Mahmoud Ahmedinejad sleeps with the fishes

As a huge fan of The Godfather, I loved this report on the Today Programme this morning about a US foreign policy analyst's attempt to draw a complex analogy between the classic movie and America's current position in the world.

He likens 9/11 to the flowerstall attack on the ageing Don Vito Corleone, and Bush's response to the al-Qaeda outrage to hothead Sonny's attempts to punish the rival gang leader responsible for his father's attempted assassination.

In terms of the current presidential contest, McCain, who some claim would like to present the Iranian president with a horse's head in the bed, is also described as a "Sonny," while his opponent, Barack Obama, is compared to the Corleone's lawyer, Tom Hagen, the arch-conciliator who would always seek to negotiate his way out of a family crisis.

So far, so plausible. But the big, unanswered question in all this is where is Michael Corleone - and this, I fear, is where the analogy, enjoyable though it is, breaks down.

Michael may have been brighter than Sonny and employed more subtle methods, but the whole point of the film is that he turned out to be even more murderous, culminating in the desolate scene at the climax of the second movie when, having slaughtered all his rivals, he surveys the barren wilderness that is his life.

Is anyone seriously suggesting this as a model for future US foreign policy? Well, let's hope not.

Great cricketing quotations of our time No 94

"Cricket civilizes people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe. I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen."

Robert Mugabe

Why I haven't commented on the Iranian hostage story

A good friend emails me to ask why there is nothing on the blog about the release of the 15 Britons taken captive in Iran. Like other bloggers, I get these sorts of inquiries fairly regularly, so I thought it might be helpful to publish the entire exchange just to clear up any confusion about what the purpose of this blog actually is.

To protect his identity (well, a bit) I shall call my friend Nosey.

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Paul,

Nothing about the just-finished Iranian affair on your thog - sorry, blog. Surely this is pure politics (albeit of a different nature)?

Nosey

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Nosey,

I don't really feel I have anything particularly new or original to say about the hostages issue so I haven't covered it. My blog is not a current events news service - people can go to the bbc or any other news website for that sort of thing.

This is something I regularly have to point out to blog users who ask me in the comments why I haven't done this or that story.

Cheers,

Paul

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Paul,

I see what you mean, but there is a whole load of comment about what actually happened. The actual news would be pretty boring - "Hostages Captured" ... "Both sides get hot under the collar" ... "Hostages released" ... but the things that intrigue me are why did Ahmadinejad do what he did, what was said in the private telephone conversation between Downing Street and Tehran, how did Iran get such a PR coup out of it (which they did), and how come the British administration come over as - frankly - so wet?

One of the observations on the BBC is that Ahmadinejad has seen our feeble response to this, and will be encouraged in his pursuit of nuclear weaponry.

Political - surely? And therefore within the scope of a political blog such as yours?

Nosey.

P.S. You have probably realised that my grasp of politics is slightly worse than my grasp of swahili, so I may be talking out of my arse hat here.

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Nosey,

Of course it's political, it's just that it bores the bollocks off me, that's all, and hence I've got nothing to say about it. My blog is not aiming to provide a systematic commentary service any more than it is aiming to provide a systematic news service. There are particular issues I'm interested in and they are reflected on the blog - eg the Labour leadership battle, English nationalism, the interplay between Christianity and politics, the constitutional reform agenda and so on.

My readers are by and large people who are also interested in those sorts of things. For me to start covering international politics when I've no particular expertise in it and it's not the reason people visit my blog anyway would be a bit like a specialist fish restaurant sticking steak on the menu to try and compete with a new Beefeater that's opened down the road.

Cheers,

Paul

PS I am now thinking of putting this entire email thread on the blog to make the point to all the others who keep asking me such questions.

***

Paul,

Fair point. (And it made me laugh!)

Nosey

This blog is a Mid-term Elections Free Zone

I have never really understood American politics. Never understood how an allegedly educated country could possibly elect as its president someone who failed to remember the names of other world leaders during a TV interview, and certainly never understood how someone who lied about never having had sexual relations with a White House intern could possibly be allowed to remain president after being found out.

I could go on. I don't understand, for instance, why people of a generally Christian worldview like myself tend to vote for centre-left parties in the UK, but invariably vote for the Republicans in the States.

So because I don't get American politics, and because I don't really want to take the trouble to try to get it, I am hereby declaring this blog a Mid-Term Elections Free Zone (a former editor of mine will appreciate the irony.)

For those of you who feel compelled to know more of what is going on over the other side of the pond, and what it might mean for us back home, I direct you to the BBC, to PoliticalBetting.com, and the good people at Blairwatch.