Countdown Tonight: KO Talks with 'Ex-NeoCon' Francis Fukuyama

[leftchick]

I just saw the preview of tonight's Countdown and it looks to be a good one. Keith speaks with Fukuyama about his defection from the neocon ideology that got us into Iraq.

:popcorn:





The Tactical Retreat of an Apostate

<snip>

For a pro-war liberal to turn against the Iraq war, however, while it may be wrenching, is not really surprising. The real man-bites-dog story comes when a self-proclaimed neoconservative, a genuine Middle East hawk, decides that the war was a mistake. That is why Francis Fukuyama's recent New York Times Magazine essay, "After Neoconservatism," created such a stir. Mr. Fukuyama, after all, has long been one of the most prominent neoconservative policy intellectuals. As he writes in "America at the Crossroads" (Yale University Press, 240 pages, $25), the new book from which his essay was excerpted, he has worked or studied with most of the leading neoconservatives, both in and out of government: Paul Wolfowitz, Allan Bloom, William Kristol, Albert Wohlstetter. Most important, he is the author of "The End of History and the Last Man," a book both celebrated and reviled as the classic neoconservative verdict on the Cold War.

Yet Mr. Fukuyama now believes that the Iraq war was a mistake, and that his neoconservative comrades have permanently discredited that label. "Unlike many other neoconservatives," he declares at the outset of his new book, "I was never persuaded of the rationale for the Iraq war." And now that events have borne out his fears,Mr. Fukuyama has "concluded that neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support." The titular crossroads at which America stands, he goes on to argue, is the choice between continuing the failures of actually existing neoconservatism - its overestimation of America's power and credibility, its naivete about the difficulties of spreading democracy - and Mr. Fukuyama's more hardheaded alternative, which he names "realistic Wilsonianism."

http://www.nysun.com/article/28168

[formercia]

1. He's still an apologist

read his essay carefully, especially about the Intel leading up to the War.

[H2O Man]

2. It looks interesting ....

although not because he represents anything progressive. Rather, as a measure of the self destructive nature of the neocon cult.

[leftchick]

4. precisely!

If Iraq had gone even an iota better he would still be on the neofreak band wagon. I am interested to hear Keith's questions.

[Botany]

3. F.U. Fukuyama

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Your fingerprints are own the murder weapon.

Francis .... you could go for the Nuremberg defense .... Just following orders.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. OK, I have to say it

It's a great name for a Neo-con

[leftchick]

7. lol!

no doubt!

[shain from kane]

8. Fuck your mama, and your papa,

and the horse you rode in on.

[sandnsea]

6. After the last 5 years... Wilsonianism?!?

:banghead:

[leftchick]

9. I am kicking for Keith!

:kick:

[Eric J in MN]

10. Is the New York Sun under new ownership?

I used to think of it as a right-wing tabloid, but it's had some good articles over the past few weeks.

[leftchick]

12. I noticed that as well

I don't know if there has been a change or not but I have noticed the tilt in the opposite direction.

[Eric J in MN]

11. If the US hadn't entered World War I, Germany and England

would probably have negotiated a more dignified peace, and there probably wouldn't have been a Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Woodrow Wilson isn't someone to model foreign policy upon.