Francis Fukuyama is often derided in progressive circles because he was one of the architects of neoconservatism. Fair enough — when you’re one of the intellectual driving forces behind the Iraq War, that’s going to cost some credibility down the road. But Fukuyama’s shaky track record goes back even farther, when he predicted in 1992’s The End of History and The Last Man that the end of the Cold War essentially signaled the end of ideological struggle between civilizations. Someone forgot to tell that to al Qaeda.
With all that behind him, it’s understandable why some would be leery about paying him heed now. But Fukuyama’s most recent WSJ op-ed is actually worth your time. Fukuyama’s piece focuses on democracy promotion in the Middle East, a policy that has traction with groups across the political spectrum, including PPI, the National Democratic Institute, The Project on Middle East Democracy, and the International Republican Institute. And if a high-profile neoconservative acknowledges the failings of the Bush administration and smartly pushes the current administration on a sound policy, then we should pay attention. He says:
While Mr. Obama paid lip service to the need for greater Middle East democracy in his June 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, he has done very little concretely to back this up in terms of quiet pressure for democratic change on the part of allies like Egypt, Jordan or Morocco. Indeed, the administration’s ramping up of military support for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the wake of the attempted Christmas day airliner bombing suggests that we’ve gone back to the traditional U.S. policy of reliance on Arab strongmen.
This would be a big mistake. For the core premises of the Freedom Agenda remain essentially correct, even as its enunciation in the midst of the Iraq invasion undercut its credibility. Mr. Obama runs the risk of falling in bed with the same set of Middle Eastern authoritarians and alienating broad political populations in the region. …
The problem with the Bush administration’s Freedom Agenda wasn’t its fundamental analysis, but the way that it was articulated in the midst of the highly unpopular Iraq war. Democracy promotion was used from the start to justify the invasion, and in the eyes of many Arabs became synonymous with American occupation….
Mr. Obama arrived in office with none of this baggage, and therefore had an opportunity to recommit the United States to peaceful democratic change. But the window is rapidly closing as the U.S. draws closer to the region’s authoritarian rulers.
While I’m not sure that the Obama administration’s focus on Yemen undercuts the Cairo speech in the way Fukuyama suggests, I think the general point is valid. After all, the trick is protecting America’s immediate interests while encouraging openness over the long term. So how to strike that balance? I’d recommend checking out a few of POMED’s publications, like those here. Or, check out a paper Shadi Hamid wrote for PPI last year.
