There is a sense in which Mugabe's hysterical anti-British analysis of his predicament is correct. His Zimbabwe is a creature of British imperialism and post-imperialism. The last governor, Lord Soames, regarded him as an affectionate regimental mascot, a "splendid chap", as he told me in an interview shortly before handing power to him in 1980.
Britain duly tolerated the suppression of Mugabe's enemy, Joshua Nkomo, and Zimbabwe's conversion into a one-party state. It turned a blind eye to the 1983 Ndebele massacre by Mugabe's Shona Fifth Brigade under its warlord, Perence Shiri, who some say is Mugabe's present master. Margaret Thatcher's Whitehall gave Harare lavish aid and barmy advice, helping turn a viable economy into a basket case of pseudo-socialist kleptomania - well charted by the Guardian's Andrew Meldrum in his memoir, Where We Have Hope.
Now Zimbabwe is declared outrageous. Though Mugabe is hardly the worst dictator in the world, he is regarded as "our" dictator and therefore our business. The public asks: "What is to be done about him?" Sated on having "done something", presumably glorious, about Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, public opinion is hard-wired to such a question. So what is to be done?
