Oliver Miles picks up on my reference to the possible indictment by the ICC of the President of Sudan and commends to me to an article by Palestinian author and editor Rami Khouri: Whose Crimes? Against Whose Humanity? This is a good article of a certain Arab liberal genre – well […]
Round at the Bruges Group last night to hear a thought-provoking Very Big Picture talk. The argument went like this: not too long ago when Communism ended in Europe there were books about the triumph of democracy, the ‘end of history’ and so on now the emphasis is on Islamic […]
There are not too many UN Security Council vetoes. So when one comes along it shows that things at that top table are not in good shape – lack of grown-up consensus and/or serious miscalculation by those who pushed the offending Resolution. Although of course there may be cases where […]
The Persian pocket empire never had a government or a civil society: it only had a court and a bazaar, which are incapable of managing the affairs of a modern society. There is no political party, no social movement, in fact no form of popular organization of any kind capable […]
Imagine you are the Foreign Office in London. A bit of a wildcat in your youth. Yet still squeaky keen to show Relevance and Cleverness. Egad! An idea dawns. Let London lead the praise for the sybaritic delights of latter-day Western personal freedom! British Embassies should all fly the LGBT […]
Some noteworthy statistics from Iraq, compiled by AP: OIL PRODUCTION: Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day. May 25, 2008: 2.52 million barrels per day. TELEPHONES: Prewar land lines: 833,000. April 4, 2008: 1,360,000. Prewar cell phones: 80,000. April 30, 2008: More than 12 million. WATER: Prewar: 12.9 million people had […]
A typically splenetic piece from Simon Jenkins today rails against the Western world’s failure to stand by previously championed ideals of ‘humanitarian intervention’. His argument runs that the USA has had its fingers badly burnt by Iraq/Afghanistan and will withdraw from those places in due course. Without American leadership there can be […]
James Rogers’ website Global Power Europe is an elegant and eloquent example of the far opposite of British Euro-Scepticism – Euro-Uberzeal. If it’s European, he wants More. Much More. In his latest entry James urges Ireland to vote Yes to the Treaty, lest Europeans turn into minnows. He cites IMF statistics […]
Prompted by my previous post on (not) talking to Al Qaida, a reader comments: [T]ell me again why you thought invading Iraq was such a great idea? Fair enough. My very basic view on Iraq is to be found in the Blogoir FAQs. More generally, what constitutes a Great Idea […]
