51�Թ�

Respond with irenic understanding, and you’re treating her as a patient or a puppet, someone acted upon and controlled by larger forces.

You wrote, “But what, specifically, do these conservatives want, besides a sense of thrill-in-combat that French’s irenic style denies them? I don’t think they are completely certain themselves.”

The light filtering through the front door toward which Melrose walks is redemptive, the opening bars of Blur’s “Tender,” which accompany him, suitably irenic.

Several irenic uses for the base have already been suggested.

Read liberal American critiques of post-9/11 America—including President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech, with its apologies, cautions and irenic aspirations—and hear the echoes of French critiques.