How Iraq civil war could shape the future of the GOP—and the nation

[dajoki]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12172528/site/newsweek/?nav=slatefrom/RSS/

Clash of Ideas
The Iraq war was a test of the neocon vision of America. How a civil war there could shape the future of the GOP—and the nation.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:20 p.m. ET April 5, 2006

April 5, 2006 - There are presently two sectarian wars under way that will decide America's future: one in Iraq, and one inside the Republican Party. The issues are intimately related. If Iraq erupts into full-blown civil war or breaks up, the war within the GOP will be effectively settled. The last ounce of credibility will be drained from George W. Bush's great revolution over the use of American power. The neoconservative program that Bush adopted will instantly become an odd historical footnote, going the way of the Know-Nothings and the Mugwumps. Bush will find himself lumped in the rankings with Warren Harding, or worse. America will go through another post-Vietnam-like period of drift, overhanging debt and self-doubt. And the GOP, having exorcised the alien neocon demon that possessed it, will pretty much revert to its origins, adopting a Jeffersonian caution about world affairs that will hand the reins back to the realists (who, in truth—with the possible exception of Henry Kissinger—were never pure hard-power realists anyway; they were always the "Wilsonian realists" that pundits like Francis Fukuyama now argue they should become again).

Commentators in and around Washington are debating these issues today as if their words really mean something. Fukuyama, the "End of History" sage who is the most brilliant intellectual provocateur of our time, has inflamed the internal GOP debate by arguing, in a new book called "America at the Crossroads," that neoconservatism is already dead and buried. Joined by other conservative heavyweights such as George F. Will and William F. Buckley, Fukuyama has triggered a barrage of return fire from his former neocon allies, like Charles Krauthammer, who see only another traitor in their midst, as well as from Bush administration spokesmen like Peter Wehner, who argues that "now would be precisely the wrong time to lose our nerve and turn our back on the freedom agenda." What was simmering below the surface a year ago has erupted into hand-to-hand—or brow-to-brow—combat within the GOP. It is a vicious sectarian war between Republican traditionalists and Bush transformationalists.

[400Years]

1. this guy is on crack

"Fukuyama, the "End of History" sage who is the most brilliant intellectual provocateur of our time"

I mean, come on!

[d_b]

2. It's a knee slapper for sure

[xchrom]

3. well -- it's already a civil war.

but the author didn't mention the bases we're building there -- that may require both political parties to become partners in a neocon vision blown to smithereens.

do we become stewards of a backwards theocracy -- cause that's what it is starting to look like.

or how about a three state solution with the u.s. running around like the cavalry putting out fires here and there?

oy.

[dajoki]

4. love this line...

The neoconservative program that Bush adopted will instantly become an odd historical footnote, going the way of the Know-Nothings and the Mugwumps