What exactly is the strategy behind going after Turkey and Saudi Arabia? We know the motivation – they despise Turkey’s secular form of government and they loathe Saudi Arabia’s connections to the West. But doesn’t this strike you as spectacularly dumb from a strategic point of view? They have only helped make the West’s case to the Saudis – that they cannot ignore this threat and certainly cannot buy it off. They may well alienate Turkey’s Muslim population. And by murdering Brits, they have hopelessly undercut the anti-Western demonstrations in London. Your average Brit, after all, may be a little queasy about American military power. But when al Qaeda starts murdering British subjects abroad, the sympathy for Arab terrorists (which is a clear under-current of the far left in Britain) begins to look to waverers as sickening as it genuinely is. We may have made errors in Iraq – disbanding the army in May seems in retrospect an obvious screw-up. But the enemy is not without flaws itself. Perhaps al Qaeda is now so disorganized that it is practically incapable of any intelligent strategy. Either way, these terrible murders are indicators of something worth noting: the enemy may be falling apart. This may make it more dangerous in the short term. But it bodes well for eventual victory.
QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “What people have got to remember is that Sept. 11 happened in 2001 and not in 2003. It was planned under the presidency of Bill Clinton.” – British foreign secretary, Jack Straw. The point, of course, is not to blame Clinton for 9/11, but to show that al Qaeda terrorism is not some kind of response to the Bush administration. It predated it, and will probably outlast it.
LOOK, IT’S COMPLICATED: You’ve got to feel for the poor guy:
The queen gave her toast, noting that, unlike presidents, she was not term-limited. The president smiled, Prince Charles did not. When the queen finished, the president raised his glass, but Her Majesty did not return the gesture, instead waiting for the American national anthem to begin. Hearing the music, Bush put down his glass and placed his hand on his heart, then took it off, then put it on again. “The Star-Spangled Banner” over, he clinked glasses with the queen, then turned to clink glasses with Princess Anne, who was already sipping from hers.
The awkwardness continued after Bush’s toast, when he again picked up his glass to clink with the queen, who stood motionless, waiting for her own national anthem. Bush put his glass back down and, as the orchestra played “God Save the Queen,” winked at somebody in the audience. Finally, the anthem finished, president and queen consummated their clinks.
The Dish 