Here’s the latest bit of rancid tripe from John Simpson at the BBC. Mr. Simpson is apparently trying to outfisk Bob Fisk.

In 32 years of reporting on international affairs, I have never seen Britain and the United States more separated from each other: not during the terrible last years of the Vietnam War, not during President Reagan’s Iran-Contra dealings or his espousal of the crackpot Star Wars system.

“…crackpot Star Wars system.”

Well, I guess we know where he’s coming from. I wonder if he’s feigning objectivity, or if, unlike his counterparts here, he’d be proud to proclaim his biases?

Just for your information, Mr. Simpson, but that “crackpot” idea played a major role in bringing down the Soviet Union. But then, that’s probably one of the reasons that you despise it, and us, so.

On two occasions last week I met senior civil servants from government departments in London who would normally be regarded as the natural bedrock of support for the Atlantic Alliance. In both cases I found open contempt for current American policy, especially towards the Middle East.

That’s good news. It means that we’re finally on the right track.

It’s easy enough to spot particular elements in this change of attitude. One is President Bush’s new line on Yasser Arafat and his support for the determination of Israel, under Ariel Sharon, to break up what little remains of the Oslo Accords.

Arafat himself killed Oslo, years ago. But I guess it’s easier to live in delusion, and blame the messenger (Bush) when he, unlike Whitehall, recognizes the reality, and declares the decaying carcass dead.

It took the Bush administration a good deal of internal negotiation to come up with its ringing endorsement of the Sharon line, but leading British civil servants I spoke to about last week’s speech by Mr Bush regarded it as – I quote – “puerile”, “absurdly ignorant” and “ludicrous”.

Yup, we’re definitely getting it right now. You can’t get a better endorsement than that, considering the source.

It is possible to spot some common elements here. There is, for instance, a rooted dislike of the “arrogance” – not my word, but that of a senior and much respected civil servant – that enables President Bush (“a bear of very little brain” – ditto) to announce to the Palestinians who should and shouldn’t be their leader.

And there is a parallel impatience at the “stupidity” (ditto) which will unquestionably ensure that Palestinians of all kinds will now feel obliged to support Yasser Arafat as their leader, for better or worse.

There’s this concept in psychology called “projection…”

Bush didn’t say who their leader should be. He just stated the conditions under which the US would work with the Palestinians to have their own state (and to continue to receive funding). They can choose whoever they want, and they can (finally) live with the consequences of their choices.

Next week we will have the latest round in the trade war that has blown up between America and Europe over issues such as steel, where Washington reserves the right to impose tariffs on some foreign imports and pay huge subsidies to sections of its own ailing industry, while lecturing the outside world about the duty to support free trade and allow US goods into their markets at preferential rates. The moralising is starting to grate: and it looks like hypocrisy.

Well, he does have him there. But even a blind squirrel will turn up an acorn now and then.

Take another, completely different example. The creation of an international criminal court is something that people across the world have worked towards for decades.

Now, there’s a compelling argument. I guess that we’re supposed to ineluctably conclude from this that an international criminal court must therefore be an unalloyed Good Thing.

Of course, what he displays here is at least two (and possibly more) logical fallacies: “appeal to belief” and “bandwagon.”

Here, let me try a couple:

The destruction of the Jewish race is something that people across the world have worked towards for decades.

Or, restoration of the Caliphate is something that people across the world have worked towards for decades.

See? It’s fun!

Suddenly, it exists and has the power to try suspected war criminals; but the US, nervous that its own citizens – from a private soldier who kills people on a peace mission to, shall we say, Henry Kissinger – might be dragged before the court, is demanding immunity from arrest or prosecution for any American troops involved in United Nations peace-keeping duties.

To be honest, I can’t quite work out whether this is because the Bush administration dislikes the UN and its peace-keeping role almost as much as it does the international court, and wants to undermine them; or whether it comes primarily from a sense that Americans are not as other people, and shouldn’t be subject to the same rules. For obvious reasons, other countries find this distinctly annoying.

Well, John, here’s what Americans find annoying. They find it annoying to be judged by a court composed of countries who believe: that Zionism is racism; that there’s nothing wrong with a terrorist state being head of the UN Security Council; that Arafat isn’t a terrorist, but that Sharon is; that Peres should hand back his peace prize, but that Arafat needn’t; that we should cripple the world economy, and particularly the US economy, to delay global warming for a year and a half a hundred years from now; that Saddam Hussein is not a threat to us or his neighbors; that defending ourselves against missiles is “crackpot”; and foremost, that we should be bound by treaties that we haven’t signed or ratified.

It’s the sovereignty, stupid.

And amid all this, poor old Tony Blair has to try to stay on friendly terms with a president whom even some of his own ministers and civil servants regard with contempt. It won’t be at all easy.

Well, it’s not that hard, John–ministers can certainly be replaced. As can Prime Ministers…