(via Innocents Abroad)  Hey folks.   Back from a weekend with the family in Houston.   I read Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom while on this trip and will hopefully put up a review in the next few days or so.   Zakaria will be speaking here in SF later today and I've eagerly acquired my ticket & will hopefully come out with a signed copy of the book.

In the meantime, any regular reader of my blog knows that I'm a HUGE fan of Francis Fukuyama due primarily to End of History & the Last Man.   I see Fukuyama as much more of a political philosopher rather than a policy analyst or columnist.    He tends to write about how different forms of political organization foster self actualization, how political identities are created, the relationship between technology and our humanity, and so on.

Which is why the extremely tactical nature of his current article in Opinion Journal was a bit surprising.  Fukuyama advocates a specific next step now that we're on a high after winning the Iraq war:

We need to exploit this moment of strength. There has been a lot of speculation as to "where next," whether Syria, Iran, or North Korea. But the best way to take advantage of our current position may be to contract our empire, rather than expand it.

We should use our victory in Iraq as the occasion to withdraw all of our military forces from Saudi Arabia.

I broadly agree with the reasons offered up by Fukuyama -- he thinks withdrawing from Saudi Arabia is the perfect way to demonstrate to the Arab world that we aren't trying to establish a broad empire in the Middle East.    I'll add another reason -- it removes a "hostage" taking opportunity.  As long as we've got our folks on the ground in Saudi Arabia, it provides the House of Saud with a disproportionate influence on our ability to create and execute policy in the region.