You can also string examples together across paragraphs—either
to extend them or to contrast them.
Sometimes it irks allies such as the French to see America
grab so much of the credit for its mediating efforts. But as even the
French admit, America is in a league of its own in this business. No
other country can match its clout and its credibility with parties on
all sides of an argument. Bosnia is the most striking example: a catastrophe
so long as America kept its distance, on the mend once America started
to lead.
There are other, less conspicuous examples.
Last January an almost comic fracas over a tiny rock in the Aegean briefly
threatened to escalate into an alarming conflict between two NATO members,
Greece and Turkey. While the European powers looked the other way, and
the United Nations called for restraint, the Greeks and the Turks turned
to America to help sort the matter out—which, after multiple telephone
calls to agitated leaders in Athens and Ankara, it duly did. The next
day one of the America diplomats involved, Richard Holbrooke, the star
of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia, described the incident as a microcosm
of modern American foreign policy.
But cuts here are political dynamite. Take the government's
planned cuts in state help to unemployed and poor people with mortgages,
on which spending has grown from £31 in 1979 to £1.1 billion
today. Tony Blair, Labour's leader, is determined to stop the cuts.
So is Nicholas Winterton, a Tory right-winger keen on cuts in general,
who threatens to lead a rebellion against Mr Lilley's plans.
Or take the recent cuts in non-means-tested
invalidity benefits. Many of those claiming the benefits are middle-income
people who had to retire early and were advised by their employers to
top up their pensions with the benefit. And what are many doing with
their new-found leisure? Spending it at Tory coffee mornings, that's
what. Mr Lilley has warned colleagues that opposition to cuts in invalidity
payments has yet to peak.
