It’s Tony Blair’s fixation; and Tom Friedman’s as well. At least Friedman, in an excellent and honest column, grapples with the paradox here. What if the Israeli-Palestinian crisis isn’t really the main problem in the Middle East, but since that’s what everyone there and elsewhere believes, we’d be crazy not to take it into account? Clearly, for the Arab world, this is the psychological issue of the first order. Humiliated by their backward economies and societies, ashamed in some inchoate way that their biggest exports in recent years have been Western-produced oil and mass murdering religious fanatics, they now have to watch as yet another despised Arab despot gets his comeuppance. How can we expect them to deal with that if we don’t throw them a bone over the West Bank? I take the point. It extends beyond the Middle East to Europe, where we need allies, and where Israel is regarded as the source of almost all the problems in international affairs. But the real question is: do we continue to enable or even promote this delusion or do we confront it? I know it’s a high stakes gamble, but it seems to me that by not entertaining this fantasy we might actually do more good than if we do. In war, clarity matters. In that war, our enemy is Islamist terrorism and its state sponsors. When we’ve dealt with them – and we’ve barely started – we can return to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. In fact, it’s only after we have dealt with Saddam and the Iranian Mullahs that we will get Palestinian interlocutors who know they have nowhere else to turn. Then we can talk, and get tough on Israel with regard to its destabilizing settlements as well. Meantime, set up a diplomatic diversion. Let Blair have his conference. Say all the conciliatory things. And depose Saddam – soon.
NOW, THE POETS: The “anti-war” brigades in Europe have a new ally: the British poet laureate. To be fair, Andrew Motion is not against war against Saddam as such. He simply believes that there has to be irrefutable evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam’s Iraq before we take any action. A few hundred inspectors have to find definitive proof of easily concealed stockpiles of nerve gas, botulism, and so on, before any war is permissible. A truly weak but at least vaguely defensible position. But then he goes further. It’s conceivable that someone would hold this view while still acknowledging the good faith of the opposing argument: that the burden of proof lies on Saddam – not the West – and that, given his record, Saddam’s inadequate declaration of WMDs is a good enough casus belli. But no. Motion – a poet officially sanctioned by the Queen – has to go the whole hog. Here’s his little poem in full:
They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
elections, money, empire, oil and Dad.
Huh? Well I guess he’s aware that those who are pro-war can be educated, something that Susan Sontag and Joan Didion seem oblivious to. But elections? We just had them. Dad? Puhlease. Money? It’s going to cost a small fortune. Empire? Well, leave it to a British poet laureate to defend that one.
THE GAMBLER: “A year ago, there was a real question if the West would do anything about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Now, the only issue is whether we rely on more thorough inspections or war. The only person responsible for this transformation is Bush (with credit also to Tony Blair). Even if you are opposed to war, you have to concede that Saddam is a threat and that Bush has almost singlehandedly forced the world to deal with it seriously. That’s a gain for international security, by any measure. Domestically in America, the shift is just as profound. In the 2000 campaign, the choice was between a revived left-wing populism under Al Gore or a cautious conservatism under George Bush. By 2003, the choice is between around $90 billion in tax cuts (and some new spending) from the Democrats and almost $700 billion tax cut from Bush.” – from my latest column, posted here.
HOWELL’S SELF-INTEREST: It’s not easy for a non-lefty to get on the New York Times op-ed page, so it was good to see David Brooks there yesterday, writing what was, as usual, a thoughtful and persuasive piece. But its premise is ideologically loaded to the left. The question asked by David is summed up in his opening paragraph:
Why don’t people vote their own self-interest? Every few years the Republicans propose a tax cut, and every few years the Democrats pull out their income distribution charts to show that much of the benefits of the Republican plan go to the richest 1 percent of Americans or thereabouts. And yet every few years a Republican plan wends its way through the legislative process and, with some trims and amendments, passes.
There then follow a series of sociological and psychological explanations for this. But the more obvious answer – to anyone not on the left – is surely simpler. Maybe people believe that their real self-interest is not simply in getting more directly back from the government. A good tax policy that doesn’t broadly punish the successful might actually help an economy grow and therefore be in everyone’s real economic self-interest – even those at the very bottom of the ladder. Certainly a quick look at the more “progressive”, i.e. punitive, tax regimes in Europe shows that the average person does far better over here, and is certainly more likely to have a job. A better first sentence would therefore be: “Why don’t people vote their own narrow and immediate self-interest?” But that wouldn’t get past the Howellburo, would it?
GERMANY’S IMPLOSION: A good piece on the damage Gerhard Schroder (favorability rating now 32 percent) has done both to Germany’s internal health and to its foreign influence. The beneficiary? France, now essentially the leader of the E.U. And Britain? Further away from joining the euro than ever. Meanwhile, German popular culture seems to be becomoing more and more pathologically anti-American. Take a look at this week’s cover of Der Spiegel. They even turn Old Glory into a version of the Hammer and Sickle. Truly repulsive.
THE SOCIALISM OF FOOLS: I should have linked to this terrific piece by Michael Gove in the Times of London before now. But here it is. It seems to me that some kind of anti-Americanism is inevitable, given the unprecedented power and influence of the hyper-power. But what’s worrying is the poisonous strain in this Americanophobia. Mild resentment becomes a kind of pathological suspicion. Parts of the left in this country have succumbed as well. Check out this photograph from an “anti-war” rally in Los Angeles. It says it all.
FIFTH COLUMN WATCH: One of the Lackawanna suspects cops a guilty plea. Hmm. The charge is “providing ‘funds and services’ to al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, by attending a terrorism training camp in Afgha
nistan in the spring of 2001.”
QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “I wanted to understand why the western countries were doing so well when the rest of the world seemed to be collapsing. I studied the history of European political thought from the Greeks and Romans up to the Second World War. I learned that people in the West value the autonomous individual. They understand the importance of science, knowledge. They are capable of criticising themselves and there is an ability to record history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It is exactly the opposite in Somalia where all the institutions of record are missing, and my grandmother’s memories of the clan wars will die with her.” – Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant to Holland, about to become a member of parliament following Pim Fortuyn’s footsteps. Her favorite thinker is John Stuart Mill. Liberalism, it seems, is not dead in Europe after all. It just takes a taste of Islamist oppression to embrace it.
The Dish 