Mark Steyn: The British wrest defeat from the jaws of victory

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 06/08/03 | Mark Steyn

[Pokey78]

I had a weird experience a few days ago. I flew from the Middle East to North America. In Iraq, 95 per cent of the people I met told me they were happy to be liberated and regretted only that various disappeared loved ones weren't around to see it. In the US, the great victory has been digested and folks have moved on to newer distractions, like the travails of the indicted style guru Martha Stewart. In their different ways, these are both rational reactions.

But, en route from east to west, I briefly touched down in the strange area known as "Europe", where possibly due to a freak electrical storm or some other phenomenon the people of Britain appeared to be in the fevered grip of some mass psychosis, perhaps a variant of Sars (Sudden Alternative Reality Syndrome). Peter Worthington, the Canadian columnist and veteran of the Second World War and Korea, likes to say that there is no such thing as an unpopular won war. Tell it to Downing Street. If I understand correctly, the British, having won the war, are now demanding a recount. Across the length and breadth of the realm, the people are as one: now that the war's out of the way we can go back to bitching and whining that Blair hasn't made the case for it.

This is all very odd. In Kirkuk the other day, they found another mass grave, this time with the bodies of 200 children who had been buried alive. Yawn. Doesn't count. Wake me if they find a toxic warhead among the teeny skulls. The naysayers were wrong on so much - millions of refugees, Vietnam quagmire, Stalingrad, etc - you can't blame them for clinging to the one little straw that hasn't shrivelled up and slipped between their fingers: Come on, Tony, where's the WMD?

Or as Iain Duncan Smith put it in the House of Commons: "The truth is nobody believes a word you say now." Well, I do. Because what Mr Blair said is not only in line with what American officials told me, it is in line with what Continental officials told me - as recently as two weeks ago, when a big-time Euro paused midway through his harangue about the illegality of the war to assure me that "of course" Saddam had been up to WMD monkey business.

That's why, if you notice, the axis of weasels (France, Germany, Russia) and its short-pants league (Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada), while undoubtedly enjoying Mr Blair's discomfort, have nevertheless declined to join in the show-us-the-sarin taunts. They know what their intelligence services say (assuming, for the purposes of argument, Luxembourg has an intelligence service), and it's the same as the British and Americans. The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is presumably privy to more high-level briefings than I am, so his tawdry opportunism is especially contemptible.

What IDS merely implied, Max Hastings spelt out in these pages last week: "The Prime Minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit." Sir Max, the liberator of Port Stanley, has somehow morphed for this war into Belgrano bore Tam Dalyell: his thesis is that Blair and his American masters lied to the world about Saddam's arsenal in order to justify an invasion that would prove no such arsenal existed and that they were a bunch of liars.

Insofar as this is a serious argument, let's rebut it in terms the armchair accusers can understand: Liberty. Not the liberty George W Bush has brought to Iraq, which Eurosophisticates are so sniffy about, but the Liberty on Regent Street. I once ordered a sofa from Liberty and, as is the way, I had to wait till they made it. They didn't have the sofa itself, but they had sofa capability. That's what counts: capability, not inventory. It would obviously be easier to wait and pick the evidence of WMD out of the rubble of Birmingham, but for the Americans it is capability that's the determining criterion.

In that sense, the contrasting post-war fates of Bush and Blair are instructive. The President has always been so straightforward that, in an interview with ITV 15 months ago, Trevor McDonald seemed to have difficulty taking yes for an answer. "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go," Bush told him.

"And, of course, if the logic of the war on terror means anything," Sir Trevor responded, "then Saddam must go?"
"That's what I just said," said the President. "The policy of my government is that he goes."

"So you're going to go after him?" pressed Sir Trevor, determined not to let Bush get away with these evasions.

"As I told you, the policy of my government is that Saddam Hussein not be in power."

And now he's not. Mr Blair could never put it like that. And the moment he prevailed upon Bush to go the extra mile with the UN, it was inevitable that there would be a fair amount of what I believe the British call "total bollocks". That is, by definition, the official language of multilateralism, and one reason why I have little time for it. For 18 months, my position on Iraq was consistent: I was in favour of whacking Saddam because the price of leaving him non-whacked was too high for America's broader interests. But once you get into auditioning justifications in front of a panel comprising France, China and Guinea, you're in for quite a tap dance. In the end, Britain officially went to war on a technicality, and given that that technicality - Saddam's technical non-compliance with Resolution 1441 - still holds, the WMD song and dance is irrelevant, both de facto and de jure. And as politics, two months after victory, it's pathetically immature.

In America, Mr Blair is still Churchill. In Britain, Mr Blair has fast-forwarded to the Churchill of 1945: his own party never liked him, his wartime coalition with Clement Duncan Attlee has broken up, and the ingrate voters have had enough of wartime austerity - the wretched hospitals, the broken trains - and would like a domestic panderer rather than a global colossus.

Fair enough. Settle your differences with Blair at the next election. But on this issue he was right, and there's nothing to be gained for British Conservatism in subscribing to theories of deliberate deceit that in America are exclusively the province of paranoid cranks. Some of those besmirching British victory in a noble cause should be ashamed of themselves.

[FairOpinion]

No, he is Canadian, but he may live in the US. I don't know about that.


In his native Canada, Mark is a columnist for The National Post, the country's leading national newspaper. In the United Kingdom, Mark appears in The Daily Telegraph, Britain's biggest-selling broadsheet daily, and The Sunday Telegraph, winner of this year's Newspaper of the Year Award.

He also writes on current events and movies for The Spectator, the oldest continuously-published magazine in the English language. In the United States, he is a columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times , America's fifth most-read daily paper, and for The New York Sun, the city's first new broadsheet daily in a quarter of a century.

Mark is also theatre critic for The New Criterion in New York. In addition, he appears in The Jerusalem Post and The Richmond Times-Dispatch of Virginia, and more occasionally in other publications, too, including The Wall Street Journal and National Review , but even when he's not in them he thinks they're worth reading, which is why we link to them here.

Mark's book on musical theatre, Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, was published to critical acclaim in the United Kingdom, and somewhat sniffier notices in the United States.


http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=32

[Travis McGee]

I always strive for economy of words. The fewer words used to express a thought, the more powerfully the thought is conveyed to the reader.

If you can wrap a complex thought into a few powerful phrases, that thought will have far greater impact than if it is buried and diluted in many paragraphs. People will also remember the concisely expressed idea more easily.

Free Republic has been the greatest writing seminar I could have ever hoped for. I am ten times better a writer than I was three years ago.

[Travis McGee]

The world's loss is America's gain.

[Brian Allen]

<< The world's loss is America's gain. >>

The world pondering of the source of its hesperophobically-pathological envy, hatred and rage-engined anti-Americanism aught rest right there!

Not that we, any longer, much care.

[Travis McGee]

I have major problems with the ease of walking across the borders, but generally we are receiving thousands of the most intelligent and motivated people from the rest of the world.

Excluding the illiterate peasants who merely trudge across the border.

[Brian Allen]

<< Excluding the illiterate peasants who merely trudge across the border -- ... >>

.... -- and the invading unassimilable hostiles who hide among them -- aught be the first responsibility of those of our humble servants, beginning with the executive, we entrust with Guardianship of our heart and soul: [And Civilization's last three standing pillars] America's Founding Law.

[MeekOneGOP]

Good article, thanks ! Ping for those who may have missed it.

Mark Steyn: The British wrest defeat from the jaws of victory

Excerpt:

In America, Mr Blair is still Churchill. In Britain, Mr Blair has fast-forwarded to the Churchill of 1945: his own party never liked him, his wartime coalition with Clement Duncan Attlee has broken up, and the ingrate voters have had enough of wartime austerity - the wretched hospitals, the broken trains - and would like a domestic panderer rather than a global colossus.

Fair enough. Settle your differences with Blair at the next election. But on this issue he was right, and there's nothing to be gained for British Conservatism in subscribing to theories of deliberate deceit that in America are exclusively the province of paranoid cranks. Some of those besmirching British victory in a noble cause should be ashamed of themselves.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest orUnited Kingdom ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Madame Dufarge]

That's why, if you notice, the axis of weasels (France, Germany, Russia) and its short-pants league (Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada), while undoubtedly enjoying Mr Blair's discomfort, have nevertheless declined to join in the show-us-the-sarin taunts.

[xm177e2]

Or as Iain Duncan Smith put it in the House of Commons: "The truth is nobody believes a word you say now."

Sonofabitch. Republicans should do everything they can to get Labour re-elected and undermine the bastard Tories. Tories are the enemy of free people everywhere, if they will turn on Blair over Iraq. They should support him on this, even if it is not very popular. They should do the right thing--they might get a few votes that way. Thatcher was right; the current Tory leadership is wrong. Bastards. Tony might be wrong on some economic issues, but on the important stuff, he's with Bush and IDS isn't. So f--- the Tories. Let's do what we can to keep them out of office for the next twenty years. A betrayal by the Tories is worse than a betrayal by pretty much anyone else, because they're supposed to be our friends. Bastards.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Brian Allen]

<< Sonofabitch. Republicans should do everything they can to get Labour re-elected and undermine the bastard Tories. >>

Once great Britain's tories are but pandering and appeasing bloody socialist wolves in sheep's clothing.

Effectively Hitler's best friend, Neville Chaimberlain, least we forget, was a "tory."

And so were the self-serving criminal scum who enriched themselves while handing Once-FRee British Hong Kong's seven and a half million once-FRee British Hong Kong Citizens into pre-medieval slavery.

There isn't a Limey born who would recognise a True Conservative if one was biting him in the arse at the time.

[WaterDragon]

Come on, Tony, where's the WMD? Or as Iain Duncan Smith put it in the House of Commons: "The truth is nobody believes a word you say now." Well, I do. Because what Mr Blair said is not only in line with what American officials told me, it is in line with what Continental officials told me - as recently as two weeks ago, when a big-time Euro paused midway through his harangue about the illegality of the war to assure me that "of course" Saddam had been up to WMD monkey business.

Smith sounds like the worthless RINOs in America. Too bad the British have such insecure and weak-principled conservatives. In some regards, Blair is smarter than the lot of them.

[happygrl]

He's so cute too.

[MeekOneGOP]

Re #39-40:

I always thought of Steyn as one of the 'home run' kings as he's ALWAYS hitting them outta tha park !!!

I hope JohnHuang2 doesn't mind me sharing that on this thread. (I sometimes post that on his threads as well!)

[MeekOneGOP]

New Zealand, huh ??

Being an Air Force Brat, our family traveled around a bit when we were kids. My brother was conceived in Texas, but born in the Canal Zone, Panama. So he was always called a Panamanian, or sometimes my parents called him a Panahoochie, LOL! He's an American citizen, of course.

[Brian Allen]

<< I hope JohnHuang2 doesn't mind me sharing that on this thread. (I sometimes post that on his threads as well!) >>

Me too.

But Hermano Juan can handle it!

He's a tough one!

[melsec]

Anybody else spare some WMDs? I could donate some Barbra Streisand CDs.

You cruel inhamane b*stard - havn't these people been through enough!?!

Mel(LOL)

[MeekOneGOP]

Oh, yeah !!

More bump images HERE !

[Right_in_Virginia]

"That's why, if you notice, the axis of weasels (France, Germany, Russia) and its short-pants league (Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada), while undoubtedly enjoying Mr Blair's discomfort, have nevertheless declined to join in the show-us-the-sarin taunts. They know what their intelligence services say ..."

Worth repeating. It really is incredible that the victors are now attacking their own.

[maica]

Hi Travis,

I wish Steyn would have wider syndication in the US, but The Sunday Telegraph is a pretty big outlet. I am glad he slammed Iain Duncan Smith. What a cheap shot! Anyone who is sincere in wanting any kind of diminution of transnational terror has to want Saddam out of power. The leaders who accomplished this, Bush and Blair, are heroes and statesmen in my estimation