The London Times’ Simon Jenkins sneers at the notion that Iraq is a threat to Britain or America. He describes the military campaigns in Serbia and Afghanistan as failures. He describes post-9/11 American foreign policy as “catatonic.” He likens Tony Blair to the premier of an East European state under Soviet tyranny. This isn’t in the Guardian or the Independent, it’s in the Times. But here’s the classic sentence: “If the Government is right and al-Qaeda remains a threat to Britain the more reason for caution in the minefields of Middle East politics. It is a reason for listening and watching, not blundering into the region with bombs and tanks.” You can’t get a more concise description of appeasement than that. Don’t fight back, because it could make them even angrier! Just listen and watch – exactly what the peaceniks urged on the West in the 1930s and throughout the Cold War and throughout the 1990s. And what if, while we listen and watch, a Saddam-sponsored biological weapon goes off in D.C. or San Francisco or London? Jenkins argues that we do not know for certain that that is likely. And he’s right. But the critical issue is not certainty. It is whether, after terroristic forces have already massacred thousands of Americans, self-defense should get the benefit of the doubt. Bush and Blair are responsible if their own citizens are murdered en masse again. And they don’t only have a right, they have a manifest duty to stop that happening. And the sooner, the better. Jenkins demands: “If We Must Go To War, for God’s Sake Tell Us Why.” Perhaps someone could arrange a trip for Jenkins to the site of what was once the World Trade Center, and he could get his answer.

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