Since 9/11 Tony Blair has been Aaron to George Bush's Moses. Mr. Blair has been "spot on" in his eloquent defense of Western values, and of our military response to militant Islam. (If I were to have a son now I might give him the middle name of Blair.) British domestic policy concerns me, but my hat is off to the Prime Minister. With his retirement drawing nearer, who will fill the role of Aaron now?

John Howard, prime minister of Australia looks good to me. Here is his official website. The Australian has a report on his recent speech blasting Aussie leftists. Transcript here. I especially like these bits.

It’s important on an occasion like this [anniversary of the founding of a conservative magazine] we remember not just the big ideological struggles but also the individuals who took up the cause of cultural freedom and the defence of liberal democracy against its enemies.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, it became all too easy to pretend that the outcome of the Cold War was an inevitable result of large-scale, impersonal forces that ultimately left totalitarianism exhausted and democratic capitalism triumphant. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was a struggle fought by individuals on behalf of the individual spirit.

And Quadrant holds an honoured place in Australian history for the stance it took for democratic freedom and a pluralist society and in opposition to collectivist ideologies that so many saw as the inevitable wave of the future.

It’s worth recalling just a few of the philo-communism that was once quite common in Australia in the 1950’s and 60’s. For example, Manning Clark’s book Meeting Soviet Man where he likened the ideals of Vladimir Lenin to those of Jesus Christ. John Burton, the former head of the External Affairs Department, arguing that Mao’s China provided a model for the ‘transformation’ of Australia. All those who did not simply oppose Australia’s commitment in Vietnam, but who actively supported the other side and fed the delusion that Ho Chi Minh was some sort of Jeffersonian Democrat intent on spreading liberty in Asia.

To quote George Orwell: ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool’. There is a view that the pro-communist left in Australia in decades past was no more than a bunch of naïve idealists, rather than what they were – ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests.


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In the eyes of the New Left, the Cold War became a struggle defined by ‘moral equivalence’, where the Soviet bloc and the American-led West were equally to blame, each possessing their own dominating ideologies. It became the height of intellectual sophistication to believe that people in the West were no less oppressed than people under the yoke of communist dictatorship.

In time, the world would luckily see the emergence of three remarkable individuals whose moral clarity punctured such nonsense. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

Reagan, the man who gave America back her confidence and optimism in the wake of a decade of setbacks and who began to talk openly and candidly about an ‘evil empire’ – the sort of talk that sends diplomats the world over into panicked meltdown.

Thatcher, the Iron Lady who as well as anyone grasped and articulated the essential connection of personal, political and economic freedom.

Pope John Paul II – a man of enormous courage and dignity whose words of faith and hope inspired millions behind the Iron Curtain to dream again of a Europe whole and free.


Here is a portion of another speech.

A direct attack on Australia by a conventional state entity, while it can’t be ruled out entirely, appears a remote possibility for the foreseeable future. The most immediate security threats to Australia in 2006 come from the interlocking networks of terror, arms proliferation and fundamentalist ideology. The struggle against Islamist terrorism and violent extremism will be a generational one. While its crucible is in the Middle East, it is a struggle that has already recast the global security environment in deep and lasting ways. The best answer to terror and extremism is to help people, especially in the Muslim world, who are struggling for security, opportunity and hope. When free societies fail to support others striving for what we have, we do not simply fail them. We fail ourselves.

For Australia, Iraq and Afghanistan are both vital battlegrounds in the fight against terrorism. Australia’s engagement in these theatres – and in the Middle East more generally – is important in protecting our interests and keeping Australia secure. Australian forces are in southern Iraq helping to secure the foundations of a viable, democratic future. The handing back of Al Muthanna province to Iraqi security forces in July this year was due in no small measure to the courage and hard work of the Australian Defence Force.

In Afghanistan, more than 500 Australian troops are helping that country meet its difficult security challenges. These are both dangerous missions and the path to security in Iraq and Afghanistan will be long and hard. The level of insurgent and sectarian violence in Iraq remains very high and the Iraqi Government faces many difficult challenges to secure the country’s democratic transition and development.

In Afghanistan, the level of violence, including suicide bombings, has increased significantly in recent months as the Taliban and other terrorist groups seek to destroy the credibility of the Afghan Government. The international community must continue to support these fledgling democracies because the implications of failure for the global security environment are enormous.

Amongst the lessons of the 11th of September was the danger of a turning a blind eye to states wracked by extremism, fundamentalism and chaos. The aftermath of the war in Lebanon also demands that all nations refocus on the two essential conditions for any lasting peace in the Middle East.

The first is that there must be an unconditional acceptance throughout the entire Arab world, without exception, of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security behind internationally recognised borders. The entire Arab world – including Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, and in addition Iran – must give up forever the idea that the Israelis can be driven into the sea.

The second condition is that there has to be an equally unconditional acceptance, including on the part of Israel, of the need for a just settlement with the Palestinian people through the establishment of a viable and independent Palestinian state. Until those two conditions are met, the legitimate hopes for peace and security in the Middle East will remain unrealised and the running sore of the Palestinian issue used vociferously as a recruiting weapon by extremists.