This is still Russia’s back yard, so U.S. decision makers had better think thrice before dragging the Anglosphere off on another foreign adventure. There’s no appetite for it. If you want oil, Canada’s got plenty – in the sands and under the Arctic ice – so love your neighbour and invest.

I note that you chose to pick up the narrative a full ten days *after* 9/11. That’s because it was Tony Blair who stepped up to the plate in the immediate aftermath of the attacks to address the English-speaking world so eloquently, not George Bush Jr or any other American. Granted, Bush II’s handlers pulled off an astonishing make-over subsequent to this, but it was only after protracted lacunae, which can only signify an utterly “shocked & awed” executive branch.