HOLLYWOOD STYLE
PRESIDENT Reagan does not make things easy for his friends. After the latest bout of world terrorism many of us would agree that measures should be taken against states which house, arm and spon- sor terrorists. But when Mr Reagan pre- faces the discussion of such measures with the splenetic rhetoric of his speech to the American Bar Association, he does no-one a service. His list of 'terrorist states', run by the 'strangest collection of misfits, looney tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich,' is absurdly selective. For ideological reasons it in- chides two countries — Nicaragua and North Korea — which are not even on the State Department's own official list of terrorist-sponsoring states, and for dip- lomatic reasons it excludes a country — Syria — which is on the State Depart- ment's list, and really belongs in the same category as Libya and Iran, the worst offenders. By couching the challenge in terms of American national interests and, yes, America's 'national valour', instead of international interests and standards, he makes it still more difficult to secure the international coordination which is indis- pensable for any effective response to terrorism. As with his 'evil empire' and 'Star Wars' speeches, a good cause is tarnished by his Hollywood hyperbole.
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