Francis Fukuyama's change of heart on Iraq comes too late and at too high a price, writes Firas Al-Atraqchi In the past 18 months or so, media observers have witnessed a change in focus in US newspapers and broadcast television. Headlines of US accomplishments in Iraq slowly slipped from the foreground to be replaced with disparaging remarks of officials from both sides of the political divide. Criticism of the Bush presidency -- unheard of in the first two years after the events of 9/11 -- became the jeux du jour as mainstream media admitted its mistakes in reporting the "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) issue and promised better coverage of Iraq events. That coverage leaves much to be desired. US media on Iraq is still lacking in depth and veracity. Nonetheless, there has been one recurrent theme: Iraq is on the throes of a chaotic post- Saddam pre-Iranian-style theocracy because of poor planning and a lack of American insight. Finally, the media is admitting that not only was US intelligence utterly wrong -- if not outright moulded to fit political whims -- on Iraq's WMD, but that planning for the post-conflict scenario was at best incompetent. Therefore, it was not surprising to see Francis Fukuyama, erstwhile neo-conservative pundit and author, reverse course on his once over-enthusiastic desire for a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and admit he had been wrong. In his 1992 The End of History, Fukuyama wrote of the urgent need to transport ideals of liberal democracy as practised in the United States to the four corners of the world. It was, effectively, an archetypal neo-conservative manifesto. But in his 2006 America at the Crossroads, Fukuyama has abandoned his neo-conservative zeal and come out in force condemning the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war, the notion that democracy can be so easily planted in the heart of undemocratic societies, and the misplaced notion that America will be loved for intervening in global conflicts. The heated vitriol against Fukuyama came quickly and unceremoniously from former neo-conservative allies. Writing in the 28 March issue of The Washington Post, fellow neo- conservative and pro-invasion foghorn Charles Krauthammer criticises Fukuyama as bending to popular sentiment: "After public opinion had turned against the war, Fukuyama then courageously came out against it." The war of words escalated when Fukuyama inferred he was the target of a witch-hunt against pro-war dissenters and that he had every right to change his mind. "In our ever-more polarised political debate, it appears that it is now wrong to ever change your mind, even if empirical evidence from the real world suggests you ought to," he wrote in the 9 April issue of The Los Angeles Times. Fukuyama points to early signs of his unease with the Bush doctrine of pre-emption. He says that on the first and second anniversaries of 9/11 he began to question whether the US could actually secure Iraqi democracy, calling it a "roll of the dice". He also says Iraq should not have been invaded without UN consensus. Loath as I am to agree with him, Krauthammer is absolutely right in his criticism that Fukuyama easily bends with the popular winds. Fukuyama is at best disingenuous and at worse an opportunistic coward. His defence -- claiming he had stood against the war before the invasion -- is immaterial. By that time, the military juggernaut was in full motion, with news now emerging that the Iraq war was conceived before the Bush administration came to power, and catapulted into full throttle after 9/11. It is also a historic imperative to remind Fukuyama that immediately after the tragic deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on 11 September 2001, he urged an invasion of Iraq. Writing in a 20 September 2001 letter to President George Bush, Fukuyama says: "It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." This does not sound like the same man who would one year later be unsure. In fact, Fukuyama was so sure of what he said that he favoured "any strategy" that would remove Saddam. Indeed, riding on the wave of passionate calls for revenge and indiscriminate slaughter echoed in the media, Fukuyama stood as a major proponent of the war on Iraq. Fukuyama's apologia and desperate search for absolution is also overshadowed by the pivotal role he played in the formation of Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Boasting such neo-conservatives as Scooter Libby, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, William Kristol, Zalmay Khalilzad, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Donald Kagan and Frank Gaffney, among others, the PNAC called for a Pax Americana and the securing of America's global geopolitical interests. In 1997, the PNAC urged then President Bill Clinton to launch a pre-emptive war on Iraq, citing Saddam Hussein as the principal threat to US interests. Fukuyama signed the letter sent to the White House. In 2000, the PNAC published a report entitled, Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century which said: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." It is understandable that the reader may see the words "Iraq" and "Saddam Hussein" and quickly forget the bigger picture. The invasion of Iraq was but the first step of many. "Transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein," indicates that the importance of Iraq as a pawn on a greater geopolitical chessboard has not yet been played out. Iraq was "liberated", not invaded; Hussein was deposed and stands trial, and Iraq is now on the path to democracy, goes the neo-conservative line of thought. US analysts said Iraq would be the blossoming model of liberty for other nations and peoples to emulate. That was the plan as was published, discussed and ultimately trashed by the media as the oil-rich country succumbed to foreign parlay and chaos. That's when Fukuyama jumped ship. Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Fukuyama says it does not matter when he changed course on Iraq, only that he did. But this is a subtle form of escaping the consequence of the discourse and policies he helped set in motion. Iraq is in shambles, much to the chagrin of the Bush administration, which blamed the media for not reporting "good news". The media fired back that there was scant good news to report. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said that Iraq is in the throes of an undeclared civil war. Retired General Anthony Zinni has called for Rumsfeld's resignation while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says thousand of mistakes were made in Iraq. Libby has reportedly said controversial leaks were authorised by Bush himself and Khalilzad continues to warn of Iran's role in Iraq. In the three years since Fukuyama's great Iraq plan unfolded, more than 2,350 US soldiers have been killed and at least 18,000 wounded. At least 208 coalition troops have been killed and an unknown number wounded. At least 100,000 Iraqis -- possibly double, or more -- have been killed in the said period, with numbers of wounded, disfigured and maimed unknown because the Iraqi Ministry of Health does not provide such information. Iraq's vital oil industry is on the verge of collapse, unemployment is rising, and reconstruction has ground to a halt with many necessary facilities and utilities out of service. An insurgency rages alongside a vicious sectarian-fuelled death squad campaign. Hundreds of mosques have been destroyed, kidnappings occur in broad daylight, journalists are hunted and several cities are virtually under siege. There is no viable Iraqi government in place. It would be one thing if Fukuyama changed his mind about a theatre production he reviewed, or chose to buy a sedan instead of a convertible. But with thousands of lives in the meat grinder, Fukuyama's change of heart is nothing short of criminal.
