Beinart Pronounces Neoconservatism Dead

It’s hard to keep track of how many times neoconservatism has been pronounced dead by critics. At the Daily Beast, Peter Beinart pens the latest eulogy:

And not only is al-Qaeda sliding into irrelevance, its demise is being hastened by exactly the narrowly targeted policies that neoconservatives derided.

The Obama administration is destroying al-Qaeda not by remaking Afghanistan—a project that looks increasingly far-fetched—but through intelligence cooperation and drone strikes. And while political change—and maybe even democracy—is indeed coming to the Middle East, it is coming because younger Muslims are fed up with corruption and dictatorship, not because of anything done by the Fourth Infantry Division.