Helmintholog

Bill Emmott, the editor of the Economist, has a lucid op-ed in today’s Guardian arguing for the war. The kernel of his argument is that only force, or the wholly convincing threat of overwhelming force, will make Saddam comply with UN resolutions and disarm. It is the credible threat of war that has now made it possible that Saddam could be disarmed peacefully, under the terms of the new resolution the UN security council approved unanimously on November 8. That still, however, leaves a question hanging: if he calls the UN’s bluff by making a fake declaration on December 8, should the threat be carried out? I believe that, not least because it’s true of almost every country threatened by the UN. But the inescapable corollary is that once we have assembled an overwhelmingly impressive force (which seems to happen once every ten years) we have to use it. Otherwise, Saddam will simply resume his efforts to rearm once the troops go away.

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But this should be flyposted all over London.

is something you only tell to one person at a time, right? And this blog is such a minority taste that publishing here is, on average, telling fewer than one person at a time. So I’m not really about to break a promise …

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