I’m such a cynic that few things can make me really angry anymore, but reading Bernard Henri-Levy’s “thoughts” about Francis Fukuyama was one of them. Nonetheless, I thank Mike for posting this; it would have otherwise slipped by me.
Fukuyama is a consummate statist, whose “end of history” thesis served as the Holy Writ of “neolib” interventionists prior to September 11 (a.k.a. The Day Everything Changed – but not really). I don’t really consider him a neocon; he’s above all an imperalist, no matter who occupies the White House. In any case, he does not provide the “the first serious—I mean theoretically articulated—objection to the war [in Iraq].” The best Fukuyama can do is argue that it was prosecuted wrongly, but his imperialism blocks him from challenging it on principle.
Then again, Bernard Henri-Levy is a moron. Worse, he is a demented quasi-philosopher who wants to remake Europe in Bosnia’s image. If his assessment of neocons as “noble spirits who don’t do enough actual politics” isn’t proof enough of his lunacy, I don’t know what would be. Just mentioning his name in the same breath as Alexis de Tocqueville is an insult to the noble 18th-century Frenchman. Not only is he not a modern-day de Tocqueville, Henri-Levy isn’t fit to shine de Tocqueville’s boots.