Beyond the sandstorm  Three visions of the future compete.
Blair's is best, but can it ever be realised? A s the second
Gulf war begins, we peer into the sandstorm, straining to
discern the outline of the new world beyond. Like most new
worlds, this is actually a mix of old and new. American officers
sit at computer screens guiding e-bombs thousands of miles away
that will disable Saddam's command equipment by means of
electromagnetic pulses. The intergalactic fight scenes in Star
Trek look like 19th-century realism by comparison. But then I
watch British footsoldiers in Kuwait preparing for hand-to-hand
combat. A sergeant major urges one young squaddie to bark
elemental cries of hatred as he stabs and stabs again with his
bayonet at a stuffed dummy of the enemy, tossing him in the
desert sand. In its essence, this scene could be the eve of
Agincourt in 1415: one man being psyched up to kill another by
forcing sharp metal through his guts.  So also with the
politics. There is something new: the leadership of