Maghrebin Tensions

To give praise where praise is due, one of the more sensible things the Carter Administration did last year in international affairs was to triple its military aid to Morocco (from $15 million to $45 million). The Administration would be wiser still to embrace unconditionally Morocco’s cause in its continuing conflicts with its neighbors.

From time to time I think it important to write a column on the unstated assumptions of other commentators of all kinds. (And no doubt they will do the same to me.) One of the more generalized assumptions, I find, is that monarchies, especially feudal ones, are bad, and republics necessarily better. In the case of Morocco and its neighbors, the reverse is true. There is a parallel assumption that might as well be mentioned now: that because Morocco is a monarchy and so was Iran under the Shah, Morocco’s king is heading for a fall. This could be a classic case of the fallacious syllogism.

BC

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Brian Crozier

To give praise where praise is due, one of the more sensible things the Carter Administration did last year in international affairs was to triple its military aid to Morocco (from $15 million to $45 million). The Administration would be wiser still to embrace unconditionally Morocco’s cause in its continuing conflicts with its neighbors.

From time to time I think it important to write a column on the unstated assumptions of other commentators of all kinds. (And no doubt they will do the same to me.) One of the more generalized assumptions, I find, is that monarchies, especially feudal ones, are bad, and republics necessarily better. In the case of Morocco and its neighbors, the reverse is true. There is a parallel assumption that might as well be mentioned now: that because Morocco is a monarchy and so was Iran under the Shah, Morocco’s king is heading for a fall. This could be a classic case of the fallacious syllogism.