The Atlantic is running a series that “attempt[s] to replicate what the French author Alexis de Tocqueville accomplished in the nineteenth century with his book Democracy in America,” this time through the eyes of Frenchman Bernard-Henri Levy. His interview with Francis Fukuyama reveals an intellectual battle in the neoconservative movement:
Then we start talking about the war in Iraq, which, contrary to my expectations, he, unlike most other neo-conservatives, in fact condemned. We talk about one of his articles, “The Neoconservative Moment,” which he wrote in reaction to a speech given by Charles Krauthammer at the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute, and which was published in the summer 2004 issue of the neo-conservative journal The National Interest. This article unleashed one of those vigorous debates Fukuyama seems so good at provoking; barely a dozen pages long, it has his typically provocative, cold tone, and his typically Zen-like way of breaking everything in sight without seeming to touch it.
What’s the reason behind his condemnation of the war? What objection does he really have?
No moral objection; for a Hegelian, such an argument would be nonsensical.
No objection from a strategic point of view; the apostle of the end of history, this man who keeps telling us how the provinces of the empire will be brought into line with the victorious world order, could scarcely disagree with the plan to democratize Iraq.
Certainly not the traditional conservative idea that some cultures are better adapted to freedom than others; I sense that Fukuyama isn’t the least bit torn between two great poles, Irving Kristol and Samuel Huntington—between the ex-leftist who has on the whole remained faithful to the universalism of his youth and the postulator of a clash of civilizations who has great difficulty ridding himself of the stumbling block of relativism—and that it’s the former who remains closer to his heart.
No, his great subject, his chief and indeed only disagreement, has to do with the relationship to time that he thinks he can sense in most of his friends who are unconditional supporters of this war—their misunderstanding of the time it actually takes to build democracy, and hence of opportunity and political tactics.
It is here that Fukuyama aims straight for the neoconservative position on gov’t, foreign policy and state-building. Lévy continues: Continue reading “Fukuyama on the Neoconservatives”
