The Case for Constitutional Federalism

One of the many benefits of having practised and taught constitutional law is you will possess insights into matters of current controversy, not just in your own jurisdiction but in the historically ‘parent’ jurisdictions that inspired one’s own, in my case, the Commonwealth of Australia.

One of my first questions to those new to Australian constitutional law is, "why do we speak in terms of the nation being constituted by a basic law?" and "who is doing the constituting?" of the nation-state. These are not idle questions. While Australia was a rugby and cricket team before it was a federated nation, Australia only has a legal existence because its Constitution, literally, constitutes the Commonwealth of Australia. How and why this new nation was constituted are matters of critical significance. 

[That Australia has a (very) plainly written Constitution, despite its origins as a British colony governed by British statutes and the reception of the English common law, is, actually, the triumph of a Roman Law inheritance in our part of the English speaking world.  In Roman Law, what is the law to be obeyed by ruler and ruled is always codified in clear if exhaustive terms for application by the Magistrate and for the understanding of all who will be subject to it - and what is codified is super-precedential over whatever else one may think the law should be, whether as a matter of some custom, some common law, or stare decisis. In this sense, a written Constitution is the ultimate Roman Law institution as, for a federation, it will reflect (in the case of the Crown), or will be the source of, all legitimate power and provide the fundamental rule under which all who are within its jurisdiction must live.  That the Romans, too, like the Church, possessed a federal governing culture codified by extensive legal codification, wherein the Church and then the Holy Roman Empire were, themselves, masterpieces of monarchical and hierarchical federalism (whether governing through princes or bishops), is a fascinating discussion for another day.  One must, nonetheless, bear in mind that ideas of federalism and federation derive from the same Latin root, foedus for treaty and foedera for treaties of alliance, indicating our juridical debt to a Roman history of reducing to writing, terms solemnly agreed, according to which different places and peoples would unite in alliance and common cause under a shared legal order.]

As Australians, with our “WashMinster Constitution", wherein American-style Federalism (the Washington part) coexists with British parliamentary institutions and norms (the Westminster part), we have to always acknowledge the various inspirations for own basic law, such as the Romans and, of course, the British. The Australian founding fathers in the Federation movement in the 1890s were inspired by contemporary Canadian and American experience, and to some degree that of the Swiss republic. In particular, there was high regard among the Australian founders for the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the genius of the American founding generation, in particular Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Like the American founders, the drafters of the Australian Constitution in the 1890s were conscious that they were uniting disparate British colonies who inhabited a massive island continent plus Tasmania (The distance between Sydney and Perth is greater than that between London and Moscow). In the words of Sir Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia and later a Justice of the first High Court, "a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation". The new national Constitution and the national government for which it provided were particularly required to ensure the national security and economic prosperity of those who would become the Australian nation. At the same time, like their American inspirations, the colonial Australians adopted Federalism as the device by which the several colonial polities would unite – or ‘federate’ – as one “one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown” per the Constitution's preamble.

The genius of Federalism is that it allows for a geographically and disparately, and even quite differently, populated, nation-state, to hold together, despite the inevitable frictions between its members. Federalism literally provides unity in diversity. Federalism provides a mechanism for people to share a common nationality without unduly sacrificing the big to the small, or the rural to the urban. By allowing representation by differentiated seats and territories, Federalism assures the localist that his or her membership of the larger nation does not negate the right of the province to govern itself and, also, assures that the smaller region's voice in national affairs will count for something, and not be drowned out – or dictated to – by those who may form a notional electoral majority.

The concern of Federalism is to establish a functioning and federating polity that distributes power along the lines of geographic territory and not the national populations per se. Its primary concern is to keep the federated state together, to keep 'those compacted in the compact’, to borrow from a great judge’s words. Democracy in some form is important but it is a specific form of democracy within the constituent provinces of the Federal structure and not democracy across the Federal structure.

[The alternative to Federalism is not some harmonious common democracy but, likely, a brief dictatorship of the urban majority, which will be followed, in due course, by provincial rebellions.]

Republican Federalism

It has been hard for the curious observer, with even the most basic knowledge of civics, to avoid noticing, in the American context, numerous appeals by the political media and Democratic partisans to something called “the national popular vote”. I have catalogued such irrelevant appeals to the "popular vote" on Twitter.

These appeals are usually followed by complaints regarding the asserted unfairness of the American federal compact, whereby, since the United States was founded, each State elects two senators, regardless of whether a State is a large woke-polis or some small rural enclave of hicks, “rubes”, or townies.

However, these results are Federalism doing its work in an American republican context, and, in particular, ensuring that the many smaller and rural States do not have their voices drowned out by the few large and urbanised States.

Indeed, in the case of the American founders, they purposely:
• established the United States of America (not the United People of America...one presumes the States were united for a reason);
• enshrined equal senatorial representation in the US Constitution: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State” (Article I, Section 3(1));
• established equal senatorial representation to the degree that no American state “without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate” (Article V), ie where there any doubt as to the importance of Federalism, the founders created a super-resistant amendment process if ever there was one; and
• established an electoral college (membership determined by each State’s own elections for presidential electors) to, in turn, elect the President and Vice-President, who are the United States’ only two nationally elected executive officers (Art II, Section 1). And if the electoral college is deadlocked and cannot elect a President and Vice-President, then it falls to the House of Representative...which, in the best traditions of constitutional federalism, then votes for President and Vice-President by state delegations and not by party line or any sense of a popular vote, per the Twelfth Amendment.

The concern of the American founders was to ensure that the component States remained united, in a form of government robust enough to survive and govern an expanding American territory, without allowing populated urban centres to dominate regional and rural states. The secessionist movements at the time of the war of 1812 and especially the Civil War show just how dangerous it is to expect that federating nations will always be able to hold together.

Monarchical Federalism

The wisdom of the Federalist proposition was accepted by Australia and Canada, which are both constitutional monarchies and federal nation-states. Both adopted the bicameral British Westminster parliamentary system, in which there are two Houses, as a lower elected House (House of Representatives (Australia), as well as a Senate as a House of review.

In the House, the nation is divided into electoral districts/seats/constituencies/ridings on the basis of representing a given territory containing electors for that seat. These seats' boundaries are often redrawn in order to meet population shifts and, in Australia’s case, to provide for, roughly, 150,000 residents and 100,000 voters in each seat.

In a Westminster system, the Executive power is vested in the Crown and the Executive (ie the Prime Minister and Ministry) is drawn from whichever party or coalition has the confidence of the lower House.

While the House’s responsiveness to each individual seat’s electors may be the most democratic element of the Westminster system, especially as these seats determine who will form the government, even then it should be noted, that even the most careful drawing of territorial boundaries for each seat will still provoke some grumbling.

With regard to Australia, the Constitution (s.24) guarantees to each of Australia’s Original States (ie New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, and South Australia) that they will have a minimum of five (5) House seats, regardless of population movements. Given Australia’s population distribution, and any decline in especially the Tasmanian population, the constitutional guarantee of still-sparsely populated Tasmania having at least five House seats may, in due course, become an issue for some. (As a long time support of Tasmania, if this helps keep Tasmania happily within the Australian federation, then I say Federalism is doing its job.) Moreover, House seats boundaries are limited to those of their State, and may not cross State borders, another example of the Federal nature of the Australian Constitution (per s.29).

Moreover, both Australia and Canada have Senates that are populated by senators that represent States or Provinces. In Australia’s case, each of Australia’s States have an equal number of Senators, regardless of population. Indeed, Australia’s constitutional design is so Federal that the Queensland Parliament had a special carve-out, should it wish to, to elect its Senators to represent specific senatorial electorates within that State (s.7), albeit one never exercised. In Canada’s case, the Senate is not even elected but is instead, in effect, appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day, to represent designated provinces and regional areas. None of this is democratic per se but, instead, serves the Federalist interests of making sure the federating parts of the nation-state have their voices heard and representatives in the national parliament to protect the interests of their constituent States, provinces, and regions.

Finally, in Australia’s case, the Constitution can only be amended by national referendum (s.128). Even then, a national majority of electors is insufficient – rather, a proposed constitutional amendment must not only win a national popular vote majority but must win a majority of the vote in a majority of the states. There is no more persuasive indicator of Constitutional Federalism than this requirement. The Australian Constitution's provisions for House representation and Senatorial representation also cannot be altered without the consent of the electors of the States that may be affected at the referendum, thereby replicating the United States’ requirements for constitutional amendment in Article V as regards its States.

The process for amending the Canadian Constitution is at least as Federal and, arguably, even more complex than is the case for the Australian Constitution.

The Future of Constitutional Federalism

No one is ever happy to lose an election. Some are even distressed when they win them. Nonetheless, those contesting elections in specific seats and regions are well aware of the legislative offices that they hope to occupy and what specific electors they are seeking to and, if elected, will be serving each day they are in office. And this is the whole point of Constitutional Federalism: when you run for a House seat representing a constituency or district or you run for a Senate seat for a State or a Province, you are running as a candidate to represent that specific territory and its people in an office provided for by a Federal constitution.

Under a Federal Constitution, you are elected as a territorial representative of a constituency or district or State, to serve that territory's people and to represent their interests, however great or small in size or people. You are, expressly and by intent, not elected as some national, partisan, apparatchik-at-large, who is only there to help enact the herd-like will of the “national popular vote”.

Direct democracies may seem, at first glance, fair, depending on whether or not you like the result, but, over time, they fall, inevitably, apart, especially as a few highly populated metropolises overawe the many sparsely populated towns, villages, and hamlets. Overtime, what could have been a common federal citizenship will become a disputatious unitary polity of electoral winners and losers, of rich versus poor, of town versus country, which will, when the aggrieved are denied representation, lead to political fragmentation, if not rebellion. A direct democracy for a large and diverse nation will provoke only resentments and entrench divisions.

Federalism is the ethos as well as the pact that disparate peoples inhabiting large constitutional states have made amongst themselves, in order to share a common national citizenship, while having their own voice and keeping their own patch. It allows for both necessary subsidiarity as well as for a natural loyalty to the larger nation, in the way that Edmund Buke’s ‘little platoons’ help build up the human society.

To borrow from the Americans, out of the many may, indeed, come one, but that for that one to survive times of war, depression and tumult, and to remain unified, then that one must, in its national legislature, accept that it is a unity composed by the many - and all of the many deserve to have their voices heard.

We live in a time of much anger, partisan rancour, and also much emphasis on ‘diversity’ and allowing people to determine their own courses in life. Federalism is thus not the problem – it is the answer. And while we Anglophones will always require strong central governments to secure the nation and protect its interests, we also need space in our national legislatures for those in the small town, the forgotten region, and the small and neglected province, to also have their say, and to ensure that no section of us is lost in the country that belongs to all of us together.

The Sources Of Russian Conduct

At time of writing, US President Donald Trump has just finished his first summit in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The summit itself produced no tangible outcome, other than the leaders of the two nuclear powers getting together to meet alone and then with staff. The earlier NATO meeting in Brussels had served the purposes of that alliance, by way of pledges from delinquent Europeans to increase their paltry defence budgets. This historic mission of NATO, per General Sir Hastings Ismay, assistant to Churchill and the first NATO Secretary General, is, "To keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out" albeit the Germans now keep themselves 'down' by effectively disarming.

The only real news came from the press conference, where Trump, as is his wont, denied the obvious Russian meddling in US elections, even when told by his own intelligence agencies, because of a fear that there be any question as to the legitimacy of his 2016 electoral victory. Trump’s bizarre obstinancy, which deserved, fully, the criticism that it received, was quickly outdone by the increasingly hysterical and broken, with cries of “treason” from the very same and supposedly non-partisan media that cheered on the disastrous Obama defence sequester, the inane Hillary Clinton Russian Reset, and who ridiculed Mitt Romney for his observation in 2012 that Russia was the United States’ primary geopolitical foe.

One of the miracles of the Trump era is the conversion of formerly poncy American liberals into hawks, at least against Russia, something that did not occur during the Soviet era and which was unknown before 09 November 2016. Moreover, the fact that Trump remains the US President means that many neoconservatives remain on the brink of requiring institutionalisation.

In any event, as I often say, it is always good to keep a sense of perspective and see things as they really are. If Donald Trump or, indeed, Vladimir Putin, disappeared tomorrow, the Western relationship with Russia would still have many problems. It has always been a cardinal error of Western analysis of foreign (and especially Russian) policy to focus on personalities and ignore enduring cultural and historical drivers of statecraft. This is a particular failing among Anglophones, of which I am one. English speakers and Anglophone analysts are, too often, ignorant of their own geography and history, and how it drove and still determines their statecraft. The British were and remain an island and seafaring people, whose language, law, culture and customs spread by sea to North America, Australia and New Zealand. This bred both an aggressively commercial instinct, as well as habits of insularity and provincialism. Also, being island people with sea frontiers, Anglophones were liberated from the sort of messy and combative, “cheek-by-jowl”, Realpolitik, existence that has been the lot of continental European states that share land borders, rivers, lakes, mountains, and other intimate frontiers, with historic enemies. Anglophones have the luxury of an idealism conferred by the security of their sea walls, and which idealism is denied to those continental states who must look at their enemy’s enemies for their friends. The Russian state, over centuries, has had many problems but a lack of a sense of history and geography - and a lack of enemies - is not one of them. In the case of Russia and the Russians, then, the following should always be born in mind:

A. The Russian Federation spans 11 time zones and contains 150 million people. Modern Russia sits central and atop what the British geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder called, “the heartland” of Eurasia. While the Russian economy is, on a good day, only the size of that of Italy, or less than that of California, Russia has nuclear weapons, is a major military power and arms exporter, and has a historic capacity for war, spycraft, and subversion, both out of a sense of self-preservation against adversaries and to impose its will on weaker neighbours on the Russian periphery;

B. The Russians have their own language, culture and understanding of nationhood. The Russian nation dates back to Kievan Rus in 882AD and to the story of its ensuing Christianisation. This more than 1000 year old history well predates the colonisation of the Americas, let alone the United States, and pretty much all of the states of the European Union. Russians – whether governed by Grand Princes, Tsars, Commissars, or now a President – have a defined sense of self and of shared bonds together and their estrangement from others. Moreover, the religious dominance of the state-supported and directed Russian Orthodox Church had the effect of uniting the Russian people spiritual and political in a way that Western liberal secularists fail to comprehend or, if they do, generally despise it; and

C. In that past 1000 years, the Russian people have fought against and been invaded by – from all points of the compass rose – the Mongols, the Swedes, the Persians, the Turks, the French, and the Germans (twice). And then, during the Cold War, came the shambolic Soviet attempts to maintain an empire over old central European peoples who hated both Russia and especially the Soviets. The Soviets came close to a nuclear conflict with the United States during the Cuban Missile (1962) and the Yom Kippur War (1973), and had an actual shooting conflict with China over the Ussuri River border in 1969. That Russia has been attacked from all directions, regularly, in its history, breeds a fear of encirclement and invasion that is never far from the surface of Kremlin thinking.

Suffice to say, each and all of A-C leaves their imprint down the ages. There is nothing that anyone who is (or is not) Russian can do about them. These geopolitical realities ensure Russian statecraft follows certain repetitive directions, to retain Russian power, to deploy Russian force, and to avoid Russia’s perennial fears of invasion and encirclement. It is best, then, to bear these enduring and historic influences in mind when considering statecraft, especially that of a great power. The great British military historian, Sir Basil Liddell Hart, advised his readers, a devoted one of which was the future US President, John F. Kennedy, who would review Liddell Hart’s book, in the following terms:

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face. Put yourself in his shoes - so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil - nothing is so self-blinding.

This is wise advice. Pause and think of the view from Moscow (or Tehran or Beijing) before formulating a new strategy.

As it is, we in the broader West face numerous and intractable problems in dealing with Russia which make any attempt at improving relations almost doomed to fail.

Firstly, there is no real trust between the Russians and the West. The expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders occurred in contradiction of the guarantees made to the former Soviet Union that a united Germany would be the only addition to NATO’s membership. By 1999, under the Clinton Administration, former Warsaw Pact members such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became NATO members, which has since grown to include all manner of smaller European states that few if any US politician could find on a map. Also in 1999, NATO bombed Russia’s ally Serbia in support of the Kosovars. All this NATO expansion occurred when Russia was at its weakest, most dysfunctional, and, in the Russian mind, while they were being exploited by the new oligarchs and Western vagabonds who plundered their wealth. These grievances are all ‘baked in’ the Russian relationship - and Vladimir Putin is but one of the inevitable reactions by a Russian people with grievances towards the West. The (disastrous) Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, continuing or leaving chaos in their wake, have also raised Russian anxieties as to Western enthusiasm for ‘regime change’. Even if a Vladimir Putin was not the Russian President, the advance of the NATO frontier so close to Russia and the Western involvement in the 2014 Maidan Square toppling of Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych would mean any Russian President would take steps to rebuff the West's advance.

(I leave aside the West’s own grievances against Russia, most recently its proxies’ shooting down of the MH17 aircraft, killing 298 innocent people, and Russia’s support for Iranian moves. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea is, in truth, a less serious issue, as it has no real likelihood of being reversed, given the local Crimean support for Russian unity and the fact that no Russian leader will ever surrender Sebastopol. Those criticising President Obama for weakness towards Russia over Crimea and Donetsk ignore that Obama had no good options. Simple fact is that there is simply no trust between either side and Russia is entrenching its newly acquired position.)

Secondly, Russia’s geography and the value of its ‘near abroad’ to its security mean that Russia cannot overlook Western militaries operating in or near its borders, bases and interests, be it in Afghanistan, Syria, the Black Sea or Baltic Sea. One can have idealistic dreams of a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Pacific” but the reality is that, each day, the Russian military operates and patrols to deter what the Russians see as deterrence of Western probes, intelligence collection and reconnaissance against ‘the motherland’. Even with a relationship in a better state than the current dismal one, it is inevitable that ‘blue and red’ military activities risk future clashes between Russian and Western militaries, which will, when they occur, have to be de-escalated quickly. This is in addition to Western provision of lethal military aid to the Ukranians, which risks Western weaponry being used to kill Russia’s “little green men”. One does not need to be AJP Taylor to see the obvious dangers of escalation here. Moreover, the Russian military staff system is mature and dates back centuries, improved by the Soviets, and staff training prepares Russian officers in understanding the history, languages, cultures and military thinking of their adversaries. The Russian military mind is brutal where necessary but is just as supple and sophisticated as any Western military at its higher echelons. Westerners underestimate the sophistication of Russian military thinking at their peril.

Thirdly, the sanctions against Russia have done grave damage to the Russian economy. There is no prospect of the West relaxing sanctions. There is no prospect of Russia engaging in any sort of behaviours that would lead to a relaxing of sanctions.

Fourthly, Russia (through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and bilateral relations) has sought closer relations with China and Iran. This is in addition to Russia’s role as a backer of North Korea and Syria. In the case of Russian support of Syria, this is not a policy choice suggesting a desire to relieve Americans and Israelis of anxieties as to Russian policy in the Middle East. Russia is promoting its reliability as an ally by backing its long term Syrian ally and by ensuring Russia’s bases in Tartus and Lakatia. Russia also sees these relations as a means of breaking out of its perennial fear of encirclement.

These are just some of the problems that plague the Russian relationship.

The conundrum of Western statecraft is that, at present, the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians, form a geopolitical bloc that dominates the Eurasian heartland and rimland. The military, security, and other working partnership between Russia and China has been termed "DragonBear". The more Western policy punishes Russia (rightly or wrongly), the more Russia is pushed to sees its future as one of these three overlords, rather than, say, as a humiliated counterparty of an ever more mercurial West. Moreover, from a Muscovy perspective, it is far better to be in penury and have good relations with the other land powers adjacent to Russia than to risk disappointment again by engaging with the West. A Russian people that lost tens of millions of people during the Second World War, a war that still helps define even a modern, non-Sovietised Russia, has little fear of Western sanctions that do not bind China and other states.

To some degree, the future will be determined by this geopolitical question: does the West see curtailing Chinese and Iranian ambitions as worth overlooking some previously unacceptable Russian belligerence? Can Moscow win concessions if Chinese and Iranian aspirations become the most pressing concern? If so, does Russia do what it can via arms sales, training, intelligence sharing, and subversion, to assist the Iranians, especially, and the Chinese to make as much of a nuisance of themselves as to force the West to come to terms with Russia - on Russia's terms? There is no feasible way that the West can posture military forces to engage in a “Triple Containment” of Russia, China, and Iran, especially as they are all land powers. The future of Russian statecraft may seem to be adventurist but that is to assume that the Kremlin sees the world as the West does. Where the liberal West eschews the means of military power in favour of absurd ideas of 'soft power', the Russians look at the required ends to be achieved, including intervening with overwhelming military force, as Russia's Syrian campaign has shown.

On any view, relations with Russia will remain fraught for the foreseeable future. If one is to understand Russian statecraft, one must understand the Russian people, history, and culture, on their own terms and as Russians see them. To understand your adversary is not to betray your own nation but to be able to pursue its interests all the more effectively and with a needed grounding in reality.

The current hysteria over Russia helps no one. We need a broader debate over Russian policy rather than allegations of treason or puppet when anyone tries to correct error. Conformity helps no one, especially when it is imposed on pain of dissenters being defamed. The real question must be asked, also, of the utility and realism of Western security pledges made to states on the historic Russian periphery by alliances in which Americans shoulder an immensely disproportionate share of the military burden, at a time when most Americans are tired of alliances that are, in effect, dependencies. Europeans that have effectively disarmed take grave risks when poking the Russian bear or threatening the approaches to its historic domain. The question, "Who will die for Donbass?" may not be wholly rhetorical for NATO in the years to come. The Russian view is that the Europeans are too weak, infantilised, disarmed, and militarily unserious, as well as too divided by conflicting interests, to mount any response to Russian advances, whether by way of open or by hybrid warfare. The American appetite to defend Europeans who cannot and will not help defend themselves is also, likely, waning, on all sides of US politics. The Cold War is (long) over and, to the degree that Europeans have chosen butter over guns, then the European military decline is a choice that Europeans have made for themselves. The Americans are not obligated to prevent the Europeans from suffering the inevitable consequences of their military delinquency.

I will leave the final words to Sir Basil Liddell Hart, himself a very astute judge of Russian military history and statecraft, as to why we do not learn from history:

“Regrettable as it may seem to the idealist, the experience of history provides little warrant for the belief that real progress, and the freedom that makes progress possible, lies in unification. For where unification has been able to establish unity of ideas it has usually ended in uniformity, paralysing the growth of new ideas. And where the unification has merely brought about an artificial or imposed unity, its irksomeness has led through discord to disruption.”

Spasiba.

The Crown and the Republic

Reasonable people may differ on the issue of whether Australia should remain as a constitutional monarchy or whether Australia should become a republic.

However, Australia is a constitutional monarchy at present and any move by the Australian people to change to a republic would require the drafting of significant constitutional amendments and the approval by the Australian people, in accordance with s.128 of the Constitution, of these republican amendments.

The text of the Australian Constitution can be found here and I would urge all Australians to read it and understand their fundamental law.

My view is that if one wants to break with the Crown and institute a republic - with all that will entail - then one has to accept that significant amendments will have to be made to our Constitution. Moreover, these significant amendments will have, also, to deal with the separate relations of the Crown to the several States, as set out below. As WA Wynes noted, "The central characteristic of the Australian Constitution is the predominance of the Crown in every aspect of governmental powers." There is no 'minimalist republic'. In fact, it would be much safer for republicans to propose a wholly new constitution than seek to amend our monarchical and federal Constitution.

Amending the Constitution to create a Republic

To amend the Australian Constitution to create a republic would, at the very least, require the altering of these key provisions:

(A) the Preamble to the Constitution: the Commonwealth of Australia is, literally, constituted via these words and the Constitution that follows:

“Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established”

On any view, this preamble would have to change and a new sovereign authority found to replace the Crown. Note that the Australians are federating pursuant to the "Two Unders": under the British Crown and under the Constitution. The Crown's position in our Constitution is a matter, simply, of enormity. Also, I am unaware of whether Australia’s republicans wish to remove the references to God in the preamble. The other covering clauses would have to be changed as well;

(B) Chapter II of the Constitution concerning the Executive Power of the Commonwealth, will have to be significantly amended, or, more likely, replaced in its entirety. Section 61 vests, specifically, the Executive Power of the Commonwealth in the Monarch, to be exercised by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative. The constitutional vesting of the Commonwealth’s executive power in the Crown means that, along with that power, we derive from the Crown’s existence, also, our day-to-day Westminster governing norms of responsible government and, in a crisis, the reserve powers of the Crown. In any parliamentary crisis, such as in 1932 or 1975, it is the Governor-General’s duty to ensure that the Constitution is maintained and the laws enforced, and, especially, to ensure that the Australian people decide through elections how a situation of government illegality or deadlock is to be resolved (hence the Governor-General’s power per s.5 to dissolve the House for fresh elections-see discussion below). If the Crown is abolished, so, too, are all these understandings of the executive power that are answered, currently, by the Crown’s position in our Constitution. Inevitably any republic will create a vacuum in the exercise of the executive power–and it cannot be filled by a jurisprudence of ‘cut and paste/replace’ republicanism. A Governor-General acting under royal convention cannot become a President who will be restrained by none of those conventions.

Any president - regardless of whether she or he is elected by two-thirds of the Parliament or directly by the people - will have an electoral mandate that no Governor-General, as the representative of the Monarch, can ever have, or seek to assert now. It will be only human for an elected president of the republic with this sort of national mandate to, sooner or later, seek to exercise the powers that will be reposed in that office, unhindered by royal conventions. There is no minimalist replacement of the Governor-General with any sort of elected President that is, at all, constitutionally safe. There is no safe replacememnt, either, of the Governor-General, by a president appointed by the Prime Minister of the day, who has no security of tenure. Chapter II was drafted on the basis that the Governor-General was the Monarch’s representative and, on those royal and constitutional terms, would exercise the executive power. Chapter II cannot, now, be warped into a republican provision. Instead, any republic would require wholly new provisions setting out what the republican president may or may not do in explicit terms, especially if that president is to ‘cohabit’ with an elected Prime Minister who is already enjoying the confidence of the House of Representatives, where governments are made and broken. The potential for frequent conflict between these two executive office holders - who both have their own national mandates - is obvious, as is the scale of the chaos that could well ensue if they are deadlocked. Again, there is no minimalist solution to the problem of the executive power;

(C) Section 5 will need to be amended, as it allows the Governor-General to prorogue the Parliament and, where necessary, to dissolve the House of Representatives. The exercise of this power now is, almost always, only done on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day, to cause a federal election. However, in times of crisis or deadlock, s.5’s power may be exercised by the Governor-General to force new elections and ensure the Australian people are the ones to resolve a parliamentary crisis at the ballot box. It is hard to see how any future republican president, possessed of a national mandate, where faced with an opposing Prime Minister, especially if that Prime Minister was unpopular, could avoid the temptation to dissolve the House and seek new elections that could remove the difficult Prime Minister. Absent the Crown and precedent regulating this power’s exercise, one can foresee s.5 enabling the slow accretion of power to the presidential office by the frequent calling of elections for the House to remove opposing and difficult prime ministers;

(D) Section 68, as the issue of who is to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces and on what terms, will also be a critical matter. Again, the centuries-old British understandings of a Monarch in command of the armed forces, exercised by the Crown only on advice of the elected government of the day, will be replaced by a President who, one presumes, will have powers of military command, while having, also, this national mandate of either parliamentary or popular vote. What are the armed forces to do when a President and the Prime Minister both have an electoral mandate and yet disagree on matters of war, peace or, in times of domestic crisis, disagree on what is to be done to suppress terrorism, riot, disorder, or an insurgency? One should note here that s.119 obliges the Commonwealth to “...protect every State against invasion and, on the application of the Executive Government of the State, against domestic violence” and the obvious problems of who decides what that protection may involve. The armed forces cannot be left to guess and, in the long history of republican collapses, they have not infrequently been brought to an end by a coup as by civil war or economic slump. While such military stirrings against the civil power are anathema to our history and traditions, so, too, is the idea of a republic itself. If you will the republic, you will the risks of disorder that any republic entails;

(E) Section 126, which permits the Monarch to authorise the Governor-General to appoint any person, or any persons jointly or severally, to be deputy or deputies exercising powers, will have to be amended, as presumably any republican president will have a vice-president? If not, what is to happen when the republican president is disabled or impeached? Who is to succeed to the office?

Additionally – and this is a matter worthy of a long treatise in itself – each of the Australian States has their own royal Governor, each with their own state constitutional foundation and relationship to the Monarch. Any federal move to a republic is not necessarily binding on the individual States and their peoples who, also, with a Governor and parliament, have their own polities under the Crown. I recommend, strongly, the magisterial “The Chameleon Crown: The Queen and Her Australian Governors” by Anne Twomey on this matter. The potential position of royal States attempting to exist within a national republic is the stuff of constitutional minefields. (One should note that Western Australia has, already, a history of secessionism under the Crown….)

These are just some of the major provisions that will require amendments. Others, such as sections 16, 34. and 44, dealing with the constitutional qualifications of Senators and House members will have to be amended, entirely, as the concept of a “subject of the Queen” will be rendered nugatory by the republic. Moreover, there can be little doubt, following on from the recent parliamentary citizenship debacles, that proposals will be made that persons with dual citizenship should be eligible for election to the House and Senate and, presumably, to then hold ministerial office. One awaits the referendum that asks Australians to agree to risk having dual citizens hold the offices of Prime Minister, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Home Affairs, Defence, National Security, and Foreign Affairs.

In short, creating an Australian republic is an enormous constitutional undertaking. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Please read and know your Constitution.

The Referendum

Assuming, though, that all of these (and, no doubt, other) necessary republican alterations can, somehow, be agreed upon by constitutional conventions and by the parliament, then the republic would still need to be approved by the Australian people in a way that satisfies s128’s “double majority” requirement: the republic would need to be supported both by (A) a national majority of all electors and (B) a majority of the electors in a majority of the States. Over the past 117 years of the Australian Commonwealth, the Australian people have passed only 8 of the 44 referenda proposed, with the most recent 1999 referendum on an Australian republic being defeated in all States and succeeding only in the Australian Capital Territory. This history is not encouraging for major changes of the kind that will have to be proposed by the domestic republican movement.

My Own Thoughts

Good people may differ on the merits of republics and whether one is appropriate for Australia. The American republic offers a model of a classical republic, with separations of all powers and of all bodies, with the executive and the legislature as strangers, often hostile ones. The American model has its strengths and weaknesses, even after a bloody civil war, and so do, also, the various French, Irish, German, and Swiss models. At time of writing, I have no idea what is proposed for Australia’s republic other than assurances that it is not a major change. I trust the above has dissuaded any honest Australian from holding such an ignorant view.

If one has been convinced by the cosmetic and symbolic appeal of a republic and the need to break with the Crown, then one has a duty to one’s fellow Australians to not allow the current constitutional monarchy to be replaced by some antipodean republican chaos that is devised by the fashionable dregs of celebrity, media, and academe.

(I note here for completeness that while the throne is occupied, at present, by the descendants of the usurping German Protestant Hanoverians, not the legitimate British Catholic Stuarts, that is not the issue here).

So, please look at our Constitution with sobriety and with a justifiable scepticism as to whether any proposed republic will function under the stresses of war, peace, depression, etc, and whether the inevitably competing centres of power created by a republic can be restrained by law.

The rule of law, once lost, is extraordinarily hard to re-establish. The grisly fate of the Weimar republic should always be upper most in anyone’s mind, and, also, so should the British constitutional monarchies infinitely better weathering of the stresses of two world wars and depressions, and without any shift away from parliamentary democracy to authoritarianism. For over a century, tens of millions of people have left their homelands to immigrate to Australia, with the security and stability of our Constitution and commitment to the rule of law an unspoken but foundational attraction. And, need I point out, our Constitution cannot enforce itself. In our system, it is the Crown that is the ultimate guarantor of our constitutional order, and the enforcement of both the Constitution and the laws made under it. Most importantly, the Crown also supplies the royal umpire to resolve periodic parliamentary crises or constitutional deadlocks – if necessary by dissolving the House to ensure fresh elections.

It is said of the Australian Constitution that it was drafted by geniuses so that Australia could be governed by fools, such that it also made it very hard for our Constitution to be amended. For my part, I am thankful for the Australian founding fathers’ efforts to make our Constitution as difficult to change as it is made by s.128’s deliberately onerous processes, which showed an early but correct distrust of the schemes and machinations of the political classes who they clearly suspected would come to inhabit a remote capital. The saying, “If there is no need for change, there is a need not to change”, is a sound one for constitutional questions. So is, “if you do not know, vote NO.”

For over 117 years, the Australian Constitution has survived wars, depressions, cold wars, hung parliaments, numerous innumerate and ethically dubious governments, a coterie of crooked MPs and Senators, and a host of other afflictions imposed by the political class on the rest of us. It is said against the Crown that it is undemocratic, remote, and anachronistic. However, in my view, these qualities are but only a few of the Australian Crown's key strengths. The monarch cannot be ejected by the ambitious politicians of the day, most of whom resent that they may aspire only to be ministers of the Crown and not holders of supreme power. The monarchy is a guardian of the Constitution and not some proto-Caesar eager to dictate to the polity. And, yes, the monarchy is as irrelevant to our age as the monarchy is to every age, but its irrelevancy is what makes it also timeless, as is its usefulness, practicality, and value as an enduring institution that is beyond the petty politics of the day. The reposing by our Constitution of the Executive Power in the Crown provides Australia with stability and order in the day-to-day operation of government, as well as a source of military traditions and non-partisan allegiance. The armed forces, police, prosecutors, and other coercive and powerful arms of the state serve the Crown, not the politicians of the day. There is much to be said for such a distinction between the Crown that is served and to which allegiance is owed, and the day-to-day responsiveness of such public servants to the elected government, which changes with elections. One junks such traditions and practices of legality, stability, and good order, only at one’s national peril. Any proposed republic must not compromise the legitimacy and security provided by the Crown to our Constitution. It would be nothing short of insane for Australians to trust in and accept the assurances of our political class (and their acolytes in the media and elsewhere) that they will, by some hypothetical and unexplained republic, improve on an old and enduring constitutional monarchy that has already worked so well, so consistently, under so much historic stress.

So, it is over to the republicans to make their case and to propose their large and necessary constitutional amendments. In explicit detail. And well in advance of any referendum. With time for the needed debates and back and forth that any sensible polity must engage in before changing their organic law.

As for the rest of my fellow Australians, please remember that these debates will occur in respect of our Constitution and, as the ancient maxim found on war memorials across Australia and across the world goes, “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Please do not just be vigilant: be demanding, be questioning, be sceptical, be exacting, and demand answers, of those promoting constitutional change. We Australians and our Constitution are too important and too special to be corrupted, meddled with, or compromised, and in a manner that may have permanently dire consequences for all that we have achieved, thus far, as a nation. The Constitution is our fundamental law and, if it unravels, so, too, will the Australian nation that it, literally, constitutes. CAVEAT

POSTSCRIPT (Thursday 10 May 2018)

Noting that I had, briefly, covered, the s44 issue, above, I make this postscript as the High Court of Australia, yesterday, made its orders and published its reasons for judgment in the Gallagher case. The High Court had previously published reasons in the prior Canavan and Nash cases, which also concerned s44 of the Constitution. I would make these observations relevant to the Crown and Republic issues:

1/ There have been predictable calls for s44 to be amended to allow for dual citizens to be qualified to stand for the Parliament. Any constitutional alteration to amend s44 would have to pass the double majority required by s128. This attempt would most certainly fail nationally and, one suspects, in every State, as well.

2/ The High Court, helpfully, set out in its various reasons that the Constitution prescribes a system of "representative and responsible government", in which citizens elect representatives in the House and Senate, to which the Executive is responsible. In Australia's "Washminster" system, an MP or Senator, once elected, participates not just as a parliamentarian but, also, may participate in the executive government as a minister or parliamentary secretary. To the degree that Australians elect their local MP and their State's Senators, they are, also, electing the current or future members of the executive branch. Insofar as MPs and Senators could, ever, hold dual citizenship, then, inevitably, Australia would risk having a Prime Minister, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Defence, Home Affairs, and Foreign Ministers who also hold Russian, Chinese or Iranian citizenships.

3/ When the Australian Constitution was being debated and drafted in the 1890s, there had been, for decades, significant immigration from around the world to the various Australian colonies that would unite from New Year's Day 1901 as the Commmonwealth of Australia. Pretty much every one of the founding fathers of the Australian federation and the Constitution's framers was familiar with mass immigration, either as an immigrant or as a child of an immigrant(s). At the same time, one of the key drivers of the Australian federation movement was national security. As the High Court held in Joseph v Colonial Treasurer (1918) 25 CLR 32 at 46, "It is a matter of common knowledge that the necessity of a single authority for the defence of Australia was one of the urgent, perhaps the most urgent, of all the needs for the establishment of the Commonwealth." It is difficult to see how any case can be made, in 2018, that considerations of the effects of immigration and competing loyalties of newcomers would have been absent from considerations in the 1890s as to what qualifications may be required of a member of the House and Senate. At the same time, as one can note from (2) above, in our Washminster system, any MP or Senator may become a member of the executive. In certain portfolios, there will be reposed a very high degree of trust in, and loyalty demanded from, the executive office holder. It is very hard to see how it serves Australia's welfare to have a Prime Minister, Treasurer, Attorney-General, or Defence, Home Affairs, or Foreign Minister, with a foreign citizenship, allegiance or other obligation of loyalty.

4/ The most practicable solution to the current crisis is for all aspiring members of the House and Senate to ensure, before they nominate for the Parliament, that their citizenship affairs are in good order and that they comply with s44's requirements. It is the height of absurdity for any aspiring politician to think they should enter Parliament and make laws for the Australian people to live under, when that aspiring politician has, clearly, never read Australia's fundamental law, the Constitution. Australia has an insular political class that believes that when their members are in conflict with the Constitution's clear requirements, that it is the Constitution that should change, not our political class that should ensure their own compliance.

Finally, as a true postscript, I would add that Australia's Constitution provides in Chapter I for a House composed of members representing the interests of their local electoral divisions and a Senate composed of senators representing the interests of their States. The Constitution does not and was never intended to provide for a permanent political class, to provide career tracks (or endless loops) for politicians, staffers, advisors, lobbyists, and a host of other dubious inhabitants of the 2600 postcode. Australian politics - and the quality of our law making and governance - is afflicted, as never before, by party machines, hacks, 'introducers', and a raft of political vagabonds, for whom Parliament is merely a means to further sinecures, not an opportunity to serve Australia and her interests.

It was said of the Roman consul Cincinnatus (519BC–430 BC) that, when Rome was threatened, he left his small farm, laying down his plough so as to wield his sword in Rome's cause, and that, once Rome had been saved and the danger passed, Cincinnatus gave up power, willingly, to return his sword to its scabbard and plow, once again, his fields. The story of Cincinnatus was well known to the early American republic. The example of General George Washington surrendering the American presidency after two terms to return to Mount Vernon is, perhaps, the best example of Cincinnatus since the ancients. Nonetheless, this ancient model of political life and public service - as a vocation for serious people not a career for swamp dwellers - must return in our own times if we are to have any hope of improving the standards of our Parliament and our governance. As Montesquieu wrote in his Spirit of the Laws (1748), "The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles."

Australians need to rediscover not just our Constitution, and the principles on which it is founded, but, also, defend them against those whose negligence and stupidity threaten them and risk their ruin.

The Syrian War

With US/Western military action against Syria now seemingly a matter of when not if, it is good to take stock as to where we are on this matter. And by “we”, I mean the Western military alliance led by the US, which stretches from the Americas to NATO, through Israel and the Gulf allies, then through increasingly India, to the US’ Asian allies such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and New Zealand.

There are very good international order and public international law reasons for the US to strike the Assad regime insofar as such a strike is punishment for the regime’s use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against their own people or, indeed, against any regime that would use WMDs, at all. There is a general agreement that as weapons of war go, and as bad as war is, the use of WMDs is a threshold that is best not crossed and, if so, no use of WMDs should go unpunished. The use of nuclear, chemical, or biological, weapons, must not be excused, and none of us should want to live in a world where this sort of warfare is routine.

At the same time, there are very good reasons for avoiding any further involvement in the Syrian war and, especially, pushing for any sort of regime change in Syria. This has been my view since at least 2013.

Firstly, Syria is c18-20m people, a majority of whom are Sunni Muslim (most of a not particularly zealous kind), but who are also composed of sizeable Alawite, Druze, Christian and other minorities. The non-salafist Sunnis, as well as the minorities, still cling to the Assad regime out of both fear, and the ultimate prudential choice of Assad’s brutishness being infinitely preferable to being subjects of an Islamist regime or the next star of a jihadi beheading video. Welcome to the world of “the enemy of my enemy may be a brute but he will hopefully kill me last”. If you struggle in comprehending this sort of complexity, please do not dabble in the Middle East. Syria is the last bastion of Baathism and the sort of pan-Arab, formally secular, ideology that had once been a conventional wisdom across the Middle East, which manifested itself in similarly brutal if secular regimes in Egypt and Iraq.

Secondly, as a matter of realpolitik, the Syrian regimes of Assad senior and junior have been reliable Soviet/Russian and Iranian clients for well over 40 years.

The Russians have growing bases in Syria at Tartus and Latakia, and supply arms, personnel, and even mercenaries to the Assad regime. Putin has made very clear that he supports the Syrian regime, even if he may be open to discussing the terms of an Assad family exit. It is hard to see how or why the Russians would ever surrender bases and influence in a prime Mediterranean location, as well as the venues these offer Russia to expand its intelligence collection and operational capabilities.

The Iranians, also, since at least the Iran-Iraq war, have been reliable allies of Assad and the Syrians have been loyal facilitators of Iran's ambitions, including its arming and training of Hezbollah in adjoining Lebanon, as well as helping run a Sunni jihadi ratline into western Iraq during the allied occupation of Iraq.

Any move on Syria risks entrapment in all of these inescapable foes’ schemes, especially the poking of a Russian bear. The Russians do have a quite serious domestic jihadi threat and the Putin regime has expressly linked Russia’s war in Syria to its war against other Islamist terrorist groups. It is difficult to explain to Westerners ignorant of Russian religion, history and culture, just how seriously the Russians view the threat of Islamist terrorism, which in the Russian mind, they have been fighting in one form or another for centuries.

As for Iran, if combating its influence is a goal, as it should be, then Lebanon, rather than Syria, is, on any view, a better place to do this, especially in the building up of the Lebanese armed forces and the Lebanese state so that, in due course, Hezbollah can be disarmed or at least marginalised. Those seeking to reduce Iran are looking in the wrong place for the right objective.

It has been difficult to comprehend what, precisely, is the Western interest in seeing the status quo – the Assad regime – replaced by an inevitably Sunni Islamist regime, that would have been brought to power by a jihad that has the cosmetics of a rebellion. There is no third option, no military junta, no wise council of the liberally minded to play founding fathers of a new Syria. This has not been for a lack of looking by Western Governments eager to, again, try and find a new Syrian team to support. No one advocating regime change in Syria can explain to you who or what is to replace Assad.

Indeed, the usual pattern of Western liberal interventionism has been that a brutish regime’s toppling will lead to a democracy of a sort; there will be elections, and popular involvement will confer legitimacy and a new state will emerge over time. This was the plan in Iraq, Libya and Syria. That the various national histories, geography, culture, religion, all pointed to these plans being hopelessly ill-founded was entirely irrelevant.

What is meant to happen is overtaken by what always happens: the strong man’s regime falls, there is an ineffective replacement of nice people who can speak English on CNN for a period, and then, the strongest, most brutish horse wins. To use the Iranian example, the brutish but modernising Shah is replaced by ineffectual but well meaning liberals educated in the West....and these are then toppled by murderous Mullahs (who, like the Shah, deliver bread and electricity, but also, now, turn the nation into a prison). There is no reason to believe that toppling Assad’s regime in Syria will not, similarly, see a brutish secular regime replaced by a worse regime supportive of Sunni jihadis.

Much Western commentary advocating Syrian regime change has been authored by politicians and pundits who, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Egypt to Libya, have been completely and utterly discredited by events over more than three decades and by a repeated unwillingness to recognise the unique governance problems that persist in this tribalised and sectarian region. From John McCain to Bernard-Henri Lévy to Michael Ignatieff, the coalitions of laptop bombardiers and the foreign policy “Blob” have got everything wrong about their successive targets. These errors are still debated in the West but nothing can alter the tens of thousands of lives lost and irretrievably destroyed, as well as the billions wasted, by catastrophically stupid Western interventions in the lands of the Ottomans and the Shahs.

Since well before the fall of Constantinople, what is now the greater Middle East was traumatised over centuries by conquerors and invaders, by the clash of Christian and Islamic worlds, and by the desire to control silk roads and seaways. In particular, the brutalisation of the region by the Ottomans and, also, by great power conflicts among the Ottomans, the Iranians, various Western powers and by Russian intrigue and "The Great Game", cannot be overstated. Only in the post-everything West is history considered optional. Yet, breathtakingly stupid Westerners have blundered away for the past almost 20 years and wreaked havoc in an already Hobbesian region that almost none of them can find on a map and/or have read anything about. It is, frankly, maddening.

Moreover, in a strategic situation in which Russia, China, and Iran, pose an increasingly coordinated threat in Eurasia against the West's security interests, then Syria is the worst possible place to divert scarce military and intelligence resources to mount a hopeless and, inevitably, counter-productive campaign. The Western security position is opposed if not yet threatened by a China seeking its own commercial, energy, and security domain.

Indeed, the object of a sensible and realistic Western policy would be to note China's OBOR push and to seek to detach Russia, given China's drive to regain its natural, historic hegemony and Iran's imperial ambitions. Russia is the odd member of this anti-Western coalition. This said, before any rapprochement with Russia is possible, the Russians would have, first, to show signs of being willing to act in good faith, in substance not in form. It is hard, regardless, to see how now escalating a Western war against a Russian ally would make that rapprochement any more likely, as opposed to it likely solidifying further the current if historically unnatural rapport among Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran.

As for what comes next, one can only hope that the realistic instincts of President Donald Trump overcomes the advice he will be given by institutions and advisors who have learned nothing.

Enforcing public international law norms against the use of WMDs cannot be confused with the international social work of remaking Syria.

A strong and measured strike against Assad and his military is deserved and should be supported. But a wider campaign of regime change would be pure idiocy and should be opposed.

One can only hope that Trump has asked his more hawkish advisors what comes next after any strike? What does happen next? What, especially, is to happen, if Western military/intelligence operators or civilians are captured by Assad's forces? Has anyone sat down, calmly, and thought of the second and third order effects of escalating any war with Assad's regime, which will inevitably involve Russia and Iran?

I wrote this last April 2017 when Trump found himself at a similar crossroads with Syria and nothing has altered my view since:

However, the scope of the West's military effort in Syria should not be broadened to include that of seeking regime change or, indeed, some wider war in the Iraq and Syria areas of operations with Iran, Russia or their proxies. The West already has sufficient unfinished wars as it is without adding new fronts fighting protracted wars with the well-armed and combat-experienced forces of major military powers.

President Trump is known to be a disciple of two of America's greatest soldiers, General Douglas MacArthur and General George Patton. Both men were commanders known for achieving victories based on inspired leadership, meticulous planning, a keen appraisal of opposing forces, the relentless use of mass firepower, speed, and the remorseless concentration of forces on the weakest points of the enemy's positions. MacArthur himself has gone into history for the phrase, "In war there is no substitute for victory", uttered after MacArthur's relief as the allied commander during Truman's poorly prosecuted war in Korea.

However, less well known is that General MacArthur, in retirement, counselled presidents, prime ministers and various 'wise men' that wars that cannot be won must never be fought. MacArthur, in particular, advised his former Pacific war subordinate, President John F. Kennedy, to avoid land wars in Asia and, in particular, escalating the Vietnam war, which MacArthur judged as likely only to result in the US and its allies being bogged down in a costly quagmire that placed them at the mercy of their foes.

In the loneliness of the presidency, with all its burdens and responsibilities, and surveying the world on fire that has been bequeathed to him, President Trump could surely do worse than ask what his heroes MacArthur and Patton would make of the prospect of yet another long and unwinnable war in the Middle East? One suspects their advice would be, in every sense, laconic.

The Syrian war is a hole that we should not go down, let alone dig any deeper.