Tuesday 20 November 2007

Conservative 'interventionism' at work

David Aaronovitch characteristically gets to the heart of the matter in his dissection of David Cameron's attempt to replace liberal interventionism with conservative interventionism, otherwise known as isolationism. Of course, this is nothing new. John Major and his cronies happily sat idly by while they allowed what even Malcolm Rifkind admitted were the worst crimes in Europe since the Holocaust to proceed unabated in Bosnia, while enforcing the deadly arms embargo that denied Bosnians the chance to defend themselves. As Margaret Thatcher remarked, this was a ‘killing field the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again - it is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience.’ And through this, Cameron's Conservatives would once again sit on their hands.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This strikes me as unlikely. A good example would be Iran, on which the so-called heir to Blair has actually been a good deal more hawkish than his beloved mentor, as has PM Gordon Brown (somewhat unsurprisingly, seeing as his whole career now seems to be a game of catch-up with the other side). See here for my take on what "liberal conservatism" really means.