservative agenda. I am not sure his different shadings of political movements made sense. What does make sense are the wrong reasons we went to war in Iraq.

This is a politics book and attempts to put a political label on what neoconservatives, conservatives, and liberals are. I am not sure we can put everybody in a political category. However, the book gave me a somewhat better idea what neoconservatives stand for on the foreign policy agenda of this country.