WASHINGTON -- The Economist, Britain's venerable weekly
news magazine, has called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to resign.
The magazine's political leaning in the UK is to the right of the
newsweeklies in the United States. In fact, the
Economist's political position is right of center, though
it is very fastidious about the positions it takes. Reading it is
somewhat like reading the official voice of the Vatican, though
with none of the puckish humor of L'Osservatore Romano. At
any rate, I read the Economist regularly and enjoy it, but
calling on Blair to resign strikes me as a publicity stunt, except
that the editors of the Economist see themselves as above
such opportunism, much as the Pope sees himself as above such
opportunism.
Blair has said that he intends to resign before the next British
election. The ritualistic leftists in his Labour Party have been
putting pressure on him to resign the sooner the better. Now the
fastidious right has moved in to increase the pressure on Blair.
Think of it. This brave and farsighted man who told all Europe that
the enemy was coming is asked to resign even though the enemy has
struck and he has been vindicated. He summoned the forces worldwide
to repel the brutes and he is succeeding. The man who with the
Coalition of the Willing is whipping the New Nazis, the
Islamofascists, in two countries is prevailed upon by some of his
fellow citizens to give up his post before the job is done. And if
he does, who will take over as prime minister, Neville
Chamberlain?
With the Economist's editors assuming this preposterous
position, let me assume at least an equally impudent position. As
the editor in chief of The American Spectator I call upon
Mr. Blair to finish his premiership and resign only after he has
handed authority over to a functioning Iraqi government with the
Iraqi military pacifying its country. Frankly, I admire Blair as
one of the rarest of politicians. He is a man who has taken chances
on behalf of principles, principles that are at once sound and
require resolve to defend. In this case the principle is defending
civilized values against barbarism.
Today, those who have read about the brave handful of Europeans
who in the 1930s defied appeasement and Nazism think of the
appeasers as the anomaly. Actually the appeasers are the norm among
politicians. The Blairs and the Churchills are the anomaly. The
politicians who confect sophistications for ducking the
responsibilities of power are all around us and always have been.
Their arguments are very appealing if one can banish from mind the
ghastly brutality of the Islamofascist brutes who kill defenseless
citizens first in their war to impose nihilism on the world. Or do
you think that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden will be
satisfied once we all live as good Moslems? Then off to their
prayer rugs the pious Zarqawi and bin Laden will go, never to lose
their tempers again.
Blair understands the challenge to the West. In the Labour
Party, a party not known for its ardor to defend the West against
such barbarous forces as the Nazis and the Communists, he stood
out, took chances, and directed his party and his country to defend
the West. He even stood out and directed his party away from the
antique class-warfare of socialism. He modernized it and kept
Britain competitive in the modern market economy. The immediate
reward was prosperity for Britain and victory at the polls for
Labour.
Now forces in his country are scheming to remove him from the
stage. Well, let the Economist, stand with the defeatists.
Over on this side of the Atlantic The American Spectator
calls on Mr. Blair to stay at Number 10 and finish the job. I never
would have thought a Labour leader could do so much for Britain and
the West. He showed his mettle on Kosovo when the majority of
Europeans again ducked their responsibility to humanity. Blair
recognized Milosevic for the butcher that he was. He was staunch in
removing the Taliban from Afghanistan, and he did not flinch in
staring down Saddam. Blair is the kind of leader Britain's Tory
Party should have produced. I still have my disagreements with him,
but he has amazed me. He puts principle before party.
In the first of three speeches he is scheduled to deliver on the
threat against us he said this week, "This is not a clash between
civilizations, but a clash about civilization. It is the age-old
battle between progress and reaction." Strangely this speech was
not widely reported in America. It seems to be part of a
counterattack by the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing
against the defeatists. President George W. Bush is sounding
similar notes in public appearances. Their rhetorical offensive is
just another war story the press has missed.
topics:
Islam, Military, Iraq, Socialism
