INTERNATIONAL: Time to Back Up?

Has "unconditional surrender" become an Allied shibboleth which may prolong the war? London's informed, forthright Sunday Observer raised the question, subjected the doctrine's European implications to penetrating analysis. Condensed, the Observer's argument runs:

Unconditional surrender is an American idea dating from the U.S. Civil War, a conflict in which one side or the other had to give in completely. Europe offers no U.S. parallel. "No European nation or coalition of nations is in a position effectively to accept the unconditional surrender of another nation, that is, to manage and govern it, unless in fact it is prepared to annex it."

Britain's...