Fabian

Thanks for the kind words.

in the interests of further discussion, the attached is a letter from Professor Dawkins to the Guardian on 6 March 2003.

"The distorting mirror of Munich and appeasement is held up with irritating regularity (Secret UN plan to take over Iraq, March 5). George Bush is said to admire Churchill, but the comparison is vain...

Turn it round. Who is the petulant bully, the "bloodthirsty guttersnipe" today? On February 16, the Observer reported that the Pentagon had been ordered by Donald Rumsfeld to impose sanctions to punish Germany for leading international opposition to a war against Iraq. "We are doing this for one reason only: to harm the German economy." Yesterday you quoted Colin Powell as warning that time is running out: "Either the international community's will has meaning or does not have meaning." One might have hoped that the will of the international community would mean whatever emerges from the deliberations of the UN. Apparently it means the unilateral will of the current US government. Most chilling of all, you report that Bush himself has warned Chirac "he will neither forgive nor forget if France continues to oppose the resolution".

Where should we look for our Chamberlain? Jack Straw warns that Washington would abandon the UN and Nato if Europe refuses to fall into line: "What I say to France and Germany and all my other EU colleagues is take care, because just as America helps to define and influence our politics, so what we do in Europe helps to define and influence American politics ... And we will reap a whirlwind if we push the Americans into a unilateralist position in which they are the centre of this unipolar world." If that is not appeasement, I'd like to know what you call it.

Richard Dawkins