Critical thinking

From The Guardian:

Fukuyamasmall After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama. This book is a brutal critique of neoconservatism as practised by the Bush administration: and it is all the more damaging for the fact that Francis Fukuyama has himself been strongly identified with the neo-conservative cause. His tone is measured but the comprehensive nature of his demolition of Bush’s foreign policy leaves it – and neo-conservatism – in tatters. What, of course, has really done for Bush is “events”, above all those in Iraq. Rarely has a policy been exposed so rapidly and comprehensively on such a grand scale, but then wars have a habit of doing precisely that: the rhetoric and platitudes are suddenly and mercilessly subject to the cold test of reality.

The invasion of Iraq has failed so comprehensively that it seems bound to stimulate much soul-searching in Washington over the coming years. The defeat in Vietnam had a long-lasting effect on American foreign policy: the Mesopotamian disaster may come to be seen in not dissimilar terms.

More here.