Tuesday, October 29, 2002

The West backs Russia's use of poison gas. Strange really -- I would have thought a leader who was prepared to use poison gas -- to use poison gas on his OWN people -- would be prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US. Or that's something how the argument usually goes.

More fundamentally I think this is an example of one of the more interesting problems facing a nation's leader -- when is it justified to attack another nation's policies, particularly when that country is an ally? Usually the agreement is you don't, which of course makes for the unusual site of Tony Blair currently (at least publicly) disagreeing with Al Gore and agreeing with George Bush, or saying that he thought Bill Clinton's sex scandals were irrelevant to his Presidency even when Congress was trying for impeachment. Nevertheless only supporting other countries' policies when their leaders are from the same wing of politics as you is usually the worse option -- one thinks of John Major's disastrous support for George Bush's election campaign in 1992.

posted by Matthew @ 10/29/2002 12:00:00 PM Comments: 0