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An inconvenient truth

Wednesday, 30th April 2008

The Spectator on the Israeli airstrike on a Syrian nuclear facility

The errors of Iraq do not make such matters any less urgent. It is still imperative that the West prevents WMD from falling into the hands of terrorists who, by their very nature, are immune to the old-fashioned logic of deterrence. The most effective way to do this is to prevent rogue states — or to be more precise, any more rogue states — from reaching nuclear status. We already know that North Korea is prepared to sell to the highest bidder, while Iran actively supplies terrorist groups with its existing weapons as a matter of policy.

This is the context in which Israel’s actions last September should be seen. The raid nipped one such programme of co-operation in the bud — but there will be others, and they too will have to be confronted. The bitter legacy of Iraq and the sour taste of Bush’s final months have encouraged the international community to evade these unpleasant realities. How convenient it would be if the triple forces of WMD, global terror and rogue states disappeared in a puff of smoke in January when President Bush leaves office. Yet only the most ‘overheated’ imagination could believe in such a fantasy.

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Ed Smithe

May 1st, 2008 2:31pm

Given the inability of US intelligence to locate a supposed nuclear facility that was on the shores of a major river running through Syria (a facility that can be found rather easily on Google Maps) should give one pause before declaring the new US analysis "a slam dunk." Moreover, as has been reported in Washington, CIA officials have, on the record, completely mischaracterized the ability and the timeframe of that same facility to produce fissionable material. As you might have written, 'only a fool' would discount these troubling turns in this rather bizarre case.

Of the serious observers out there, I don't know of anyone who underplays the threat that these rogue states pose to the US and its allies. That threat, or rather risk, does not however exist in a vacuum. Currently, the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. al Qaeda operates with ease out of the Western Provinces of a nuclear armed nation that could, at any moment, collapse. And yet, the lesson that you choose to take from all of this is that Iran and Syria are the most pressing issues of the day.

Unfortunately, we in the US do not possess unlimited power. Because of the choices (both political and military) that we have made over the last seven years, there is very little flexibility left to realistically contemplate your so-called "last resort."

Perhaps this is a good lesson for you and others to learn, that in this rather troubling world that we live in, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Jagger, 'you can't always get what you want.'

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Glasgow East is Brown’s dirty little secret: a hideous, costly social experiment gone wrong

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Glasgow East symbolises — as few other places in Britain can — the fact that the problem Labour faces is not just lack of leadership but lack of mission. What is to be seen in this constituency encapsulates and dramatises Labour’s abject failures to comprehend, let alone tackle, the nature of the poverty which grips our council estates.
For all the latest on the Glasgow East by-election, visit Coffee House