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l now I am able to fill in that gap in our understanding: to provide a new and vital theoretical tool to enable us to understand the enigma that is football.

We need to add a third dimension, alongside the two I’ve already outlined. A third sporting archetype, if you will, alongside athletics and chess. This third dimension is – and herein, I believe, lies the genius – scissors, paper, stone.

Let that sink in for a moment. The implication is that there can never be a perfect or optimum team, because, for every style of play there is always another which can beat it. A team can beat you even though they have been beaten by a team which in turn were beaten by you.

Right, we now have the theoretical tools: let’s apply them to Euro 2004. We can identify three styles of play. Firstly – scissors – there’s the open fluent attacking game exemplified here by Portugal. Individual players are out to shine, and impress with their skills. A second style of play – stone – exemplified here by Greece but usually associated with Italy, concentrates on highly organised defence, putting nearly everyone behind the ball and hoping for a single winning goal from a break or set-piece. Stone blunts scissors: Greece beats Portugal.

A third style is exemplified by England – paper – the long-ball game, punting the ball upfield in the, usually vain, hope of finding an England forward. Scissors cut paper. Portugal’s open style defeats England’s long-ball game. But – and I think by now you may be able to see where this is going – paper wraps stone. England would have beaten Greece because the long-ball game, though useless against Portugal, would have been effective against the closed highly organised Greek defence.

So there you have it: a small but I believe seminal addition to football theory. Only a start of course: I expect others to develop my insight so that we can eventually arrive at a fully formed and sophisticated explanatory tool.

usic in the background) Magna Carta, the Long Parliament, the Glorious Revolution, defeating foreign tyrants where’er they raise their heads… Other countries at the start of these big tournament matches have their sinews stiffened with proper military-style tunes, with the players clutching fists over hearts, eyes staring up with patriotic fervour, inspired to give their all for their country. And we get send her victorious, happy and glorious. It’s a f**king joke is what it is.

Anyway, God Save The Queen is the anthem for the UK, not England. She’s the queen of the United Kingdom. [Why not the United Queendom, I wonder?] How pathetic that we can’t even sort out an English national anthem as opposed to a UK one. Is it a sign of English arrogance, equating England with the UK? If so it’s not something, from what I gather, that the Scots or Welsh take any offence over, and it’s easy to understand why not.

What are the options? Well, there’s Land of Hope and Glory. Rousing, yes, but a little too, um, brash and jingoistic somehow. Though if you can’t be rousingly jingoistic when you sing your national anthem, when can you be? Then there’s Jerusalem. I’d go for this myself, though I’m not at all keen on the Blakean mysticism. I mean, I quite like a spot of industrialisation, and as with all utopian visions I can’t help but wonder if there’d be a place for me in the new Jerusalem. Then again it’s an odd national anthem that titles itself on a foreign city. As if the Danes had a national anthem called Cairo. Would we need to get permission from the Israelis and Palestinians? But all in all the sheer glory of the words are inspirational, even if we can disagree about what they’re an inspiration for. Bring me my bow of burning gold…bring me my arrows of desire… That would stiffen up the sinews.

Any other possibilities? In an English Country Garden? The anthem of our opponents draws to a close: something triumphal like the Marseillaise, or Deutschland Uber Alles (or whatever words they sing to it nowadays: yeah right, we know what those bastards are really thinking). Then silence, some cheering from the crowd, then….How many kinds of swee-eet flowers gro-ow, in an English country ga-ar-den.. Later, the English fans roar out their chants…..Daffodils, heart’s ease and phlox. Meadowsweet and lady smocks. Oh well, maybe not.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen? Highly appropriate for the sweltering semi-tropical hell-holes where many of these tournaments are played, but the slightly camp tone might not be generally welcomed.

No, I reckon Jerusalem is the best chance of inspiring our brave lads in the next World Cup.

Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” (and of a New Statesman article on anti-semitism last week), compares Saddam and Stalin in the NYT (via Milt’s File):

Stalin had 15 scenic seaside villas, some of them czarist palaces, on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia. In 2002, I visited and photographed these extraordinarily well-preserved Stalinist time capsules. At one point, I asked an old caretaker if any other Westerners had visited them. “No,” she replied, “but there was an Arab gentleman in 1970’s who insisted on visiting every one!” His name? “Saddam Hussein.”

aced. They have been displaced by, and their camps are now preyed upon, the same forces with which Annan appears to believe the crisis can begin to be resolved. Without the deployment of a strong, credible international force in Darfur, an increased Sudanese force will bring nothing but grief.

In the three months since it signed a cease-fire agreement that committed it to “neutralize” the Darfur militias, Bashir’s government has failed to take a single step to rein in the Janjaweed. On the contrary, many have been incorporated into the government’s own military and paramilitary forces. They could now be deployed, officially, as part of the increased security force Annan has approved.

The US has given Khartoum a list of Janjaweed leaders it believes are responsible for war crimes. Without immediate, significant action to disarm and withdraw the Janjaweed, Washington should follow up with a list of government leaders – most importantly, those behind the country’s militia policy and military intelligence. At the UN, it must twist arms, expend diplomatic capital, do whatever it takes to get support for measures including investigations into war crimes, the deployment of an international monitoring and protection force, a ban on arms sales to Sudan and sanctions on Sudan’s oil exports.

What we have seen so far has been little more than a game of bluff. And Khartoum has yet to blink.

Meanwhile the WSJ (via Instapundit) is understandably unimpressed by Kofi Annan and co.:

The real problem, as everyone knows but no one will admit, is Sudan’s murderous regime. But Mr. Annan and company can’t abide regime change, and in any case the U.S. military is too preoccupied to make that happen. That means we’re left with diplomatic pressure and visits like Mr. Powell’s, which are better than nothing but don’t solve the long-term problem.

It is fashionable these days to express distaste for American “unilateralism” and “hegemony.” The unfolding catastrophe in Darfur offers a chilling view of what the alternative really looks like.

Anthony Browne in the Times looks at something which has been written about in the blogosphere (don’t like that word: wouldn’t blogland be better?) but not so much in the mainstream press – the left’s blindness to the anti-semitism and homophobia of Muslim extremists:

These are curious times. The British Left, long the champion of anti-racism and gay rights, is forging deepening bonds with anti-Semitic homophobes. If these were old-style anti-Semitic homophobes the Left would be campaigning to have them locked up. But instead they are Muslim extremists.
What is most unsettling is that the Government, suffering from excessive cultural relativism, is also pandering to Islamic anti-Semitism.

Consider the circumstances surrounding a conference to support the Islamic veil next Monday in London. Ken Livingstone, the mayor, is to open the event, organised by the Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab, of which the guest of honour is Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Dr al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt but lives in Qatar because of his association with the extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he is a spiritual leader, and which is banned in several Middle Eastern countries.

The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel. Before the Left gets too misty-eyed about suicide bombings, it should remember that it can involve blowing to bits innocent children on buses.

According to BBC Monitoring, Dr al-Qaradawi said last year: “Oh God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders and infidels.” He said the killing of the American telecoms engineer Nick Berg by Islamic militants in Iraq, had to be seen “in the right context”, although he has condemned decapitations and the twin towers attacks and suicide bombings outside Israel.

You can get more idea of his views on www.islamonline.net, whose contents are overseen by an editorial co-operative led by Dr al-Qaradawi. Islamonline declares that homosexuality is a “sexual perversion”, for which the penalty should be death. The only question is whether gays should be killed by being thrown off a high cliff, or flogged to death. Gay rights groups and Jewish groups, as well as London ratepayers, have a right to know why Mr Livingstone is choosing to share a platform with him.

The Indie has surpassed itself (via Chrenkoff):

The judge in charge of Saddam Hussein’s trial was in fear for his life today after his identity was revealed by a UK newspaper.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal had asked the media to protect his anonymity. But he was named by Robert Fisk, foreign correspondent of The Independent.

Downing Street warned that the judge now faced reprisals from Saddam loyalists. A Foreign Office source added: “Obviously this shows questionable judgment about an individual’s safety.” When TV footage was broadcast yesterday, censors made sure the judge was pictured only from behind.

Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent, defended his decision, saying: “This was not a British court, it was an Iraqi court. We don’t want to compromise the judge’s safety but the cameras showed side views of him and he was instantly recognised by many Iraqis.”

“Ask The Family” is a regular feature in the Observer magazine, where an ordinary family are asked their opinion about some topic or other. This week it’s which prize they’d most like to see won by a British team or individual. Joe, 14, comes up with this (can’t find it online):

I’d like the British Prime Minister to win a Nobel peace prize. To do that, he or she would have to stop going to war when the Americans tell him to and start giving back some of the money we have stolen off the poor nations of the world, so that they can eat, sleep and live in peace.

Personally I blame the parents.

was the northern Gulf, with refineries near Basra. That, perhaps, still says it all.

Oh dear yes, it was all about the oil. But putting aside this glib playing to the gallery, let’s get it straight about Iraq. The overthrow of Saddam was not an attempt at “putting right the wrongs created by the original meddling”. Saddam certainly made cynical use of the divisions within Iraq, but those divisions weren’t the reason why he had to be removed, or why Iraq had become a Baathist nightmare.

He had to be removed, firstly, because he was possibly the most brutal dictator in the second half of the 20th century. His record against his own people is passed by Pol Pot in Cambodia, but for the long term application of terror there’s no one to beat him except perhaps the two Kims in North Korea. I think it was Kanan Makiya who described living in Iraq as like living inside a migraine. The terror was everywhere. The slightest disparagement of the regime was inevitably followed by a visit by one of Saddam’s secret police organisations. Watching your family being tortured seems to have been a Baathist speciality.

Secondly, after the post-Kuwait sanctions were applied, thousands were dying as a result, not of the sanctions themselves, but of the fact, as we are now discovering, that the Oil-for-food programme was a cynical sham which enabled Saddam to continue to build his palaces and look for ways of acquiring WMDs while gullible journalists proclaimed that the evil West was murdering Iraqi children. Those who loudly protested against intervention were in the main those who were doing very nicely out of this arrangement.

Thirdly, Saddam was no longer a secular opponent of Islam but was seeing himself more and more as a latter-day Saladin, who would lead the Arabs to victory once again over Zionism and the forces of the West. His links with Islamic terrorist groups have been well documented even though he had no direct connection with 9/11. The prospect of Saddam acquiring WMDs – a man who had already invaded two of his neighbouring countries – with the possibility that he might pass them on to terror groups, was not one that any responsible Western political leader could ignore.

So, the failure to comply with the famous UN Resolution provided the justification. This wasn’t enough for some members of the Security Council, and we got some scrambling around for more reasons, and the whole WMD business. [I’d hesitate to call the emphasis on WMDs a mistake until we know more about the role the fellow-Baathists in Syria played. After all Saddam had months of warning that the invasion was going to take place, and he’s not a stupid man.]

We now have two significant groups of commentators. There are some who claim they supported the war, but as it now turns out supported it only as long as no mistakes whatsoever were made by the occupying forces, and a liberal democratic regime was firmly in place within the year. The second group never supported the war, and see it as their duty to emphasise just how badly things are going. The consensus is, whether the intervention was well-intentioned or plain wrong from the start, that we should have learned our lesson and realised that these people are best left alone. When we interfere, we just make matters worse because we’re such blundering fools. A lesson, ah yes, that sophisticated Europeans learned long ago.

My view is that we really didn’t have much choice. This was something that had to be done, not an exercise in Western hubris, We did what was right for the security of the world, and we did what was right for the Iraqi people. Do I think that Iraq will soon be a beacon of hope in the Middle East? I certainly hope so, but “better than Saddam” will do for a start. Do I think we’ll hear no more of demands for Kurdish independence, or demands for an Iranian-style theocracy? Not a chance. But now that we’re here, shouldn’t we all be hoping it turns out well?

Interesting article in the Times looking at the Syrian role in Iraq:

Syria has stepped up its assistance to insurgents in Iraq and is encouraging both secular and Islamist fighters operating across its border, according to Western and Arab officials.

Despite assurances from Damascus that it is cracking down on cross-border activity, critics claim that Syria’s intelligence services are actively co-operating with members of the former Baathist regime and even with associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian accused of orchestrating a wave of bloody bombings and kidnappings in Iraq.

One well-placed Arab official with experience in Syria said that while Damascus offered assurances that it was working to combat terror, in reality it was doing the exact opposite. […]

Now there is fresh evidence that the Syrians are engaged in assisting the resistance. Western intelligence agencies believe that elements of the Syrian regime, the last Baathist government in the world, are trying to resurrect the defunct Iraqi Baath party. At least one former senior Iraqi Baathist official has established himself in a large villa in Damascus, where he is recruiting volunteers and sending them over the border to resistance strongholds such as Fallujah and Ramadi. His operations are conducted with the encouragement of the host Government. […]

Although it is highly unlikely that Washington will take any further action before the US presidential elections in November, further confrontation is inevitable, especially if Mr Bush is re-elected. “The Americans are very concerned. If Bush is re-elected for another four years, I do not think that the Baathists in Syria will survive,” a senior Arab official said.

He said that unless President Assad changed his attitude, “he will get his fingers burnt”.

I assume anyone who reads this blog will be familiar with Iraq the Model, but still, I think this from Mohammed is worth reproducing:

What shall we sue you for, Saddam?
For what?…..For what!?
For murdering millions of Iraqis? For the torture you used against anyone who dared to oppose you or even against those you doubted their loyalty?
Or for the impoverishing Iraq and her people and wasting Iraq’s fortune?
Or for the fear we lived in for thirty five years; the fear that made us die a thousand times a day, we were getting scared to death when someone knocks on the door or when the phone rings or when we see one of your wretched dogs watching us in the street or at work.
We were getting scared to death when we see a look of anger in the eyes of your Mukhabarat and we’d go back to review everything we said that day; have we criticized someone? Did we not smile when your ‘great name’ was mentioned? Did we say anything that offends your “immortal party” even with a hint?

What shall we sue you for?
For your innovated methods to terrify people?
For chopping off tongues, hands and years?
Or for burning the prisoners alive in front of their friends to make them see, hear and smell pain and death?

What shall we sue you for?
For Halabja? The city of tears, pain and sorrow.
For Al-Anfal? For turning the desert of Iraq into a huge graveyard after crushing the uprising? Or for the endless humiliation that forced us to walk bending our heads with our eyes looking at the ground?
For stupid wars that cost millions of lives?
Or for mass graves that we still don’t know their number?
For millions of our educated youths who left the country to get out of your hell?