Address to the Retired Heads of Mission Association, Victoria

Excerpt

Tactics used in the Twenties by the British to subdue, temporarily, Mesopotamia would not be tolerated today in Iraq by the American public or anyone else. Consider the global, not least American, outrage over Abu Ghraib or the American decision not to destroy Fallujah. Barbara Amiel, not one of my usual compass points, argued in a recent MacLeans article that in gaining an empire the U.S. would lose its soul. I agree. While it is possible to theorize about a neo-empire of effective control run entirely from Washington, that idea is no more convincing than globalization run from New York is.