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.
Democracy is not just a question of having a vote. It consists of strengthening each citizen's possibility and capacity to participate in the deliberations involved in life in society.
Tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.
As soon as politicians start climbing up the ladder, they suddenly become kings. I don't know how it works, but what I do know is that republics came to the world to make sure that no one is more than anyone else. The pomp of office is like something left over from a feudal past: "You need a palace, red carpet, a lot of people behind you saying, 'Yes, sir.' I think all of that is awful."
In time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.
Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
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