Back in writing business after a few days of running around trying to earn some money.

Here is a piece I have written for the Telegraph Blogs on the moral case for the Syrians doing what it takes to defeat the regime oppressing them:

One of the iconic principles of the Soviet Union still proclaimed by President Putin is the unimaginable sacrifice by the Soviet army and the general population to defend their country from the Nazis during World War Two.

Indeed, any attempt to qualify that heroism and sacrifice (eg by pointing out that the war started because of a dirty deal between Stalin and Hitler at the expense of Poland, and that Soviet losses were far worse than they should have been because Stalin had murdered so many top generals) is furiously denounced by the current Moscow elite. In other words, the results justified the incredible loss of life used to achieve them. The fact that Soviet soldiers died in their tens of thousands attacking Berlin in the final frenzied days of the war is a measure of their country’s greatness.

By contrast we are solemnly told by Annan and Evans (and by Moscow and Beijing) that much the best way forward for freedom-loving Syrians is to lay down their arms and start talking to the people brutalising them. Any escalation in their struggle which leads to greater casualties has to be avoided. More people could die! It could be destabilising!

I think Kofi Annan and Gareth Evans are wrong for one specific reason. They appear to put no value on the idea of fighting and dying for freedom as an end in itself.

The Syrian people should sneer at Gareth Evans’ "slim reed". They do have other options. Namely to escalate the conflict come what may, with whatever outside support they can get, deciding that it is better to die for freedom than slink around for a few decades more as slaves.

Most of the Comments swerve off on assorted tangents of denunciation (what about Kosovo? Eh? Eh?), although this one was at least initially witty before it slumped into Islamo-pessimism:

Crawford’s articles are normally better than this but, scratch the surface of a 60-something diplomat, and the puerile soixante-huitard shines though.

Utter delusion that the Syrian "rebels" want democracy and comparing them to genuine Czech patriots is insulting. The fact that they have already expelled the Christians from Homs should alert even the diplomatic mind dulled by years of free booze.

If they take over Syria they will butcher everyone they get their hands on then the country will slide even further back in time towards the year zero of the 7th century.

Hey. I’m not 60 yet.

This piece was intended to get (perhaps too obliquely) at the dark question of what sacrifices are ‘worth it’. Thus Krakowians have been heard to opine that, all things considered, and balancing Heroism with Wisdom, their fellow Poles in Warsaw might have done better not to rise up against the Nazis just as the Red Army approached. They took stupendous losses and the city was then dynamited. Plus the Soviets then took over anyway. All that destruction. For what?

I mention this because (already knowing the answer) I asked my young taxi-driver in Prague what had happened to Prague in WW2. He said that the Germans had quickly taken it over. I asked him why the Czechs had not fought back. "The border is very close – there was nothing we could do."

But then he said with a big smile: "It’s a good thing we didn’t fight – all this [pointing to Prague’s springtime splendour] would have been destroyed."

He’s right.

Fighting for freedom is always expensive.

At moments of moral uncertainty like this we turn to Sir John Sawers, previously HM Ambassador to the United Nations and now head of MI6:

In 1950 the UN Security Council (helped by a Soviet boycott) unanimously condemned the aggression against South Korea by communist North Korea.

Fighting under a UN banner, a US-led force, with 15 other nations including Britain, attempted to roll North Korea back.

We – you – paid a high price.

The Allies lost some 40,000 people in that war, mainly Americans.

Ten times more than in Iraq.

Was it worth it? History says yes.

Our huge, generous investment in freedom for South Korea saved tens of millions of South Koreans from the miserable fate still being suffered by their compatriots north of the DMZ.

Those people have made South Korea a dynamic, sophisticated country.

One of those people is today’s distinguished UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who spoke at Harvard earlier this week.

Mr Ban was just nine years old when the Korean War ended. He vividly recalls a childhood of hunger and poverty as South Korea went through war and then slowly recovered.

Today, fifty-five years later, he is at the pinnacle of world diplomacy. A remarkable journey for him – and for his country.

And maybe in Baghdad or Basra or Mosul or Kirkuk there is a nine-year old Iraqi boy, or Iraqi girl, who, yes, has suffered pain and uncertainty in these difficult years.

But who will grow up strong and confident, and in years to come will be Iraq’s first UN Secretary-General.

Success – and failure – do not always come quickly