His Country: A Syria Blighted and Wronged by Assad

Review – My Country: A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid

Kassem Eid’s memoir opens with a mournful preface. The author, a Syrian who has faced the full force of his country’s recent history, accepts he cannot escape its suffering. Eid says he has fled across continents, travelling as far as he can. He has lived as hard as he can, yet he cannot forget. He cannot suppress the bitter memories of which he is the custodian.

Lebanon’s New Regime of Censorship

An internationally minded romantic can always find good things to say about Lebanon. Travelling types praise its vibrant feel, its rich history and, perhaps most of all, its cosmopolitan sophistication. In parts of Europe, one still hears Beirut referred to as the ‘Paris of the East’.

Another Kind of Air War

Review – The Other Air Force by Matt Sienkiewicz

America, Matt Sienkiewicz asserts at the beginning of his new book The Other Air Force, ‘is not a subtle nation’. In many ways – religious, political, cultural – the United States is seen as the enemy of nuance; its values are perceived to be bold, brash and often in conflict with those of older societies and older systems, in Europe and the world over.

The Sieges of Syria and History

Earlier this month in Syria, a siege was broken. Rebels in Aleppo, aided by more religiously extreme elements and passively supported by humanitarians the world over, succeeded in meeting – ceremoniously shaking hands, like the Allies during the Second World War at the river Elbe in 1945 – by breaking the lines of those troops loyal to the Assad regime and its foreign backers.

Samuel Johnson and the Vanity of Human Wishes

Samuel Johnson, the Dr Johnson of national memory, is primarily known for his wit. His epigrams are hardly common currency, but they do have a certain appeal – and a certain constituency. Who has not heard ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’ or ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ (a particular favourite of Boris Johnson) deployed in conversation by someone altogether too keen on appearing intelligent?

Mea Culpa

Over a year ago, I made a very optimistic prediction. During the 2015 election campaign, when the Conservatives proposed holding a referendum on our EU membership, the then Labour leadership and others united to say that it would be a bad idea. They said it would be divisive, that it would harm the very democracy it was intended to strengthen, and that virtually nothing good could come out of the exercise.

President Obama’s Libyan Misdirection‏

Five years have passed since the beginning of the international campaign against the dictatorship of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. Much was achieved – it cannot be forgotten – within the year. Gaddafi’s forces were defeated, his attempt to slaughter the rebels in Benghazi was foiled, the colonel himself was killed, and it looked as if Libya could begin again, liberated with the help of the wider world from the yoke of a decades-long tyranny.

Syria’s Holy War

Review – The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency

Jihadism is in many ways the perfect enemy. It insists upon and mandates self-abnegation – even, in some instances, self-destruction; it despises much of what we consider essential for a just and free society; and it is ever planning and ever plotting to wrest many of civilisation’s most enduring accomplishments from our hands. The fact that its credo is often violent in nature is the icing on the cake. Because it is a perfect adversary, one which remains useful for caricaturists and demagogues, understanding this phenomenon is often perceived to be unimportant; extirpation, and the total destruction of its capacity for harm, is more likely to be the order of the day.

Coming off the Fence on Europe

I like Michael Gove a lot – in fact, I think he’s one of the best Conservative ministers we have and are likely to enjoy for some time to come; but I’m a little saddened by his wanting Britain to leave the European Union. Not, I think, necessarily because this requires him to team up with two of the most unpleasant political figures in the country – the dual horrors of Nigel Farage and George Galloway, who represent living proof that extremists of Left and Right eventually come to resemble each other – but because in many ways it makes the case for remaining a little less attractive.

A Memoir from Mesopotamia

Review – The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq by Emma Sky

The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq is a captivating book.  The memoir of Emma Sky, a one-time opponent of the war to topple Saddam Hussein, deals with how she administered an Iraqi province in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Baath regime. Moreover, she spent much of the following years in the country, working closely with the American military – the same organisation she and many likeminded individuals opposed so vigorously in the run up to the war.