Carry On, Blair

The Opinionator

Timothy Garton Ash criticizes Tony Blair’s affection for “the Jeeves school of diplomacy.” He writes on the op-ed page of The Los Angeles Times:

Like the model butler in P.G. Wodehouse’s stories, Britain is impeccably loyal in public but privately whispers to Bertie Wooster (a.k.a. George W. Bush), “Is that wise, sir?” This approach has failed.

Britain alone is no longer big enough to sway the hyperpower. What the U.S. needs is a friend big enough that Washington has to listen to it. That friend can only be a strong European Union, speaking with a single voice.

Four of the alleged plotters of a terrorist attack on Fort Dix, N.J., were “ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, three from a town on the Macedonia-Kosovo border and one who had served as a sharpshooter in the Kosovo Liberation Army (K.L.A.) in its clashes with Serbian security forces during the 1990s,” notes Nikolas K. Gvosdev, editor of The National Interest, on his Washington Realist blog. The potential for Kosovo to become a “hub for international terrorism” is reason enough to oppose its immediate independence, Gvosdev says. He writes:

The question before us is not whether or not most Kosovar Albanians are radical Islamists who hate the United States; the overwhelming number are not. And the presence of a Jordanian and a Turk in this cell is testimony to the fact that even when a country is a close ally of the United States, such sentiments may not be shared by every single member of the national community.

But we should not go from one extreme to another and blithely assume that there is no threat. Ever since the Yugoslav wars began, Al-Qaeda and other radical organizations have worked to gain and develop footholds in the Balkans and among the expatriate populations. In spring 2005 the acting head of Bulgarian intelligence, Kircho Kirov, warned that Kosovo would become a “direct source of regional instability and a hub for international terrorism” if concerted action was not taken to address the issue.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has released a couple of unusual TV ads, which depict him as a frustrated applicant during a job interview, for his presidential campaign. (You can watch them on YouTube.) The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza likes them “simply because they are different.” But Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum thinks they’re counterproductive. He writes: “[I]sn’t Richardson’s whole problem that even though he’s got a resume as long as your arm nobody really knows what he stands for? And don’t these ads just confirm that while ostensibly making fun of it?”

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Disney v. Hamas

An illegal Hamascot? The Los Angeles Times editorial page encourages Disney to sue Hamas over “Farfur, a Mickey Mouse clone that until recently hosted ‘Tomorrow’s Pioneers,’ a kids’ television show on Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV station.” The editorial quotes the “cartoon rodent” as saying, “We will liberate Al Aqsa, inshallah; we will liberate Iraq, inshallah; and we will liberate the Muslim countries invaded by murderers.” Could Disney’s ferocious army of copyright lawyers bring down a sponsor of international terrorism? Maybe:

[H]ere’s a lawsuit we’d love to see: Hamas getting dragged through some international court by Disney’s implacable army of attorneys. If ever there were a real claim that the company suffered dilution to the value of its intellectual property, this is it. Farfur’s brief stardom creates an opportunity to revisit the legal territory blazed by the family of Alyssa Flatow (who sued Iran’s government for sponsoring terrorism) or even Morris Dees, who bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan via the civil courts.