Friday, April 28, 2006

War in our time

An intriguing little item from the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog (subs. maybe req'd):

Bernard Lewis, famed Princeton professor of Islamic history, told a small press luncheon in Washington that the Iraq war hadn’t turned out the way he expected but “is still salvageable.” Seen by many as an intellectual godfather of the Bush administration’s democracy drive in the Middle East, the 89-year-old Lewis was nonetheless gloomy about most of the administration’s policies in the region. The author of such works as “Islam and the West” and “What Went Wrong?” said that the current moment is more reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain in Munich in 1938 than Winston Churchill in London in 1940. “We are showing hesitancy and fear,” he said.

It's not clear whether his Chamberlain reference is to the country or the man at the top.

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