Can’t see much comparison, Stanley. Between, I mean…
—Bombs going off 8,000 miles away and bombs going off in the subway
—Argentine military bumptiousness and Islamic irredentism
—A conflict on a group of exceedingly remote islands and a conflict
world-wide
—Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair
Other matters aside, the Falklands War was a superb case of leadership. I
do not recall (I was living in London at the time) any great public passion
to reclaim the islands. Most British people didn’t care one way or the
other, and the nation would have settled for appeasement, I am sure. Once
Maggie got things under way, though, and people realised there was no
stopping her, they got on board. Under a different leader, they would have
sold the Falklanders down the river and not lost a minute’s sleep over it.
As they did the Jews of Palestine, Turkish Cypriots, white Rhodesians, and
Ulstermen. Remarkable thing, leadership. But rare.