Should Have Thought Of That Earlier

Before innocent people were killed unnecessarily. I detect dismay and disarray on the right, the abandon ship order should commence momentarily.

Scotsman.com News - International - Neocon architect says: 'Pull it down': "However, Mr Fukuyama now thinks the war in Iraq is the wrong sort of war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

'The most basic misjudgment was an overestimation of the threat facing the United States from radical Islamism,' he argues.

'Although the new and ominous possibility of undeterrable terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction did indeed present itself, advocates of the war wrongly conflated this with the threat presented by Iraq and with the rogue state/proliferation problem more generally.'

Mr Fukuyama, one of the US's most influential public intellectuals, concludes that 'it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention [in Iraq] itself or the ideas animating it kindly'.

Going further, he says the movements' advocates are Leninists who '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 practised by the United States'.

Although Mr Fukuyama still supports the idea of democratic reform - complete with establishing the institutions of liberal modernity - in the Middle East, he warns that this process alone will not immediately reduce the threats and dangers the US faces. 'Radical Islamism is a by-product of modernisation itself, arising from the loss of identity that accompanies the transition to a modern, pluralist society. More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalisation and - yes, unfortunately - terrorism,' he says.

'By definition, outsiders can't 'impose' democracy on a country that doesn't want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic. Democracy promotion is therefore a long-term and opportunistic process that has to await the gradual ripening of political and economic conditions to be effective.'"

Noticed that did you? I love how these guys decided to play Risk with real people and now that the game isn't going the way they envisioned, it's time to pack up their toys and go home.

The early outers are the smart ones, able to adapt to a new way of thinking. Please tell me there will be more. Please.

Tags: Fukuyama, neoconservativism, Iraq, Leninists, democracy