In her usual bracing style, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher delivered an excellent address to the Royal United Services Institute on March 1. Think of it as instruction in how not to go wobbly.
* 0n Iraq: "Recently British airmen have been engaged over Iraq. I strongly support that U.S.-British action. Saddam Hussein counts as unfinished business. He is neither manageable nor, in the long term, containable. He has to be removed. It is because he himself knows this that Saddam will never ease up his pressure on us. We for our part can hardly expect otherwise. Saddam knows the score -- even if some of our more faint-hearted allies don't."
* 0n American missile defense plans: "On this side of the Atlantic, there is a tendency to suggest that the problem of proliferation can be solved by diplomatic means and by control regimes designed to halt the flow of military technology. The possibilities of controlling proliferation by such means were always much slimmer than the optimists thought. Now they are all but a dead letter.
"To me, it is strange that European states have so enthusiastically lined up with Russia and China in opposing America's plans for a system of missile defense -- plans which would increase our safety. We should, in fact, be particularly keen to see ourselves included within a truly global system."
* 0n the European Army: "The public could be forgiven for thinking that there are two plans: one for strengthening NATO, and one for creating a rival organization to it. My own view is that if the Europeans truly wish to improve their NATO contribution they can show it simply enough. They can increase defense expenditure. They can move more swiftly to establish professional armed forces like those of the United Kingdom. And they can acquire more advanced technology. Indeed, unless that happens soon, the gulf between European and U.S. capabilities will yawn so wide that it will not be possible to share the same battlefield."