^aInstitute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK. E-mail: timothy.lynch@sas.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper assesses American neoconservative policy prescriptions for democratizing political Islam and considers the sources of the neoconservative understanding of the Arab Muslim world. Neoconservative analyses of the Middle East are almost exclusively normative, arguing what US policy toward the region should be. Their aims are ambitious and inherently controversial. The paper examines what various neoconservatives have said and written about Islam and its democratic potential. The paper concerns itself with the neoconservative conceptualization of Middle East politics. The paper argues that presently only American neoconservatism, despite its variations, and despite some obvious flaws, offers tenable prescriptions for regime destabilization and an attendant political liberalization of Arab politics.