Barbara Amiel has an interesting opinion piece in Monday's Telegraph. It begins as a sort of post-mortem on her now-famous Dec. column about anti-Semitism in polite society, but she goes on to make some more general observations about the war, appeasement, and "the Orient."
Noting that "the truth often needs a nudge from 16,000lb daisycutter bombs," she continues:
the daisycutter reaction was noted by Arminius Vambery, the great 19th-century orientalist and author of Travels to Transoxiana. Research for his books took him all across Central Asia, even though he was severely crippled.Passing through Turkey as the Sultan's guest, the professor had his own carriage attached to the train, which stopped at a small station on the Asian side of the Sea of Marmara. The Turkish station master entered the carriage, sized him up and informed him that, regrettably, his carriage needed to be uncoupled from the train.
"Regulations, effendi," oiled the station master. "Though for a slight consideration, an exception can be made." He held out his hand for baksheesh.
The station master was large, his palm immense and Vambery immediately hit it with his crutch. The giant, who could have torn Vambery in two, didn't even try to ward off the blow. "Effendi, I didn't know . . ." he whimpered as he retreated, "in your exalted case, of course, regulations don't apply."
Vambery was travelling with a friend. "Didn't you see the size of that fellow?" he asked. "Weren't you afraid to hit him?"
"Of course," replied Vambery. "But this is the Orient, I would have been far more afraid not to hit him."
This assessment of what is to be feared most, firmness or appeasement, is not only true for the Orient, but it is more of a rule of thumb there. Actions such as the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon are seen as weakness.
Dropping food parcels after bombing raids can have the opposite effect to that intended, and increase resentment. Americans had difficulty grasping this until now, but they are learning fast.
The Europeans, including the British, are the only ones not genuflecting to American power because they don't expect America to bomb them. But nothing succeeds like success.
If America continues to show that it is no paper tiger, it will be increasingly less fashionable to bad-mouth either it or its allies.