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/ 23 October 2008
While most of the world spent last weekend trembling for its wealth, in Afghanistan the Taliban busied themselves dying in quite large numbers.
US military posturing towards Tehran lacks credibility and, in any case, such action would fail in all its purposes.
Although China remains a tyranny, since the 1970s it has become a significantly less brutal one. Li Datong, a journalist who was sacked last year as a magazine editor for crossing the low threshold of political criticism that the government will tolerate, said: "We have progressed. For instance, it is possible for you to meet me, which could not have happened in Mao’s time."
It is dismaying to suppose oneself fighting a war against one party, only to suffer humiliation at the hands of another. The British Royal Marines and sailors who set forth last Friday to patrol the Shatt-al-Arab waterway carried loaded guns. They would have used these if necessary against Iraqi smugglers or insurgents.
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/ 1 December 2006
In Moscow shortly after 9/11 a clever Russian academic told me: "Don’t believe all that stuff Putin is dishing out about how sorry we all are about what has happened. A lot of people here are thrilled to see the Americans get a kicking.” A few months ago I heard a cluster of diplomats lament the difficulties of doing business with the Russians, writes Max Hastings.
Most of this week’s comment on Slobodan Milosevic’s death asserted that he thus cheated justice, escaping an inevitable verdict of guilt at the Hague international court. There is an alternative view, however, that Milosevic’s exit enables justice to escape a hideous embarrassment. The prisoner was likely to be acquitted on a substantial number of the charges against him.
Over the past four weeks, Tories have paraded slivers of hope like castaways clutching salvaged treasure amid a rising flood. Now the waters have closed on them. In the days ahead, it will be for analysts to assess whether the result gives them any possibility of achieving victory in 2009.
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/ 13 September 2004
Terrorism is getting nastier. Compare and contrast the anarchists and nihilists of the 19th and early 20th centuries who shot kings and presidents, with the Chechen separatists who have killed 350 children and teachers. Recall the indignation that accompanied Irish Republican Army (IRA) failures to give warnings of their bombs, thus killing innocents. Palestinian suicide bombers are not noted for giving warnings.