Trotskyism is a disease that causes irreversible damage. A sufferer may renounce it and show every sign of health, but that’s like renouncing cancer in remission. A relapse is always possible.
Anyone wishing to contest this observation could do worse than read Peter Hitchens’s articles. Unlike his unlamented brother Christopher, Peter makes some conservative noises, and many of them ring true. But the Trotskyist cells are still alive, gnawing at his mind.
Thus he correctly criticises our Middle Eastern policy, saying that the American attempt to democratise Iraq, in which we participated, has plunged the whole region into a blood-soaked chaos, while our overthrowing Gaddafi pushed criminal foolishness to a whole new level.
So far so good, the problem is identified correctly. Alas, then comes the solution part.
“The Iranian people long for Western friendship. Properly treated, they could be our best ally in the region.”
Yes, everyone knows how much Iranians love the West. One can only compliment them for the stoicism with which they have been concealing their feelings ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution (abetted by the USA, it has to be said).
Like a schoolboy bullying a girl he secretly fancies, Iranians mask their adoration of the West by regularly marching, in huge numbers, and chanting ‘Death to America’. ‘Death to Britain’ is another popular tune.
The words are thunderous, but the actions are louder. Iran supports, finances and conducts global terrorism against Western powers. This proceeds in conjunction with her government’s sustained efforts to add an apocalyptic dimension to terrorism by acquiring nuclear weapons. To give credit where it’s due, the ayatollahs never bothered to conceal what the intended targets are.
First such weapons would self-admittedly be used to wipe Israel, our only real ally in the region, off the face of the earth. Then the turn would come of Saudi Arabia, our other Middle Eastern ally, although Hitchens is correctly unhappy with that particular alliance.
And then Iran, now dominant in the Middle East and in possession of mid-range nuclear-tipped missiles, could start talking to the West in the language of blackmail, fluently spoken and perfected by her best friend Russia.
Hence the West imposed sanctions designed to depress Iran’s economy to a point where staving off starvation, rather than developing new technologies, would be the government’s priority.
Now, displaying its typically ignorant and craven cynicism, the West has agreed to repeal the sanctions in exchange for Iran’s support against ISIS and obviously lying promise not to develop nuclear weapons – a promise made by a historically mendacious and possibly half-crazy government.
Hitchens’s comment on this abject surrender, which may well result in an all-out nuclear war? Thus spake the (ex-) Trotskyite:
“It’s worth noting, as well, how hard the supposedly wicked and evil Kremlin worked to help us get the nuclear agreement with Tehran.”
The word ‘supposedly’ means that, to Hitchens, the kleptofascist KGB government of Russia is in fact not wicked or evil. It’s virtuous, so much so that it helped to put the world in danger of a nuclear holocaust out of sheer disinterested altruism – sorry, I mean “to help us get the nuclear agreement with Tehran”.
Hitchens’s love affair with Putin is nothing new, and it must be replete with homoerotic longings, so far, one hopes, unrealised. Otherwise it’s impossible to explain how nothing the object of Hitchens’s affection does ever makes a dent in the pundit’s passion.
Murdering Hitchens’s journalistic colleagues by the gross doesn’t lower the amorous pitch. Neither do similar murders in and around London, some of them with nuclear weapons. Neither do three aggressive wars started by Putin, including the on-going one against the Ukraine. Neither does his mafia economy, which has made him personally one of the world’s richest men.
Neither does… well, anything – including Putin’s efforts to further the Middle Eastern interests of his criminal regime by clearing the way for Iran to become a nuclear power.
Hitchens bizarrely hails his paramour for this, contextually also welcoming the treaty Putin facilitated, the one putting not only Israel but the whole world in grave danger.
Verily I say unto you, you can take a boy out of Trotskyism, but…