Synopsis
From two of the country's arch-neoconservatives - a Bush speechwriter and the influential Chairman of the Defense Policy Board - comes a new book of policy on how to strengthen America. Frum and Perle allege that despite the American conquest of Iraq, Americans are not very safe in the world around them, and that the U.S. government remains unready to defend its people. They sound the alert about the present danger, and give a detailed, candid account of America's vulnerabilities: a military whose leaders resist change, intelligence agencies mired in bureaucracy, and diplomats who put friendly relations with their foreign colleagues ahead of the nation's interests. They lay out a bold program to defend America - and to win the war on terror.
The New York Times
The book takes the instructive, prescriptive stance assumed by many conservative theorists in recent books, but it turns out to be less a reasoned effort to convince the unconvinced than a furious manifesto aimed at true believers. It is a screed that expends as much energy denouncing the State Department, Europe, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., Democrats, the foreign-policy establishment and even former President George H. W. Bush (the authors accuse him of trying "to prevent the Soviet Union from disintegrating"), as it does on denouncing terrorists and terror-minded states.
Making its points with all the subtlety of a pit bull on steroids, An End to Evil is smug, shrill and deliberately provocative. — Michiko Kakutani