In which my thievery reaches epic proportions

As regular readers will know, I am prone to the habit of filching the occasional commentary of wiser men than me - and that is a fairly 'yuuuuuuuuge' number of people!  I had intended to tap out a few thoughts and observations on the current India vs. Pakistan match which is very definitely not a cricket match!  Alas, in thinking about it I realised that I know next to sweet F.A. about the history and the current situation in Kashmir except that, I suspect, 'there will be blood'!  At a loss, I clicked on to an article at The Coffee House written by Mr. Dominic Green who is Life & Arts Editor of Spectator USA.  It is on the subject of President Trump and it provides, for a change, a rather different view of the man.  I will not attempt to paraphrase it, instead I will 'nick' the whole damn thing and you can read it at leisure.  It is headed:

Donald Trump is the best prime minister Britain never had
The orange man succeeds where the mandarins failed

["Oh very witty, Wilde!"]

Britain has never had a better friend in the White House than Donald Trump. FDR may have bailed out Britain in its struggle against German imperialism, but the bailout carried the highest possible price: the surrender of Britain’s empire, and loans that weren’t paid off until 2006. By contrast, Trump asks for nothing that Britain isn’t already asking for: economic and political support as it escapes from the latter-day German imperialism of the European Union. And Trump is giving Britain much more.

By omission as much as commission, Trump is cleaning up the messes that Britain left behind as it lost its empire. The British tell themselves that they had no choice to drop their imperial obligations after 1945, that they were bankrupt in victory and the Americans didn’t like empires. This isn’t the full story. In truth, the British had been behaving shabbily in the Three I’s — Ireland, India and Israel — long before they were bankrupt, and with bloody consequences for the locals.

At the imperial apogee of late nineteenth century, British governments were incapable of managing Irish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, British governments carved up Ireland, promised the Promised Land to both Jews and Arabs, and offset Hindu nationalists in India by supporting Muslim ones. In 1947, Britain’s Labour government, committed to what we now call ‘nation-building at home’, ditched India and the Palestine Mandate in shameful and cynical haste.

The partition of India caused the biggest refugee crisis in history, a death toll estimated between several hundred thousand and two million and, in time, a nuclear stand-off over Jammu and Kashmir. The failed partition of the Palestine Mandate caused the destruction of much of Arab society in the Mandate, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Jewish territory and Jews from their ancient homes in Arab states, and a series of wars that culminated in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 with threats of nuclear war from the Arabs’ patron, the Soviet Union. As for Ireland, that too came home to roost in the form of Irish nationalist terrorism in the UK and, more recently, Theresa May’s minority government being held hostage over Brexit by its Irish Protestant partners.

For more than seven decades, British prime ministers and the suave mediocrities of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office — the heirs to the perpetrators of this blood-soaked diplomatic folly — have inserted themselves into these postcolonial disaster zones but failed to alleviate tensions between India and Pakistan or Israel and the Arabs. Worse, they have exacerbated these situations, by pandering to the Arabs for oil and defence sales and to Pakistan as a cheap way of keeping a toehold in Central Asia, and by sneering at the Israelis for being pushy Jews. The mandarins did no better in Ireland, either: the Troubles ended because Bill Clinton told the parties to stop fighting.

The solution that Britain’s clever civil servants and cunning politicians offered as the answer to their post-imperial poverty was to merge Britain into the floundering undemocratic monstrosity that became the European Union. This has turned out to be the sourest of cherries on the bitter cake of strategic failure, because it turned out that the British public doesn’t want to subordinate Britain to the EU.

Compare this record of failure by British politicians and administrators to what Donald Trump has done for Britain, and is willing to do. By the simple expedient of not wishing to be taken for a fool, and by recognising reality over dogma, he has unknotted the frozen politics of the Three I’s, and made it possible for each to move towards the resolutions that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office or, for that matter, the State Department, have failed to obtain. The orange man is succeeding where the mandarin men failed.

Instead of being played for a fool by the failed state of Pakistan and failed non-state of Palestine — both of them foully hostile to Western interests — Trump has stepped back, and allowed the successful and pro-Western states of India and Israel to begin the work of resolving the unfinished business of the Palestine Mandate and the Partition of India. The Indians are never going to relinquish Kashmir, and the Israelis are never going to leave Jerusalem or Beit El or, given the way the neighbourhood is going, the Golan Heights or the Jordan Valley. Instead of meddling and giving money to terrorists, Trump is allowing the political gravity of the last seven decades to work itself out.

Trump supports Brexit, and is apparently still offering a temporary free-trade deal despite the insult of Theresa May rejecting it the first time he offered it. Once the outlines of Brexit are clear, Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, can hold the referendum on its future status that was included in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland can finally decide whether they want to stay in the UK, which is a major economy with nuclear weapons, a seat on the UN Security Council, and unparalleled post-imperial links to the economies of Asia; or to join the Irish republic, a feeble and distant province of the EU whose economic future is as a kind of Cayman Islands, a tax haven and back office for American corporations. Trump, by pushing for Brexit, is pushing for resolution in Ireland, one way or the other.

All over the world, Trump is doing for Britain almost overnight what Britain’s leaders have failed to do for decades. He’s finally clearing up the shameful mess that Britain left when it welched on its imperial responsibilities, and he’s doing it for free. Instead of snobbishly deriding him, the British should thank the orange man for freeing them from their destructive relationships with the Orangemen in Northern Ireland, and the police-state Islamists of Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority.

The obvious way to thank Trump won’t cost Britain much either. The City of London is already full of crass monuments to greed. One more won’t hurt. Let him build a nice golden Trump Tower in central London, and a Trump Hotel too. If Brexit works out, the government should consider putting a statue of Trump onto the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square, so that the heroes of empire will be joined by the man who cleared up after them. It’s the least Britain can do to thank the best prime minister the British have never had.

Dominic Green is Life & Arts Editor of Spectator USA.

Comments

[Whitewall]

When I said the other day that I was afraid to comment because "grump mode" might still be in effect....well, this Spec USA article says better than anything I was about to write.

For all this, the ruling elites can't allow Trump and his allies abroad to succeed.

[Glesga]

Whitewall, it was the people of Northern Ireland who wanted to remain in the UK when partition happened and took to arms. The British Government wanted to rid themselves of Ireland. It is not true to say the British deliberately carved up Ireland. The people actually did it. In retrospect it was a good thing because the Catholic Church became a dominant force in the ROI and would probably still be carrying out their abuse. It was actually the Northern Ireland police that set the ball rolling in the exposure.

[Bob]

If Trump is the best PM you've ever had, you are doomed.

[David Duff]

Read more carefully, Bob, the heading was:

"Donald Trump is the best prime minister Britain NEVER had"

[Loz]

That article combines extreme bollocks with good stuff in almost equal proportions, astonishing.

Agree wholeheartedly with analysis that Blighty's elite, establishment, Westminster call it what you will, has been rubbish since about 1900. 1945 is my preferred start point, but 1900 was roundabout the start of the rot.

As for Blighty being thankful to the Don, Jeez. The Don doesn't give a flying fart about Blighty and the remnants of her empire, except for the very rich pickings he can extract from all of it with mercantilist deals and powerplay.

Already the Don has said "No Deal with the US if Blighty taxes the tech companies". Makes Brussels seem tame in comparison! No rules based system waiting for us over the pond, just "bend over John Bull and take one from the Don or he'll drop you like a stone".

And even a change of administration in the US is just as bad: No Deal with the US if it means a border with Ireland, say the Dems.

The rapidly dawning conclusion for Blighty's future outside of the EU is a full-on "Singapore of the North Atlantic" and a whopping great v-sign West and East.

Zero tariffs, make Blighty one big Freeport, let the pound float (almost certainly down, which will piss off the Don big time - good), cut military spending in half (which will make the Euros poop their pants and piss off the Don even more), and cosy up to China and Russia so they don't pick on us. Why would they want to hassle the very place their I'll gotten gains are all warehoused and bank vaulted anyway?

The erratic, unreliable, unstable US makes friendship impossible, and the exact opposite embodied in the rules based system of the EU paradoxically does likewise (unless you Remain in it).

Let's do what JK's great linked article described the Muslim world doing with China in regard to China's oppression of the Muslim minorities: hold our noses and hold hands with the Rooskies and Chinks.

If we insist on saying screw you to the EU (foolish, but hey ho), then screw America too.

Harrow, Ivan.

SoD

[GWC]

Loz, Screw the EU.

[Whitewall]

Just saw this elsewhere: Mark Steyn on Boris Johnson, “Bertie Wooster with Jeeves’ brain.”

[Whitewall]

SoD,
"hold our noses and hold hands with the Rooskies and Chinks." While holding your collective hands, the Chinks and Rooskies will bend you over and give you a double colonoscopy.

[backofanenvelope]

"If we insist on saying screw you to the EU (foolish, but hey ho), then screw America too."

Or, as I like to put it, no more French wars and no more American wars.

[Pat]

Where to start?
The only way to prevent violence between Israel and the Muslims, given Muslim attitudes to non Muslims was to keep the Jews out of there. By the end of the mandate the die was cast. No point sticking around to be shot by both sides.
The only way of preventing violence on the subcontinent given the Muslim attitude to non-Muslims and polytheists especially, was to expel the Muslims. Impossible of course. Nothing could be gained by sticking around getting shot by both sides.
As for favouring Pakistan against India, a Soviet ally, well there's a no brain explanation for that.
As to the Irish nationalists what was the alternative? Massacre them? Allow them to rule others who didn't want to be ruled by them? Force our allies out of the island at gun point? There were neither easy nor pleasant options available.
If the IRA did indeed seek terms on the orders of the US President one must presume it opened its campaign on US Presidential orders. I think it more likely that a drying up of external support and it's complete penetration by British intelligence persuaded it to give up.
Not to defend sir Humphrey, he could have given up his public posturing and recognised reality far earlier.
Britain joined the EEC as an antidote to the decades of decline and depression that was actually caused by 25 years of socialism. It didn't help. Only when socialism started to get rolled back did the economy start to recover.
As to pandering for oil- well we could hardly take it. The US has for many decades underwritten the external security of Saudi in return for oil. It's what grown ups have to do if they need something they haven't got.
Eire's future in the EU will certainly not be as a tax haven. The EU won't allow it.
Mr Trump appears to be an enthusiast for a trade deal. Great for Britain, good for America. And therefore extremely welcome. It appears he is helpful in other ways, such as assistance with naval escort.
If Mr. Trump wants a tower or hotel in London he has always been free to build one. I note he didn't bother whilst his friend was Mayor, so I assume he doesn't want one.
As to the empty plinth, let's wait till the pudding has been eaten- say 2025.