Since I decided, in January 2003, that if Iraq was invaded I would not oppose it, I have had the almost astral experience of finding myself excommunicated from the movement, sometimes by fellow journalists who I know do not possess a political bone in their entire bodies.I have to say it: Read the whole thing. If only because Aaronovitch's experience accords with my own and will, I'm sure, be eerily familiar to those on the left who supported the liberation of Iraq.
All of a sudden I began to experience the left from the outside. And the first thing that struck me was its capacity for smug certainty and uniformity of response.
I've come to regard Aaronovitch as one of the few voices of sanity at the Guardian. He has been, at times, thoughtful and incisive. And aside from the occasional lapse into pomposity (surely excusable in a man of such girth) highly readable.
He'll be back in June at the Times.
