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As I watched him staring at the audience, eyes hooded and recessed in their sockets, his mouth in a rictus of a smile - lips pulled back, teeth clenched even as he spoke - his was a righteous and manic anger as well as a naive perplexity at those who did not see the world as he did. I thought he was born a few centuries too late - he would have made a perfect Grand Inquisitor, a Righteous Puritan, a beardless Ayatollah - secure in the conviction of his own righteousness, marching to his own drum, intent on the destruction of the heretics who had not seen the light he offered and who refused to accept all he believed and all he stood for.
There was no trace of remorse, not a hint of the possibility that, in retrospect, he might have been wrong when he ordered that vital information to be withheld from an ally henceforth.
His words: "In 1981, when the Iraqi nuclear reactor was bombed by Israel, I wondered where the Israelis got their targeting material. In Honoring our commitment to Israel's defense we provided satellite photography of potential direct threats, but when I checked, I found out that Israel had requisitioned data on areas that were quite a distance away - Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, etc. I made a decision to limit the process to within 250 miles."

Just like that. Period. End of issue. No need to consult the potential victim, even if it is a Jewish state whose survival is supposed to be national policy. The decision was made and that was that. He sneered at the furious protests by then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon as he told the press conference that Caspar Weinberger supported his decision, and that Safire complained in vain about the new policy to CIA Director Casey.

Question: who is the writer referring to? As a point of history, was this kind of retaliation for the Osirac bombing diplomatically defensible, particularly when it was in violation of well established security agreements?

I’m sorry, I couldn’t get past the first paragraph, which is the most awful prose I have ever seen in print. As to the rest, I don’t know what the hell this writer is talking about.

Could you please quote something that has a bit less of a “third grade girl’s diary” feel to it? I’m quite serious. I don’t mind learning, but even for a polemic this is the most poorly-written piece of garbage I have ever seen.

I don’t say this lightly, that is just plain terrible.