Further to my rant against the legion of poltroons who have made comments on Kosovo on the Guardian website, Martin Kettle has restored my faith that there’s still some room for nuance on the British Left:
Surely British liberals have room for more than one idea in their heads at a time. How can a sense of shame over Iraq really justify getting into an anti-Kosovan menage a trois with Vladimir Putin – the Slav Ahmadinajad – and with the Islamophobic states of the southern Balkans? How can liberals from a country that was forced to concede the independence of Ireland, our very own Kosovo, less than a century ago – a move which their predecessors championed – now become ideological fellow travellers of Putin and Hu Jintao?
Britain was right to play its part in the Kosovo intervention. We have to stick with the consequences. And we have to uphold the difficult principle of humanitarian intervention now and in the future, as circumstances arise – as they well might under President Obama. Don’t throw the interventionist baby out with the post-Bush bathwater. The world is a difficult place – but we don’t make it any easier by pulling up the drawbridge, hoping it will all go away and then wringing our hands when the next call for justice goes unheeded.
