"The irony here is that what is left of the left, on the whole, shares the views of the old right."

Please do help explain this comment. What are the views of the old right? What views of the "left" echo the views of the "old right?"

There wasn't much in the article supporting the claim that the "neo-cons" will have to prevail over the country-club republicans to prevail in establishing their ideals in a post-war Iraq.

This statement, "This is quite different from the more cynical attitudes of traditional conservatives, whose interests are in every respect more businesslike. Order and stability are the aim. If our man is a brute, at least he is ours . . . " may have been true 10 years ago, but if you read the national security document found here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html

It's clear that something has changed. This document is very pro-freedom and anti-dictator, regardless of the side supported by the dictator.

Perhaps the President and his key advisors won't follow up on the path laid out by the national security strategy, but they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

There's been no such animal as the "Manchester" Guardian for decades. It moved to London ages ago.

Whereever its editorial offices stand, the Guardian publishes an amazing number of thought-provoking editorials and columns. I wished we had more of this kind of newspaper on this side of the Atlantic. (Of course, if you think the role of the press is to echo the White House press releases, you're unlikely to aggree with me.)

On the aesthetics of belligerency, I am reminded of what Lenin is reported to have said about achieving political progress through revolution: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

The problem is that Lenin's omelette leaved a bitter in the mouths of those who had it, and later, even more so in the mouths in East Europeans who didn't want to experiment with Leninist omelettes to begin with... (and later choose to opt for velvet revolutions instead, probably because they had had their share of omelettes.) My favorite Berkeley-outrageous bumper sticker: "Regime change starts at home".

Is an interesting article. Whether war will happen is moot. The Bush admin is using the Big Stick Policy. Part and parcel of making it work is being willing to use military force, like Clinton did in Haiti. For a good write up see

http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~cases/papers/coercivedipl.html

One could say that the US has two arms and two sticks. They’re using one to whack people and the other to keep the rest of the world in line. It’s like WIII the serial. First Afghanistan, then Iraq, after that then???

Either way, Saddam is next.

I would agree that it’s the Business Conservatives and the Neo Conservatives who will decide what happens after this round of War III. This being an important issue the Born Again Nutz Case shock troops have to sit at the short table. The left in this country is also shut out because they’re busy washing their hands of the whole affair.

Seems to me there is great danger here. If the Business types are allowed too much freedom they’ll wreak everything by trying as they always do, to exploit the situation for the benefit of themselves and their friends and associates.

In Afghanistan (WIII round One) there wasn’t anything worth exploiting. Iraq is different. What happens this summer, after US troops are in Baghdad is the real test of things to come.

Ian Buruma’s piece is extremely silly. Idealism has little to do with our desire to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Our reasoning is based on cold practicality, and not the ideological enthusiasm of a True Believer. The United States primary concern is not to spread democracy to every corner of the globe, but preventing the tyrant of Iraq from causing us further harm. There is no question in my mind that Saddam will minimally continue to fund terrorist organizations. He will not likely do so overtly, but discretely.

Saddam already has a proven track record. It is not like we must indulge in the purely hypothetical. We know damn well that he would murder millions of Americans if he could get away with it.

Like most Jewish people in the UK I consider the Guardian to be thought-provoking only in the sense that it is rabidly anti-Israel and arguably really quite anti-Semitic. The European Left really have become the inheritors of the Jew- hating European tradition. I suppose the fault is ours. We really should have learned a long, long time ago that the gentile Europeans will never change and that we Jews have no place on that accursed continent.

A Talmudic discourse in a *bad* sense? Someone please explain.

David: The Guardian certainly is anti-Israel, but I can't think of anything that they've published that has been 'really quite anti-Semitic'. Could you cite some examples?

~'Our reasoning is based on cold practicality, and not the ideological enthusiasm of a True Believer. The United States primary concern is not to spread democracy to every corner of the globe, but preventing the tyrant of Iraq from causing us further harm. '~

"Our" reasoning is, typically for any democracy,
conflicted and emerges as a compromise among an assortment of Believers of various "Truths".

If Iraq is the only target, then regime change is sufficient.

If "terrorism" is in fact as it is declared the target, then Iraq is a stepping stone. The more distant goal is eliminating the culture and climate which nourishes envy, hatred and irrational grudges among failed states and their plausibily-deniable proxies. "Rich" countries, (how come nobody suggests Singapore as a model?) have other interests and other modes of competition. Not so the Arafats, the Quaddafis, the Mugabes, the Castros and the Saddam Husseins of the world. It is evil, and/or a poor use of human and natural resources (depending on your point of view) to starve one's own people, attempt to redirect resultant hostility towards peaceful ethnic groups and neighbor states, then extort tribute from more-civilized states by threat and commission of piracy and violence. And it is an evil, (and/or misallocation of resources) that more-civilized states can no longer tolerate. (Or afford)

If this is a global war on terrorism, the Iraq is the perfect place to start . . . . whether or not there's a link between Iraq and Al-Q'aida is almost irrelevant - if it's a global war on radical terrorism, then the enemy is more than one organization and at the very least needs to include, Hamas and Hezbollah . . . . and we know that Iraq supports terror in Palestine.

If you look at a map, the strategic implications of a western-friendly regime change in Iraq for Iran and Syria/Lebanon are hugely negative. Among other benefits, the supply of Iranian arms to its Hezbollah client in Lebanon is interdicted AND Syria is completely isolated , , , ,

A - I do not know what "Talmudic discourse in a good sense" means. I always thought Talmudic discourse is informed argument.

B - I really do not understand this passage:

"The irony here is that what is left of the left, on the whole, shares the views of the old right."

What are the views of old right?

C - To be anti-Israel seems to me to be anti-Semetic. To criticize Israeli government policies is fine.

B At the risk of rising to a bait I will say that I think the idea is that the old right are supposed to have been generally against getting embroiled in other people's affairs and to have generally adopted a "when in doubt, don't go out" policy, the American equivalent of being a little Englander. By contrast Bush is administration is manically interventionist in its foreign policy.

C I'm quite sure that it is possible to be anti-Israel without being anti-semitic you would just have some unpleasnat company and not want it to disappear in a bad way.

The sooner Saddam breathes his last breath the better... The question though that barely gets asked is what happens afterward? I've read some rosy scenarios of an emerging oil-rich Jeffersonian Democracy that starts to transform the region for the better, but I aslo see a potential Somalia on a masive scale. I'm terribly worried that virtually casualty-free wars in the Gulf War 1, the Balkans and Afghanistan have made us far too cocky when it comes to the military and has blinded us to the dangers of occupying territory where some of the locals aren't friendly. You don't have to look real hard to find forces in and around Iraq that will want the US out of Iraq ASAP. And the best way to do that is to learn the lessons of Beruit and Somalia.

Thank you. There was no bait, merely a puzzle.

Now then, I do not think it is possible to wish Israel to disappear in any way and not be anti-Semitic.

The United States of America has gone mad.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-543296,00.html
by John Le Carre no less

Is it at least possible that it's Mr. Le Carre who's gone mad?

A minor point on anti-Semitism: most of the people in the Middle East are technically "semitic" (semites are people who speak semitic languages, which includes Jews, Arabs, Ethiopians, Carthaginians and others). So Sephardic Jews are physically indistinguishable from Muslim Egyptians, Syrians, etc.

Excerpt of James Lileks on Le Carre (courtesy of Instapundit):

"I’m pretty sure Stephen King is skeptical about the war, for example. I know his politics. But he hasn’t made the leap so common to others in the scribbling, warbling and gesturing arts - he doesn’t think we’re all dying to hear his prescriptions for Middle East foreign policy. Oh, interview him on the matter and he might pop off, but I can’t imagine him sitting down, firing up a Winston Light, and telling himself that this 1,200 word essay will change the world, because people will think: hey, it’s Steven KING talking! He wrote “The Stand,” and his fictional account of the repercussions of biological weapons programs gives him a unique perspective. Let’s lend an ear"

“David: The Guardian certainly is anti-Israel, but I can't think of anything that they've published that has been 'really quite anti-Semitic'. Could you cite some examples?”

There is no such thing, on at least a gut level, as being anti-Israel and not being anti-Semitic. This is merely a sneaky way to hide one’s bigotry. Please note the criticism of Israel itself, and not some of its admittedly debatable policies. Am I indulging in a bit of nitpicking? Nope, not in this case.

"Excerpt of James Lileks on Le Carre (courtesy of Instapundit):"

My nomination for the 'Pot, kettle, black' award of 2003 goes to James Lileks.

David Thomson: "There is no such thing, on at least a gut level, as being anti-Israel and not being anti-Semitic."

Well of course there is. One can reject the moral right of a state to exist without passing judgement on every characteristic of its population. One can dislike a state who's citizens are mainly vegetarians without being anti-vegetarian. Anyway, I think you're all reading a bit much into 'anti-Israel'. The Guardian is anti-Israel in the sense of being mostly critical of Israeli policy, not in the sense of wanting to destroy the state of Israel and drive its population into the sea.

And I notice that all of this huffing about sneaking bigotry has drawn attention from my original question: Can anyone point to an actual article published in The Guardian that is 'really quite anti-semitic'?