Fukuyama argues that the Iraq invasion was poorly planned and orchestrated, and that the George W. Bush administration underestimated the social construction that would be necessary to create a new democracy after the war.
Fukuyama became more aware of his disagreements with the movement when, in February 2004, he attended the annual dinner at the AEI and listened to a speech by Charles Krauthammer which "treated the [Iraq] war as a virtually unqualified success".
[1] Fukuyama subsequently wrote a reaction to the speech[2] and concluded "that neoconservatism, both as a political system and a body of thought, has evolved into something that I can no longer support.
"[1] The principles it was based on had worked during the Cold War, both for the domestic front as well as in foreign policy – but subsequent interpretations had put too much emphasis on military force.
[8][9] Fukuyama claims that the fact that many neoconservatives in the Bush Administration were Jewish, like Wolfowitz and Feith, made many critics believe the invasion of Iraq was in Israel's interest[10][11][12][13] while others claimed that Strauss – who was a major inspiration of the movement – had defended the idea of "the noble lie" and that elites were thus allegedly allowed to lie in the public interest,[14] which the neocons did, according to this reasoning, in the case of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
[20][21] He names and describes the roots of the movement: If you were to ask Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or President Bush himself who Leo Strauss was, you would probably draw blank stares.
Strauss didn't write about political issues, but was interested in the "theological-political problem" of claims of 'the good life' and tried to respond to modern moral relativism by bringing back premodern Greek philosophy.
[29] But, Fukuyama claims, a profound understanding would have warned the Bush Administration of the difficulty of this democratic transition, as informal habits play a fundamental role too.
[29] Fukuyama writes that these groups lay the foundation of the neoconservative movement, although they politically ended up in different places, e.g. Irving Kristol became a Republican supporter of Ronald Reagan while Patrick Moynihan remained a Democrat and voted against the 1996 welfare reform bill.
[42] Fukuyama also states there were several alternative cases for the Iraq War (other than WMDs, an al-Qaida connection or democracy promotion), such as the untenability of the sanctions regime or arguing it was a global public good to prevent the nuclear proliferation of the Middle East.
One has only to look at the Soviet Union after 1956 and China after 1978.Then Fukuyama asks whether there was justified risk, which he argues there was not because the Bush Administration had far overrated Saddam Hussein's capability to acquire WMDs and wouldn't give credit to UN inspection estimates or US intelligence findings.
[45][46] The author focuses on the problem of "American exceptionalism" – a form of US-centrism – which had made the Bush Administration blind to world public opinion and the structural anti-Americanism in the international system, Fukuyama writes.
[47] On the domestic front, neocons like James Q. Wilson had warned about extensive social programs and the Bush Administration should have put this principle into practice in foreign policy as well, Fukuyama asserts.
[48] Fukuyama cites an interview by Dick Cheney in which the Vice President said: "to suggest we need several 100.000 troops there, after the conflict ends, I don't think it's accurate...