THE BEST SO FAR

The two best insta-analyses of the war so far, in my opinion, are Anatole Kaletsky’s superb essay in the Times of London and Will Saletan’s typically insightful piece in Slate. Will focuses on the irony of the fear transfer – from us to them. Kaletsky thinks about the extraordinarily important instructive quality of the Taliban’s rout: “The defeat of the Taleban has shown to the entire Muslim world that the mullahs’ vision of an ultra-orthodox Islamic Utopia is a catastrophic delusion. Not only does returning to medievalism lead to economic catastrophe. Even worse, it produces political humiliation and military disgrace. In a battle between religion and technology, between medievalism and modernity, between theocracy and democracy, the West has long known which side was bound to win. The collapse of the Taleban may now teach the Islamic world the same lesson.” The deeper point is that at this stage in world history, when technology is poised to unleash immeasurable benefit but also immeasurable danger to mankind, the Western powers have made a decisive point: we will respond to terror. I don’t think we can under-estimate the importance of this for the future of the world. The Taliban and al Qaeda are only the beginning. But what a beginning.