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Email a friendUnusual view from insiders
THE editor of these 21 essays on "the way forward after Iraq" acknowledges the contribution of Geoffrey Howe, "whose razor-sharp mind has helped to finesse so many judgements." Enough said?
Actually no, for although Howe's own introduction has no need to reassure us that his fellow US and British contributors, including such luminaries as Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and Michael Heseltine, are not the "usual anti-American left or even liberals," their views are startlingly enlightening.
Even those who believe the Iraq adventure to have been well intentioned share with the rest the recognition of its catastrophic disaster for its perpetrators.
Moreover, the most astute progressives could hardly better their analyses of aspects of the world crisis.
So, Robert Harvey compares Britain's subservience to the US with Italy's to Germany in World War II and Jimmy Carter admits that some US leaders "are openly striving to create a dominant American empire throughout the world."
But the essayists all virtually ignore the elephant in the room and we have to wait for David Howell, Conservative deputy leader in the Lords, before capitalism gets a mention.
They all share, to varying degrees, a fear that their much-valued system could be doomed as, in Zbigniew Brzezinski's words, the world is now experiencing a "sense of revolution" comparable to that of the French in 1789. Let's hope so.
GORDON PARSONS