A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that those willing to challenge entrenched power structures in the Middle East cannot be labeled as conservative.
Christopher Hitchens asserts that any group or faction that is prepared to engage in conflict against the established and rigid systems of power in the Middle East should not be classified as conservative. This suggests that true conservatism entails a desire to maintain the status quo rather than disrupt it, and therefore those advocating for significant change, even through warfare, are fundamentally aligned with more revolutionary ideals rather than conservative ones.
In practice
In a debate on foreign policy, one might quote Hitchens to argue against traditional conservative approaches to international relations.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead.
The sanctions will not kill us. It's apartheid that's killing us.
We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.
After World War I the resentment of the working class against all that it had to suffer was directed more against Morgan, Wall Street and private capital than the government.
Today's average American is more apt to rebel against a tennis shoe not coming in the right color than against the slow erosion of our democratic freedom.
To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.
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