HILTON Dawson writes (17.4.03): "I have seen diplomacy in action and know that it works... I hope that we can learn the lessons of this war."
Diplomacy in the 1930s didn't prevent Japan from invading China or Mussolini from conquering Ethiopia; it didn't work for Chamberlain, despite his betrayal of Czechoslovakia.
There are two obvious lessons from the war in Iraq.
The first is that the United Nations is as weak and pusillanimous in dealing with dictators as was the League of Nations; but for the decisive action on the United States and Britain, Saddam Hussain and his cronies would still have been torturing and killing their countrymen.
The other lesson is that, if you call the bluff of tyrants like Saddam Hussain, their regimes collapse like a house of cards.
Let's hope that Mugabe is next.
Geoffrey Connell
Bromley Road
Lytham St Annes
Where has Hilton Dawson seen diplomacy in action?
Ask him... bet he doesn't say Lancaster City Council! - Ed.
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