To Times Lit Supplement

It’s deucedly clever how Tim Mackintosh Smith injects his anti-Americanisms into his review of Geoffrey Nash’s From Empire to Orient in the 9/15/06 TLS: once in a parenthesis telling of his and another Arabist’s rejection of proposals to rat on their Arab friends, again in a closing urging of Britishers to “listen to [their] own troublemakers, to people like George Galloway.”

The first represents refusal to supply dreadfully needed help in combating terrorism. The second is an endorsement of a fevered and feverish opponent of all things American in the Middle East.

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