Eugene David ...The One-Minute Pundit |
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Monday, July 18, 2005
THE REUT DOES IT AGAIN:
Backing the United States in Iraq has put Britain more at risk from terror attacks, an influential British think tank said Monday.... "The U.K. is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States," the security experts said in the report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known here as Chatham House. OR: Here returned to print, at a timely moment in history, is Elie Kedourie's classic study of the Middle East in modern times. In analyzing British failures in the region during the zenith of their power and influence, Mr. Kedourie attributes much of Britain's faulty and disastrous handling of Middle East problems to what he calls "the Chatham House version." It was a view of Middle Eastern history and politics propounded and propagated in the various publications of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (known popularly as Chatham House), written or edited by Arnold Toynbee. The episodes that Mr. Kedourie investigates show "successive and cumulative manifestations of illusion, misjudgment, maladroitness, and failure." Together they point up hard lessons for the Bush administration or any outside power that would intervene in Middle Eastern affairs. BIG CAVEAT: Amazon.com features endorsements from the usual gang of idiots. That said, I'd sooner trust a publisher's spiel than THE REUT. P. S. A New Criterion "Note" on the book.
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