I often feel sorry for Blair in a way I don't for the Bushies. I can see him thinking that if he opposes the war publically, like the Continent, Bush will do what he pleases anyway. He'd read the Downing Street memo. He may also have had enough understanding of Bush's fanaticism, the American public's fear and mindless chauvinism then, and the media's passivity, so he may have figured that even exposing the memo, say, would have accomplished nothing.

He must even have figured then, like all of us, that while there was no proof at all of WMD and no need to invade rather than inspect, there were no grounds to say there were no such thing, which is why the UN was acting. So that approach to stopping the war, too, would have failed.

So I can imagine him thinking that Britain single-handedly will preserve the multilateralism that makes a successful foreign policy possible, even if Bush won't seek it and other allies perceive (correctly) it's no longer possible in this instance. He thinks he's a choice between certain disaster from the U.S. acting alone and a chance to influence the outcome.

Tragic really, a bit like Brutus. Only Brutus wouldn't have gone on supporting the war ever since. He'd have been killed off in an earlier act by now.

I still feel, actually, that we're wrong to keep blaming Democrats for being railroaded themselves in that early vote. We knew better, but that past is past, and it's understandable. We should just demand that they push for change now, as (say) Kerry is doing . . . and, sadly, Blair is not.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Remember how David Kelly was treated by Alastair Campbell and his ilk.

Blair gets no sympathy from me.

The reason Blair is sticking with Bush is very simple. The UK is despised in the rest of Europe. Without their "special relationship" with the US, the UK has nothing.

Unfortunately I think MacMillan had a better reading of the "special relationship." He didn't believe it existed outside of Churchill's imagination. See Crisis, Suez.

Lend-lease was the best FDR could do to get around a Congress that wanted to have nothing to do with the war in Europe.

The largest espionage operation of the Second World War was British, and it was run in the US, to convince Americans to get into the war.

You should read about the relationship between FDR, Churchill and Stalin around the time of the Yalta conference. Britain was very definitely the junior partner. Churchill was quite depressed about it.

The issue was: "What the hell do you do about it?' All we could do as a nation of 60 million off the coast of mainland Europe was to seek to influence the most powerful nation in the world," he said in interviews to publicise his new diaries.

If these words were "All I could do as a 22 year old girl was to seek to influence the most powerful leader in the world", they would be rather delusional, but forgivable -- youth, lack of experience etc. To have a group of mature adults engaged in [redacted] and related fantasies is sadly not surprising, but not edifying either.

Girls and old chaps: causing someone to have an orgasm is only an illusion of influence. To be respected you must have self-respect.

What kind of influence had Blairites in mind anyway --I mean, they had no example of an American decision that was influenced. And would there be such an example, in what manner would it advance national interests of Britain? As in "Americans could get miffed and refuse leasing nukes to Britain". (I think that fantasies included policies pertaining to global warming, Middle East, anti-anti-personel-mine-treaty etc.)

There are two great truths about Bush that still have not fully registered. The first is that he is a non-human moron. Like all stupid people he is incapable of educating and disciplining himself to the point where he could possibly achieve humanity, and like all stupid people he is inherently evil. The second truth is that he is truly representative of the American people. He is the natural product of a culture that rewards stupid behavior and worships stupid people. The Bush disease will not be cured simply by political action. It will require a true liberal re-awakening to the responsibilities of the citizenry to develop the intellectual capacity required to be free. Those that fail in this endeavor should be recognized as the filth that they are and not tolerated in public life. It is pathetic that otherwise reasonable people are still befuddled by the erroneous but politically correct assumption that everything that drops out from between a woman's legs is entitled to the status of human.

However, in any event, even if the occupation had been handled well, instead of abysmally, the counterfactual history of Iraq would not necessarily have produced a happy end. The notion that a continuation of the Sunni repression under an American flag would have been happily accepted by the Shiite majority is the sort of fantasy that has plagued American thought since Bush campaign for the White House.

This is one of the great mysteries.

How was it possible for thinking Americans to give in to these kind of fantasies. How could virtually the entire American etablissement believe that Iraq could be "turned into a democracy" without linguistically and culturally knowledgeable personell in each and every of the occupational force's units?

How come it wasn't realized that a partition of Iraq was the most likely, and possibly the unavoidable, outcome of an invasion?

I couldn't disagree more.

Blair had his reasons for his policies, there is no reason to doubt that, but Britain's policies were alot more about weakening the European Union and strengthening Britains position both directly and also indirectly (through its "special relationship" with the U.S.).

However, when the Bush administration acted in accordance with what a strong public opinion demanded (or allowed), the situation in Britain was the opposite. Blair had no political mandate for the invasion of Iraq, and no strong support, and he had been elected as a pro-European, not as the gravedigger of EU's urgently needed Constitution (or the Common Foreign and Security Policy).

Blair deceived his party and his voters (at least) as much as the Bush administration did. But the Labor party re-elected him, and the voters re-elected Labor in 2005. Just like the Americans re-elected Bush in 2004 or the Danes re-elected Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2005.

For the sufferings they've caused, and the deaths of hundreds thousands of Iraqis, they deserve to burn eternally in Hell.

Categorically not. Few people in Britain have any memory of the Mesopotamian campaign; those who do may have had some family involvement but most of the discussion should be read as a not-so-veiled criticism of Winston Churchill-style conservatism. In short, it is a reminder of just how non-beneficial the British Empire was.

The best explanation of why Blair followed Bush into Iraq was that Blair wished to preserve Britain's UN Security Council veto, which is under threat as the EU develops a collective foreign policy.

I understand your point about Bush, but by any standard the last two presidential elections were very close. Moreover, how do you account for the large number of morons in congress. I think the American people have a good deal of culpability in this.