Why Harry mustnt go to Iraq.

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Minette Marrin

The army can’t seriously be considering deploying Prince Harry to Iraq, said Minette Marrin in the London Sunday Times. The radical Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army has already threatened to capture the “handsome spoilt prince,” as it calls Harry, and “return him to his grandmother without ears.” Such treatment would be generous. Harry is “much more likely to lose his head, horribly and publicly, on footage seen repeatedly all over the world.” To Islamic extremists, the red-haired, blue-eyed, hard-drinking lad is a symbol of the decadent West. And “symbols have great power, particularly in unsophisticated cultures.” It’s obvious the poor boy wants to play soldier. Harry will surely argue that his uncle Prince Andrew got to serve as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands war. But back then, “the circumstances were entirely different—and in any case, he shouldn’t have gone.” If Harry were to serve in an active regiment, he would put himself, his men, and his country’s honor in danger. “He should never have been allowed for an instant to think he would be allowed to go.”