How the ghost of Iraq haunts peace in Ukraine

It’s great that JD Vance is all for free speech, though he does tend to shoot off his mouth in an off-putting way. He is, as Disraeli said of Gladstone, ‘a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.’

In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night, the Vice President said: ‘If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine. That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years.’

Cue an army of touchy British commentators taking the Vice President to task for his apparent diss to our boys. What about the 179 British soldiers who died fighting the futile American-led war in Iraq? Or the 457 British soldiers who perished failing to achieve America’s objectives in Afghanistan? JD Vance promptly took to X this morning to say it was ‘absurdly dishonest’ to suggest he meant Britain or France, ‘both of whom have fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years.’