Bush's favorite historian

British author Alistair Horne explains what Pinochet, Sharon and Bush have all taken from his work, why peace means getting rid of the priests, and why Iraq is the wrong war in the wrong place.

By Gary Kamiya

Read more: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Israel, Gary Kamiya, Opinion, Iraq War, Abu Ghraib

May 8, 2007 | Sir Alistair Horne may be the only author in the world whose books have been read and praised by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon and Robert Fisk. Not to mention by much of the senior military staff of the U.S. Army, Middle East scholars, State Department policy wonks, and realpolitik statesmen. The distinguished British historian, author of 18 books, became the talk of the U.S. chattering classes when it was revealed that President Bush was reading his classic account of the 1954-1962 Algerian War, "A Savage War of Peace." Indeed, Bush was so impressed with "A Savage War of Peace" that he invited Horne to come to the White House for tea and a talk last Thursday.

"He wrote me the most charming handwritten letter, said he was very interested in my books, and wanted to know more. He said 'A Savage War of Peace' has been most useful. I was quite stunned," said Horne.

Horne declined to go into details about what they talked about, saying their conversation was off the record. "He was extremely courteous, very cheerful, loves jokes and he couldn't have been more charming. I was very honored," Horne said. "He was very determined. 'We're not going to give up, we're not going to give up,' he repeated from time to time. He was very interested in my book, had obviously read it most thoroughly, as he had my other book, 'The Price of Glory' [about the WWI battle of Verdun]. He had put in a lot of work. Where he finds the time I don't know. We discussed the book in depth. We disagreed about a few points. I didn't entirely agree with his admiration for Tony Blair, but that was a matter of personal predilection."

For Horne, such access to the highest levels of power is not unusual. He was a friend of the Conservative British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and wrote his biography. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that "A Savage War of Peace" was his favorite bedside reading, and that one of Horne's earlier books, "To Lose a Battle: France 1940," helped him win the 1973 October War against Egypt. In 2003, Horne was knighted for services to Franco-British relations, going into the knightly ranks with another Briton noted for his keen analysis of the days when the Blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank, Mick Jagger. His current project, undertaken at the subject's invitation, is a biography of Henry Kissinger, focused on the single year 1973. ("Most people measure their material in feet," Horne said, explaining why he didn't take on Kissinger's entire life. "His material is said to total 33 tons.")

That "A Savage War of Peace" is on the Bush administration's must-read list is one of the more remarkable intellectual ironies in recent years. Horne's book recounts the inevitable defeat of a colonialist power at the hands of a small but determined group of insurgents, the National Liberation Front, who effectively used terrorism to win their nation's freedom -- not exactly the sort of book you would expect Bush and his inner circle to curl up with. As Horne notes, the Algerian War "remains on the statute books as a prototype of the modern war of national liberation." Nelson Mandela's African National Congress guerrillas and Palestinian leaders both studied it, Horne points out. So did al-Qaida. And now, so has George W. Bush.

What the Bush administration is hoping to learn from Horne's book, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Mandela and Arafat were looking for. The latter were searching for information that would lead to victory over occupying powers; Bush officials are looking for clues that will allow them to prevail over a stubborn insurgency, or failing that, find a viable exit strategy. But there do not appear to be many useful lessons in Horne's book for Bush except "don't."

I met Horne when he was visiting San Francisco last week. We spoke for several hours at his daughter's house. (Full disclosure: His daughter, Alexandra Berven, is a friend of mine.) At 81, Horne remains razor-sharp. A charming British gentleman with the amiable manners and curmudgeonly good humor of an honorary Oxford fellow -- which is not surprising, since he is one -- he enlivens his analysis of the contemporary world scene with analogies to Napoleon and references to Talleyrand and Churchill. His specialties are France and military history, but he has also written about, among other subjects, Canada, Germany and Chile. Alexandra described his politics as "to the left of Genghis Khan but to the right of Margaret Thatcher," but added, "He's not a party ideologue -- I think his politics are driven by whether people are doing idiotic things."

Horne didn't vote for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and initially supported the Iraq war because of his concern for Britain's special relationship with America, and because he was misled by the bogus intelligence. But he has since recanted and calls the war an enormous blunder. Blair, he said, should be impeached for war crimes. He discreetly avoided saying anything so incendiary about the Bush administration, although he threw some sharp elbows at the neoconservatives who played such a large role in drumming up the war.

Horne's opinions, whether one agrees with all of them or not, are untainted by the partisan rancor of American politics. He is refreshingly unafraid to puncture pieties of the left and right alike. He calls for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and wants Guantánamo shut down immediately, but warns that hasty withdrawal could empower the jihadists. He attacks neoconservatives who used what he calls "Holocaustology" to justify invading Iraq, but blasts the Muslim world for its backwardness. He thinks we should bring in Indian mercenaries to fight in Iraq and says the way to solve the problems in the Middle East would be to turn Gaza into another Dubai -- and "get the priests out of there." He brings a long historical perspective and six decades of experience to bear on the affairs of the day.

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