EXTRACT
MANY people were shocked that Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson as her Foreign Secretary.
He strongly divides opinion and his enemies gleefully predicted that the former Daily Telegraph journalist was too much of a buffoon to succeed in the job.
However, although it is still very early days, these doubters have been proved wrong about his ability to perform on a day-to-day basis.
The truth is that Mr Johnson is rated highly by his officials. They are impressed by the speed at which he masters a brief. They vastly prefer him to his dull, cautious unimaginative predecessor Philip Hammond.
Admittedly there have been lively moments. For example, one foreign minister of a major European country told friends after his first meeting with his British counterpart that he had never come across any foreign minister who used the word 'bull***t'.
He also observed that some of Mr Johnson's staff were crouched behind him with their heads in their hands, fearing he might say something undiplomatic.
BUT Oxford -educated Mr Johnson speaks near-perfect French, was brought up in Brussels, is fluent in the Classics, is a citizen of the world and commands vast intellectual resources. I would go on so far as to say he is the most brilliant learned British Foreign Secretary since Lord Curzon occupied the post just after World War 1.
HOWEVER, Mr Johnson has one serious flaw, and that is inconsistency.
I am not merely thinking of the notorious episode on the eve of announcing whether he would campaign for REMAIN or LEAVE in the EU referendum, when he prepared two different articles, arguing completely opposite opinions, before publishing one under the headline: 'There is only one way to get change we want- Vote Go.'
Much more important is his change of mind on the two gravest and most chilling issues of our time: The Syrian Civil War and the emerging new COLD WAR with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
As Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson is gung for confrontation. He has called on crowds to protest outside the Russian Embassy in London against the Kremlin's bombing of Aleppo. He gleefully accuses Mr Putin of war crimes.
THE TRUTH IS
he is every bit as avid a WARMONGER
as
TONY BLAIR.
(IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN. KOSOVO. SIERRA LEONE etc
and David Cameron (IRAQ and LIBYA)-
[and attempted to go into SYRIA]
and that is saying a very great deal.
But Mr Johnson's rampant warmongering is baffling to everyone who followed his career before taking charge at the
FOREIGN OFFICE.
[Well!, as far as we are concerned this is one public office which has proved itself true to its designation. It has by its traitorous and underhand actions in 1960/70's when the then FOREIGN OFFICE covered up the treasonable activities of MacMillan and Edward Heath regarding the TRUTH about the so-called EEC that it is indeed a very
FOREIGN OFFICE
-NOT A
BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE.]
Returning to Mr Oborne's most interesting article
Shortly before his unexpected appointment in July, he outlined his position on Russia and Syria in a series of articles for the Daily Telegraph.
THE MESSAGE COULD NOT BE CLEARER.
Let's start with Russia
Mr Johnson wanted Britain to do a deal with President Putin. He spoke of the need to set aside our Cold War mindset'. And he welcomed the way that Russian bombers were joining the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad by attacking the militant jihadists.
He wrote of a visit he had made to Paris last December where he noticed newspaper billboards plastered with photos of the man he affectionately called 'Vlad'. Mr Johnson explained to Telegraph readers that 'many French people think the time has come to do a deal with their new friends the Russians-and I think that they are broadly
RIGHT!'
So why Boris's U-turn? How has he changed his mind in the space of less than six months from writing being a foreign policy pragmatist in the tradition of Douglas Hurd (who was Foreign Secretary under Mrs Thatcher and John Major) to an advocate of military confrontation in the mould of Tony Blair. It's not as if the pattern of world events has changed. Messrs Putin and Assad are both following the same policies.
They are as ruthless and brutal today as they were six months ago.
But Mr Johnson has changed
having been reprogrammed by Foreign Office mandarins to conform to their orthodoxy rather than stay true to his beliefs.
To understand why this has happened, it is important to realise that for many years, there has been a rigid FOREIGN OFFICE mindset about WORLD AFFAIRS.
In a nutshell, the FO believes Britain should be America's poodle.
Tony Blair pathetically followed this brief to the letter-taking orders from the White House.
Whatever George Bush wanted Tony Blair
DID.
Hence the calamity of the
IRAQ WAR.
And it was the same with David Cameron and Barack Obama.
Now that it is widely expected Hillary Clinton will be the next US President [If she is not in jail]
the FO is preparing to follow suit.
I believe Mrs Clinton's bellicose approach is very foolish and that Boris Johnson's wisest course would be to divert her from what would be a very dangerous path.
Of course, Messrs Putin and Assad have committed heiness acts. But horrible as these have been, at least they were done to try to
HALT THE EVIL Al-QAEDA AND ISIS.
Once the Foreign Office used to go along with realpolitik. Lets hope that under Mr Johnson's leadership, it adopts this policy which should help stop us lurching towards yet another
[CATASTROPHIC]
WAR.
[EVEN A THIRD WORLD WAR.]
* * *
BRITAIN &
EUROPE -
THE CULTURE OF DECEIT by CHRISTOPHER BOOKER
*
Category:
Commentary,
Feature Posts,
Israel,
'Anti-Semitism',
Zionism and US-UK
allies *
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