When Tony Blair (b. 1953) became Prime Minister in May 1997, Britain had turned the page on an era of defunct Conservative leadership. After years under the stewardship of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, the National Health System (NHS) and other components of government were in need of desperate reform..
Moreover, years of Conservative supply-side economic policy had economically polarized the nation. The rich became richer, the poor became poorer and the middle-class began to shrink. Suddenly, Tony Blair, a youthful and energetic 40-something, emerged on the scene. Rather than being tied to the dogmatic socialist past of his Labour Party, Blair advocated support for the private sector and keeping Britain's social programs in place to protect its citizens from unemployment, poor health and the infirmities of old age.
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Beyond domestic policy, Blair promised to be fully engaged in both resolving the longstanding dispute in Northern Ireland and working for peace around the world. By the summer of 2001, Blair had accomplished more in his four years as Prime Minister than most US presidents in their first term of office. The economy was prosperous. Peace talks with the IRA were making significant progress, and the lapse of Britain into economic inequality was being reversed by new, common sense policies.
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Then, 9/11 (2001) occurred and hastened Tony Blair's downfall.
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At the Iraq Inquiry (The Chilcot Commission) in London forty-eight hours ago, protesters cued (lined up) outside the hearing to chant 'Tony Blair - War Criminal'. Tony Blair, who was the golden boy of British politics only a decade ago, is now one of the most reviled figures in his country due to being the only major European nation to join in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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A palpably nervous Blair, sporting patriotic colors in a dark blue suit, a white dress shirt and a bright red tie, rendered the same answers to explain his decision to invade Iraq as former President George W. Bush. After 9/11, Blair said, 'the calculus of risk' changed. Rogue states with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) could no longer be tolerated in an age of globalized warfare. Why take the risk of allowing Saddam Hussein to acquire WMD to blackmail the US or other countries?
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Despite finding no WMD and being at least partly responsible for 4,375 US dead, more than 30,000 US casualties and 179 British dead and more than 6,000 casualties - not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties, Blair not only failed to state any regrets but also claimed he would do the exact same thing again if necessary.
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On the surface, both Bush and Blair seem to be either hubristic, masters of rationalization or plain war-mongers (or a combination of all three). Yet, none of these broad generalizations seem to satisfy the public of either country. And they shouldn't.
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The disjuncture between Bush/Blair and their constituents is largely paradigmatic.
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Prior to 9/11, the CIA and British intelligence were keenly aware of the desire of Muslim extremists to attack the West, but virtually no one considered terrorism a top threat-level priority. After 9/11, that all changed in the Bush White House and on 10 Downing Street in London. Having been shaken by the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans in less than an hour, Bush and Blair came to a new realization - no rogue regime could be allowed to possess or manufacture WMD. In front of the Chilcot Commission, Blair consistently defended his actions in Iraq by citing this paradigmatic approach - which in itself is a legitimate policy stance. However, the devil is always in the details, and the details expose both Bush and Blair as having been blinded at a time that required sober pragmatic thinking.
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Begging The Question From Washington To London (and back)
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The idea that democracies have the right to engage in pre-emptive wars to protect their freedoms or the freedoms of other democracies is largely not in question. A pre-emptive war would be a rare case and only used as a last resort in extreme circumstances. Iraq was not one of these cases. Consider the following:
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- After being on the ground for months prior to the invasion, UN weapons inspectors failed to find any WMD on Iraqi soil. After being given a short extension to investigate further, the inspectors still failed to find any WMD and asked for more time. Convinced that Saddam Hussein was using trickery, Bush and Blair gave the green light for the invasion despite receiving no first-hand reports of WMD from the weapons inspectors
- According to Bush/Blair, the elimination of the WMD threat from Iraq was their chief priority - not 'regime change' - which neither the British nor the American public would have supported at that time. Nevertheless, Blair has since admitted 'regime change' was a factor in his decision to launch the invasion. Clearly, it was the overriding factor. In interview after interview since the 2003 invasion, both Bush and Blair have repeatedly stated that they would do the exact same thing all over again - even after knowing Saddam Hussein had no actual WMD - because he was a 'monster' (Blair's word). In short, Bush and Blair are trying to have it both ways. They cite concern over WMD as the most significant factor in their war decision, and they then turn around and say they would have gone to war even if Saddam had no WMD.
The (Not So) Final Analysis
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What is a person to conclude from the contradictory actions and misstatements from Bush and Blair? First, neither former head of state deserves to be labelled a 'war criminal'. Both men sought to protect their nations from future terrorist threats. However, the future is impossible to predict, and there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was planning an imminent attack on the West. Unlike President Bush, Blair did not use misinformation in falsely linking Al-Qaeda to Iraq. Bush and Blair seem to have been motivated by the idea of removing a dictator from power, liberating the Iraqi people from his tyrannical reign, having the opportunity to fully search for any possible WMD and setting up a democratic state to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East.
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Those are noble aims, but the Anglo-American led invasion was ill-conceived, ill-planned and poorly orchestrated. Moreover, both governments resorted to propaganda to put their paradigm into practice - a paradigm based on fear and suspicion rather than facts. This 'kill or be killed' mentality was created by the traumatic events of 9/11. Rather than having malicious intent, Bush and Blair and their government ministers were overcome by paranoia and ultimately made a fateful and tragic decision with elements of both rational thought and irrational fears, and their lack of intellectual coherency on the debacle of Iraq stems from these competing elements.
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Tony Blair is a good man. He has a long record of working for prosperity, equality and peace both inside his country and in the world. Similar to Bush, however, he was simply not up to the task of handling one of the greatest world crises since Pearl Harbor.
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A truly great leader must be nimble enough to know when to act and wise enough to know when to not to act. From a deeply visceral reaction to 9/11, Bush and Blair acted from a new paradigm of fear and now may have an intimate understanding of the famous Frankin D. Roosevelt line, 'The only thing to fear is fear itself.'
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In any situation, a decision made out of fear seldom if ever leads to victory.
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(Photo - Tony Blair at the Iraq Inquiry)
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J Roquen