Social life in London has become a dangerous business. You are at an apparently relaxed dinner party, and someone suddenly launches into an anti-American diatribe—as often as not, to general applause. You are having a friendly conversation, when out of the blue there is a crack about the utter impossibility of Dubya or the evil ways of the Washington junta—and the assumption is you’ll agree.

The occasion for these outbursts is usually, of course, Iraq. But when the subject comes up it is striking how little time is spent talking about Saddam Hussein and what should be done about him. There is a ritual acknowledgment that he is not a nice man, and then the real denunciations can begin. America is a rogue state; don’t let them fool you, it’s all about oil (or alternatively all about Dad); George W. Bush is a cowboy, a simpleton, a recovering alcoholic, a madman, a usurper… . But readers of The New Criterion har ...

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