Is Neoconservatism Refuting Itself?

My Sunday Times column is on what Gaza and the West Bank tell us about the limits of democratic transformation in the Arab world. Money quote:

This is surely the self-contradiction at the heart of neoconservatism. Even at the maximum surge strength, America is helpless in the face of an Iraqi civil war that has only just begun, can be fuelled indefinitely by corrupt oil money, and is driven by centuries-old sectarian hatred between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims and decades of totalitarian trauma. And yet the neocons insist we should plough on, adding more troops, planning on permanent bases for indefinite occupation.

Well, you can’t have it both ways. Either Arab culture without autocracy really is what we see in Gaza and Iraq or it isn't. If it is, then trying to build western-style democracy during a brutal civil war in Iraq is a mug's game.

The rest is here.

(Photo: Armed Palestinian militants loyal to President Mahmud Abbas patrol in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 16 June 2007. Fatah fighters went on the rampage against Hamas in the West Bank today, stoking fears deadly factional violence could spread as the Islamists tightened their grip on power in the volatile Gaza Strip. Gunmen linked to president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah faction stormed parliament in the West Bank and also ransacked dozens of offices linked to Hamas including charities, a school and television and radio stations. By Awad Awad/AFP/Getty.)