Tuesday, August 17, 2021

History

“You were given the choice between war and dishonour.  You chose dishonour and you will have war.”

There are no historical analogies, nor does history repeat itself. There are precedents, however, and the precedent of delivering an ally as a gift to your enemy is not a promising one.

And when that enemy is, in this case, an anti-democratic, totalitarian, ideologically committed misogyny with a history of ultra violence and the persecution of minorities, it is likely to be a catastrophe for the people who have been abandoned.

The trickiest question in history is to ask how wars end, rather than how they begin. And twenty years is not as long as people may think to achieve a settlement. If patience is a virtue, impatience is a weakness that feeds into a nirvana fallacy.

I don't know enough to be able to say anything more, other than express my moral disgust and sense of unease. I don't think that this will turn out well.

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