Mark Steyn writes that we've replaced Salman Rushdie in hiding:

I told my London friends that I had to hand it to Tony Blair's advisers: What easier way for the toothless old British lion, after the humiliations inflicted upon the Royal Navy sailors by their Iranian kidnappers, to show you're still a player than by knighting Salman Rushdie for his "services to literature"? Given that his principal service to literature has been to introduce the word "fatwa" to the English language, one assumed that some characteristically cynical British civil servant had waved the knighthood through as a relatively cheap way of flipping the finger to the mullahs.

But no. It seems Her Majesty's Government was taken entirely by surprise by the scenes of burning Union Jacks on the evening news.

Can that really be true? In a typically incompetent response, Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, issued one of those "obviously we're sorry if there's been a misunderstanding" statements in which she managed to imply that Rushdie had been honored as a representative of the Muslim community. He's not. He's an ex-Muslim. He's a representative of the Muslim community's willingness to kill you for trying to leave the Muslim community. But, locked into obsolescent multicultural identity-groupthink, Mrs. Beckett instinctively saw Rushdie as a member of a quaintly exotic minority rather than as a free-born individual.

This is where we came in two decades ago. We should have learned something by now. In the Muslim world, artistic criticism can be fatal. In 1992, the poet Sadiq Abd al-Karim Milalla also found that his work was "not particularly well-received": he was beheaded by the Saudis for suggesting Muhammad cooked up the Quran by himself. In 1998, the Algerian singer Lounès Matoub described himself as "ni Arabe ni musulman" (neither Arab nor Muslim) and shortly thereafter found himself neither alive nor well. These are not famous men. They don't stand around on Oscar night, congratulating themselves on their "courage" for speaking out against Bush-Rove fascism. But, if we can't do much about freedom of expression in Iran and Saudi Arabia, we could at least do our bit to stop Saudi-Iranian standards embedding themselves in the West.

Did you read that Iran had earlier tried to capture a boarding party of Australians? The Aussies manned the rails and drove them off.

I won't speculate on the competence of the Blair government--after all, it's kind of hard to see in the glare of our own slate of geniuses--but regardless of their motives in knighting Rushdie, or their allegedly simpering response, a message was delivered and Iran apparently received it. One could choose, if so inclined, to see the whole thing as a classier rendition of the middle finger: How could one be more smirkingly obvious than referring to one of Islam's most prominent victims and harshest critics as a representative of the Muslim community? Of course the author could be correct, and it might just be a tremendously coincidental display of multicultural cowardice; but then again, perhaps this is how intelligent people with a sense of class flip the bird to raving barbarians with no sense of humor. But then that's just my taste--someone else might prefer having a trained monkey say "bring it on."

Put me on the books as agreeing with Brian (erk!) I think this was a response to the region for the servicemen. I also agree that it seems the message was received.

Oh, I'm sure Rushdie was thrilled at the implication he's a member of the Muslim community. Yes, yes, those sly clever classy sophisticated Brits. They're so advanced, and so much smarter than blundering idiot American chimps, that they'll insult the guy they're trying to honour!

They're so advanced, and so much smarter than blundering idiot American chimps

Even a blind sow finds an acron every now and then.

acorn even...sigh, I hate Mondays