Words Of Wisdom

Last evening Andrew and I read the text of a lengthy interview with John O’Sullivan, the distinguished British journalist and author who long served as an editor of The London Times.

O’Sullivan was questioned about how the three great figures of the final quarter of the 20th Century—President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II—would have handled the current international situation. O’Sullivan covered all three figures for many years, interviewing them repeatedly (in the case of Reagan and Thatcher, before, during and after their terms of office) and writing about them at great length in newspapers, journals and books.

O’Sullivan’s most telling remarks are set forth below.

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All three [figures] were strong, sharp and clearly-defined personalities. They were clearly-defined both as personalities and as representatives—embodiments, even—of the faiths and philosophies they espoused.

That led them to be attacked as too extreme

Too Conservative in Mrs. Thatcher's case—well, that's self-explanatory.

Too Catholic in the Pope's case—yes, I know it sounds like a joke but this objection to him was a serious one. A Polish Pope was seen by most churchmen as too rigid, too orthodox, and too anti-Communist at a time when the Church was developing its own appeasing Ostpolitik towards the Soviets.

And too American in the case of Reagan—which meant that he was fundamentally an optimist about both America and the West, and so either ignorant or in denial about such "realities" as limits to growth.

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Sharply-defined figures are controversial. They very rarely come to power in times of tranquility. Only a grave crisis persuades people to turn to them. Consider how Churchill was outmaneuvered repeatedly by the emollient Stanley Baldwin in the inter-war years.

Well, it took the grave crises of the late 1970s—and the mood of despair and "malaise" that they engendered—to persuade people to turn to Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope.

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[Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II] would realize that in the jihadists we are dealing yet again with what Burke called an "armed doctrine." We have to resist and defeat their armed attacks on us by police, intelligence and military methods, and also to win the religious and philosophical battles in the mosque and the lecture hall.

Let me deal first with the "armed" half of the armed doctrine as it has emerged in practice.

Well, we know that the late Pope was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and that Lady Thatcher has given support to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair over it. Neither position should surprise us.

John Paul II always believed that force should be the absolute last resort even in response to manifest injustice. One of his contributions to political ideas was the concept of "cultural resistance", or ignoring the communist authorities rather than confronting them, which inspired Solidarity and other non-violent revolutions in Eastern Europe. After all, communism was brought down not by war but by ideas, military and economic competition, and a willingness to resist.

Lady Thatcher saw the Afghanistan invasion as very similar to her own waging of the Falklands War—namely, as a legitimate and perhaps necessary response to unprovoked aggression. Her support for the Iraq invasion is on slightly different grounds. It reflects her view that former prime ministers should not second-guess national leaders on war and peace when British troops are in the field. Her other thoughts, I suspect, would be very similar to the considerations that I suggest below would influence Reagan.

Reagan, then: I believe he would have seen an invasion of Afghanistan as a necessary response to an attack on America organized by a terrorist group given sanctuary by the Taliban—just like Thatcher's attitude to the Falklands. He would also have liked the way the war was fought—by a combination of U.S. Special Forces and local allies—in line with "The Reagan Doctrine."

His likely view on Iraq is less clear. Remember that Reagan was cautious and economical in his use of American military force. Many conservatives complained about this at the time. He also saw Iran as both a potential threat to the Middle East and as a potential ally. My guess is that he would have sought every diplomatic avenue to obtain the virtual surrender of Saddam Hussein or at least his neutering as a threat to the Middle East. That diplomacy might have been highly unconventional, involving both Turkey and Iran. If diplomacy failed, Reagan would then have had to face the possibility of the same invasion as George W. Bush. My final guess is that he would have approved the invasion, but only when he had satisfied himself that our forces were sufficient and that we had a clear game plan for what to do after victory. Remember that he doubled the forces in the Grenada invasion because he attributed the failure of Carter's attempt to rescue the Tehran hostages to the fact that there weren't enough helicopters on the spot.

But this is guesswork. Reagan was a surprising politician and he might have surprised us on Iraq—Thatcher, too, if she was still in charge. She was, for instance, in favor of continuing the First Gulf War to overthrow Saddam Hussein then, when it would have been far easier.

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Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope all believed that communism had to be ideologically countered—"The Evil Empire," "Be Not Afraid," etc.—and they proved to be right. Their ideological assaults undermined the morale of the communists and encouraged their subject peoples. Doing the same thing in relation to the radical Islamists—exposing their fallacies, separating them from the ordinary moderate Muslims, undermining their own conviction—will be far more difficult because we know less about the ideas in question.

But the present Pope has begun this subtle task in his Regensburg speech. There he appealed to Muslims to re-examine their theology and to ask themselves whether a good God would wish His truth to be advanced by violence. He has received a civil and thoughtful response from some moderate Muslims.

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Prime Ministers and Presidents should probably not get involved in strictly religious arguments unless absolutely necessary. They speak with no authority on such matters. They have to avoid saying anything controversial so as not to offend millions of people. So they spout benevolent-sounding platitudes that offend people anyway, because religion is about truth rather than about sentimental benevolence. Mr. Bush's constant refrain that "Islam is a religion of peace" is a good example. It offends many Muslims who know that Islam is more than that and it worries non-Muslims because it seems to gloss over the violence that some Muslims justify on religious grounds.

Sometimes, of course, politicians have to say things with a bearing on religion. Very likely Mr. Bush had to warn prudently against any temptation to violence against Muslims in the aftermath of September 11. But he should have coupled that warning with a demand that Muslim American leaders issue unqualified condemnations of terrorist violence and make clear their political loyalty to America. Such a demand would have soothed the nervousness of most Americans and given Muslim Americans an incentive to reflect on the distinction between political allegiance and religious commitment—and maybe by those reflections influenced Muslim thought worldwide.

When a political leader calls for respect for law and national custom, he is doing his job; when he delves into theology to make his case, he is trespassing dangerously.

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If we allow ourselves to be defeated on the home front, as in Vietnam, and abandon our Iraqi allies to the kind of murder and oppression that we did in 1975, then the post-Iraqi debate will drag on as long as the post-Vietnam debate has done. And in the words of Bernard Lewis (I quote from memory), “America would have shown itself to be harmless as an enemy and untrustworthy as a friend”.

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But we should not allow Iraq to be the sole test of statesmanship. I laid down three criteria for President Bush in 2001:

(1) Would he restrain the regulatory state?

(2) Would he obstruct the rise of an Anti-American United Europe?

(3) Would he shape a new inclusive American patriotism to prevent the sharpening balkanization of multicultural America?

These are all of greater long-term importance than Iraq.

Alas, Bush has done badly on all three tests. He is obviously a brave and decisive president. He has shown great courage in his Iraq policy. But he does not seem to have the strategic vision that [Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II] all displayed in several ways.

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It is hard to argue with O’Sullivan’s words or thoughts.

And it is hard to identify any public figures in the West, inside or outside the U.S., prepared to offer the leadership and vision and strength the world needs.

Clinton, McCain and Obama are, each of them, very minor figures. In their own ways, each is little more than a comic, perhaps even deplorable, figure—and there is no one good lying in wait, coming up from behind, to follow.