Oil sanctions don't work
From Mr John Lidstone Sir: Your leading article (16 September) recalls the misplaced self-confidence of another socialist prime minister, Harold Wilson. In 1965 he tried to impose a total oil embargo on Southern Rhodesia, invok- ing the international influence of the Unit- ed Nations, plus the might of the Royal Navy. All to no avail.
Oil got through to the land-locked, belea- guered country which Ian Smith had declared independent. It is fitting to remember the gritty courage of that former Battle of Britain pilot who cocked a snook at the pompous, vacuous words of a British politician. Blair, like so many others before him, has forgotten or has never read what Hegel said in 1830:
What experience and history teach is this that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
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