Christopher Hitchens gets served by AJP Taylor

Christopher Hitchens won’t abandon his position on the war, claiming he’s being proven right by, um, rising oil prices. Andrew Sullivan – who had his own Hari moment -  makes light work of Hitchens’ obstinancy:

Let me try to get this straight: a prediction that the entire war and reconstruction could be all but paid for by the Iraqis is vindicated by a $2 trillion expense to the American tax payer because five years after the invasion, Iraq’s oil supplies are finally bringing in revenue. I mean really.

But one of the best servings of Hitchens, Paul Berman and others on the “decent left”, came from AJP Taylor more than 50 years ago:

Imperialism was a product of Radical enthusiasm… Every Imperialist believed that Great Britain had achieved the highest form of civilization ever known and that it was her duty to take this civilization to ‘the lesser breeds without the law’. These were radical beliefs. The coloured races should receive the emancipation which had been denied to the Bulgarians. Cromer, the leading figure in Egypt, was a Liberal. So was Milner, who first worked in Egypt and then became the chief maker of the Boer war. Whenever Milner returned to England, he spent his time with Liberals – Asquith, Haldane, Grey – never with Tories… Chamberlain the greatest Imperialist of all, would have led the Liberal party if he had not fallen foul of Gladstone. The Imperialists had little respect for tradition. Kipling, the bard of Empire, was so contemptuous of the Establishment that he refused all decorations, including even the Order of Merit; and he described Edward VII as ‘a corpulent voluptary’.