In a Saturday New York Times editorial, "former neoconservative" (I didn't know he'd jumped off the wagon) Francis Fukuyama criticizes the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. Fukuyama argues that:
"There are clear benefits to the Iraqi people from the removal of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and perhaps some positive spillover effects in Lebanon and Syria. But it is very hard to see how these developments in themselves justify the blood and treasure that the United States has spent on the project to this point."
...
"The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends [of spreading democracy], which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them."
For those seeking guidance in interpreting Fukuyama and other defectors from the Bush camp, John Dickerson provides a guide to books by Bush critics with pro-Bush backgrounds in Slate. Dickerson roughly divides these critics into three thematic camps: 1) Bush is no conservative; 2) He's a bad CEO, and 3) He was hellbent on war.
Fukuyama's editorial seems to present a nuanced variation on 3). While the enemies of my enemies are not necessarily my friends, these tortured internal criticisms of the Republican agenda often contain compelling arguments. Because of his studiously affected "just folks" demeanor, Bush is easy not to take seriously, a luxury which those who have supported him in the past do not share. Though I often object to the revised agenda put forth by these Republican Bush critics, I prefer reading them, in measured doses, to slogging through some of the ineffectual, glib yapping that's emailed to me from groups on the Left that I've given money to because of our shared political goals (I do not mean to disparage all such email, or, heavens forbid, solicit conservative group-mail, which would no doubt be even more insufferable).
Plus, I have to admit to a sort of rubbernecker's glee. Let the Republican dog fights begin!
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