Much good sense in this interview with New Statesman:
“The one thing that both the Iraq and Afghan wars should have taught us is that, even with a very heavy input in boots on the ground, and nation-building, and the trillions of resources poured into these countries, our ability to bring about a specific political result like democracy, or even basic stability, is very limited.”
Fukuyama’s criticism of Obama’s policy is also guided by a belief that the president is responding to the wrong threats. China’s rising global influence and Russia’s renewed territorial ambition are far greater dangers to western security, he believes. “The whole west, and especially the United States, has overestimated the impact of terrorism,” he says. “It’s a big problem, it’s not going to go away any time in the future – but it’s not an existential threat.” If the brutality of Isis makes the group seem a danger to the US and Europe, it is also a weakness: “The attraction of this kind of radicalism to most people is zero.”
(H/t Sullivan.)