Insights from Quadrant

A woman’s prerogative

Anne Summers didn’t approve of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, using the occasion of Bill “the incredible experience of hearing him speak” Clinton’s 2003 visit to Sydney as a hook on which to hang her criticism of his successor:

Australia might officially be a friend and an ally, but many Australians, even if they initially supported the war, cannot but feel strong misgivings at the way this man [Bush] and his cronies ran roughshod over multilateral processes and then turned an already ruined country into a disaster zone.

Ms Summers, you see, was of the opinion that Western military forces didn’t belong in that benighted region, hailing a Democrat president in 2015 for having the good sense, after withdrawing from Iraq, to be wary of putting fresh boots on the ground:

President Obama and most other western leaders have taken advice that such a move would be to succumb to an ISIS trap, that the group wants the West to invade in order to fulfil its apocalyptic prophecy of what it characterises as the last great battle between the crusaders and the caliphate.

These days, with a despised Republican in the Oval Ofice, Ms Summers finds the Trump withdrawal of US troops quite distressing. From today’s SMH:

When he [Trump] was unable to stop the unplanned and, to the military and diplomatic establishment, ill-advised withdrawal of US troops from Syria, Mattis walked.

If some people weren’t of two minds they would have no mind at all.

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