The Black Republican

While all America is asking, "Are we there yet, Daddy?" Andrew Sullivan recalls the obvious answer to what this is all about.

One lesson of the ferocity of the Saddamite resistance is surely this: who now could possibly, conceivably believe that this brutal police state would ever, ever have voluntarily disarmed? Would a regime that is forcing conscripts to fight at gun-point have caved to the terrifying figure of Hans Blix, supported by the even more itimidating vision of Dominique de Villepin? I'd say that one clear lesson of the first week is that war was and is the only mechanism that could have effectively disarmed Saddam. If true disarmament was your goal, it seems to me that the inspections regime has been revealed, however well-intentioned, as hopelessly unsuited to staring down a vicious totalitarian system.

Bravo.

Mark Steyn should be given the Silver Star for his columns. At least, I expect him to after this glowing description of Donald Rumsfeld's real usefulness in the Bush Administration.

That's Rumsfeld's function -- to take the polite fictions and drag them back to the real world. During the Afghan campaign, CNN's Larry King asked him, "Is it very important that the coalition hold?" The correct answer -- the Powell-Blair-Gore-Annan answer -- is, of course, "Yes." But Rummy decided to give the truthful answer: "No." He went on to explain why: "The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is." Such a man cannot be happy at the sight of the Guinean tail wagging the French rectum of the British hind quarters of the American dog.

Funny, and informative. But I can't get that image of the French rectum out of my head....

A thought just occurred to me as I read a NY Post editorial thanking Tony Blair for his support of the War on Terrorism.

Since 9/11, he and George W. Bush have put aside their political differences and stood as twin towers of strength. Blair has backed up his words. Some 45,000 British military personnel have been deployed to the Gulf - about the same number as went in 1991. But Blair is risking significant political capital at home; the British public is skeptical about going to war. Blair has stood firm, courageously warning his countrymen that they must "hold firm to the course we have set out" because "what is at stake here . . . is whether the international community is prepared to back up the clear instruction it gave to Saddam Hussein with the necessary action." In the spirit of Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill, Blair is a leader willing to speak truth in the face of international evil, regardless of the cost.

Is it wishing for too much to wonder where Her Majesty is amid all this? Churchill was a foundation on which the English people relied during World War II, but the rock that that foundation was built upon was George VI.

Many people - including the English - forget that Great Britain isn't a Republic, it's a constiutional monarchy. Many times, this is mere symbolism, and the monarch has no real power. But in times of crisis, like Elizabeth's father did during World War II, the King can show support or disfavor for a particular idea, proposal... and even occasionally, a Prime Minister.

Wherefore art thou, Elizabeth?