It’s a race to the bottom for the old-school Tories: the remnants of that inglorious crew who did their best to ensure that no obstacles be put in the way of Milosevic. First Kenneth Clarke, now Norman Lamont:
Mr Clarke was right to call the war “a disastrous decision”. It is remarkable that this needs to be said at all. Iraq has been this country’s biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez, has made Britain and the world a more dangerous place, and yet has hardly been criticised at all by the Conservative Party. There has been a detached indifference to the massive loss of life: 2,000 Americans, probably ten times that number of Iraqis killed, and perhaps 100,000 injured or maimed for life — for what purpose?
For what purpose? Another one who seems to believe that Iraqis suffering under Saddam somehow don’t count – never mind the threat that the Baathist regime posed.
As Saturday’s Times editorial argued, this is “territory into which the wise would step with extreme caution”, but Lamont goes even futher than Clarke:
On one point however, Mr Clarke may be wrong, and may find himself outflanked even by the Americans. He believes it would be “immoral to walk away”, and that we should not pull the troops out. Much the same was said about Vietnam. The time has to come when the Iraqis assume responsibility for their own destiny. As Senator Chuck Hagel has said: “Staying the course is not a policy.” Without a stated intention to withdraw, Iraqis may never be ready or willing to take control of their country.
What a piece of political judgement: only a couple of months after a bunch of Islamist fanatics blow themselves up alongside over 50 Londoners, and days after a video is released of Mohammad Sidique Khan, “Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight”, up pops Lamont to suggest that we are indeed guilty as charged and should do just as this deluded idiot wants.
Leave a Reply