Not good enough, Mr Blair.

It was far too pat, far too uncontroversial. Mr Blair says we're going after them as far as is 'humanely possible'. He means to reassure those who think we deserved it that they can hold such attitudes without fear- that helping terrorists will not have consequences, thus repudiating a central plank of the Bush doctrine (which the FO types can only smirk at even now).

So, having made numerous errors concerning immigration and multiculturalism, having mired Bush's campaign against Saddam by his own need to run to the UN for backing, having failed ever to make an honest case but instead relied on spin, Mr Blair now says that he's learnt no lesson at all from the failure of soft-pedalling the WoT, and intends to go softer.

It's sad because in the cocktail of socialistic nonsense in Mr Blair's brain there's a fairly good strand of understanding. The dishonesty of being a pseudo-conservative (or if you are of the Left a 'revisionist socialist') though has made it terribly misshapen.

If Mr Blair needs a shove it can come from John Simpson, who repudiates the WoT (partly by never mentioning it- or Al Qaeda.):

'When the big IRA bombing campaign first hit London in the 1970s, a famous columnist of the time, Bernard Levin, advised his readers to respond to the bombs as a refined hostess might respond to a dinner-guest who belched loudly at the table: just ignore it, he said.'

At the time it seemed to me effete and mannered. Now I see it was exactly the right advice.'

Simpson believes that grown-ups don't fight wars on terror. It's a tragically shallow argument. Ignore them and they will go away. The world is large and they are few. Chase them quietly. He still believes that Bush's nightmare is more powerful than the terrorists bombs.

The reality is that we're in the midst of some pretty powerful geopolitical shit here and we should realise it. Otherwise Simpson's siren song (deliberately construed in this fashion to shock his opponents and raise a smile of wonderment on the faces of the unalligned) may seem a strand of opinion among many, but so confident as to command trust.

For reality checks I could start in a number of places but I think the EUReferendum blog's the best- for pointing out the way that Blair has sold us into a Euro-centred perspective. The strategy of appearing to be America's best friend has served many purposes, but the overwhelming geopolitical one has been to enable Britain to tie itself very closely to the emerging EU joint military plans.

What this means in effect is that Britain couldn't chase the terrorists actively, even if we wanted to. It's not part of the deal, as independent action isn't envisaged, nor allowed for. Constitution or no, it's independent power or compatibility with other forces that counts. We only have it, going forward, with the Euros.

From that reality check to another- Mark Steyn on assimilation:

'Few European leaders have a clue what to do about this,but,as that French headscarf law and Britain’s Incitement to Racial Hatred bill and Dutch responses to the murder of Theo van Gogh all underline, mediation between what Tony Blair called on Thursday “our way of life” and Muslim values has already become a central dynamic of European political culture — a remarkable achievement for a minority few Europeans were more than vaguely conscious of pre-9/11.'

The fact is that Muslims from the so-called 'third world' we always used to talk about as a very distant place have evolved a kind of momentum and strategy to regain what they lost through the success of Western history. No masterplan, just momentum into which Al Quaeda breathes life and from which it is invigorated. Nothing but a sense of timing and a knowledge that the West is geared defensively and sees George W. Bush as a spanner in the works.