Jonathan Freedland
This threat is far worse than al-Qaida’s. To defeat it, the west must refuse to conflate Russia with its nihilistic leader.
Just as a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut, so Liz Truss has put her finger on something true. On Thursday the foreign secretary gave a speech, in which she declared: “The invasion of Ukraine is a paradigm shift on the scale of 9/11.” Like the uncanny feeling that comes on seeing a stopped clock telling the right time, it was a jolt to hear a halfway accurate assessment come from a senior member of the UK government. Still, naturally, there were things Truss did not and would not say. For one thing, what no one will call 2/24 is likely to prove even more significant than 9/11. For another, the chief value in making a comparison between this moment and the agony of September 2001 is to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes all over again.
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