Tony Blair has done a lot for George Bush. Without Blair's support, the Bush administration's case for pre-emptive war against Iraq would have been tougher to make to the American people, as it always was to much of the rest of the world, including a majority of the British people. Since the Sunday Times' publication in May 2005 of the Downing Street memo, we've known just how much Mr Blair was willing to do for his friend Mr Bush, just how far he was willing to go, eyes wide shut:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Like much of the rest of the world, Mr Blair's fellow citizens hardly needed the Downing Street memo to suspect that the excuses for the invasion peddled at the time, Saddam's possession of WMD and connections to al-Qaeda, were fantastical and/or cynical. Few of Mr Bush's fellow citizens ever heard about the Downing Street memo, however, and fewer would have cared. What they saw and heard was that nice man from London standing side by side with their president, backing him to the hilt, shoulder to shoulder, reminding everyone of what a good time we all had together in WWII, Mr Blair speaking so well, eloquently, even, as he does, and always, always wearing those wonderful ties.
Tony Blair has been on a bit of a farewell tour this week. Everyone knows he is limping towards the finish line back home, so of course he is thinking of his legacy. In a world going up in flames, that's what matters, after all, that a superannuated politician's ego should be stroked one last time. Sadly, however, in the one city where, until recently, he had done so much to earn his popularity, probably his electability, Mr Blair seems to have suddenly deflated, fizzled, even:
... on this, possibly his last trip to Washington as prime minister, the affection seemed to be accompanied with sympathy.US political commentators repeatedly voiced wonder at a world leader with worse ratings than George Bush. And after a weary, cagey performance at the White House on Thursday night the New York Times observed that Mr Blair looked "dismayed and tongue-tied". The report even suggested that for once George Bush had to come to the prime minister's verbal rescue in the face of the scepticism of the British press corps.
When they met in 2001 the new US leader was asked what they had in common and could only think of a shared preference for Colgate toothpaste. Two wars and a political meltdown later, Mr Bush still seemed at a loss to define what bound them together. Asked what he would miss about the prime minister, his first response was: "I'll miss those red ties, is what I'll miss." But Mr Bush quickly rallied with a heartfelt: "I want him to be here so long as I'm the president."
Now, that's sad, isn't it? On the spot for a moment of witty repartee, Tony Blair can't match George W. Bush? Well, it had been a long flight, after all, and it's true that the ties are good.
Sadder yet was that everyone knew ahead of time what Mr Blair's legacy speech at Georgetown University on Friday was going to say. That's why Mr Bush had to focus on the good ties. Those Savile Row ties were all he had left to compliment Mr Blair on. He had to duck Mr Blair's neediness over his legacy as an international statesman because he knew that Mr Blair would suddenly and belatedly be ducking him:
... earlier yesterday, Mr Blair appeared to try to escape the presidential embrace, and went out of his way to make a distinction between his agenda and Washington's. In a foreign policy address at Georgetown University, he issued a thinly veiled rebuke to the US for its lack of global team spirit. "Let me be blunt. Powerful nations want more effective multilateral institutions - when they think those institutions will do their will. What they fear is effective multilateral institutions that do their own will," Mr Blair said."But the danger of leaving things as they are is ad hoc coalitions for action that stir massive controversy about legitimacy; or paralysis in the face of crisis. No amount of institutional change will ever work unless the most powerful make it work."
He painted a portrait of the international community as he would wish it, working in concert, through the UN Security Council and other institutions, against the great threats facing the world: terrorism, poverty, climate change and Middle East conflict.
Earlier in Mr Blair's tenure, similar foreign policy addresses were lauded. Now, several American commentators described them as just sad. Steven Clemons, of the American Strategy Programme at the New American Foundation thinktank, said that even after three years in Iraq Mr Bush showed little inclination to spend any of his dwindling political capital to support his friend's global causes. "I think George Bush's instincts don't want him to do any favours for Tony Blair," Mr Clemons said. "It's not going to happen."
Mr Clemons, of course, is an American, so when he says that things are sad for Tony Blair, he is thinking strictly in terms of how little capital Mr Blair has left in Washington. Some of us see a bigger picture.
Mr Blair's speech yesterday may not be his last desperate attempt to convince the rest of the world that he has been indeed a man of independent mind and an internationally minded statesman. To anyone familiar with his actions over the last few years, however, it certainly reads like a plea to be saved from the worst judgement of the history books. The Globe and Mail has reprinted the speech today on its op-ed page, and I thought that was a touching thing for them to do. Maybe they like the ties too.
It is late, Mr Blair, very late.
The memory drifts back to that press conference in the Azores over three years ago: Bush, defiant and callow, Blair, pseudo-statesman-like and unctuous and Aznar...who?...telling the whole world what we should believe. My credulity was exhausted then.
Which makes the question of why Blair and the UK went to war in Iraq II all the more interesting.
I can see what might have been in it for the USA (elimination of a hostile regime, installation of a client state poised on the other side of Syria and close to Iran, direct control of major oil resources, base for economic penetration of the Middle East, etc.,) but what was in it for the UK?
Blair knew that the rationale for Iraq II (terrorism and WMD) was threadbare. So what was the reason for backing Bush?
I think it had something to do with the UK's position in the EU.
I don't think Blair's continued position vis a vis Iraq can be explained by anything other than his own belief in the original regime-toppling, democracy installing humanitarian angle of the project.
I think that Blair is not so incomprehensible as some people posit; like Clinton, he's someone determined to pursue (perhaps, especially now, very mushily) 'progressive' ends by very flexible means - see Blatcherism, the various infernal pacts with Murdoch, new Labour, etc.
I disagree with Blair on an awful lot; more often then not I guess. I consider his government to be right of my own Liberals. But at the end of the day, he hasn't really made all that horrible a hash of British politics. He's no Thatcher or Reagan or even Mulroney in terms of slavish, destructive adherence to conservative ideology.
His participation in Bush's international projects has been helped the world move in directions I wish it hadn't, but I do give him some small credit for better motives, as well as for a continued (if not very successful) attempt to recognize and tackle third world issues.
I think that Blair is not so incomprehensible as some people posit
Oh, for God's sakes. He's completely incomprehensible. I find it ridiculous that you're justifying Blair in any way. The man is a disaster and it's high time we all acknowledged that fact.
His participation in Bush's international projects has been helped the world move in directions I wish it hadn't, but I do give him some small credit for better motives, as well as for a continued (if not very successful) attempt to recognize and tackle third world issues.
Really? And what successes would those be?
Oh, for God's sakes. He's completely incomprehensible. I find it ridiculous that you're justifying Blair in any way. The man is a disaster and it's high time we all acknowledged that fact.
This is essentially the sentiment that I reject; in my view, the very real ills of the last few years have led to a decidedly polarized, even radicalized recasting of people's political landscapes. I disagree with most of Blair's domestic choices, some quite fervently, and I agree his foreign policy has been disastrous.
But I think it's important that we retain perspective and empathy, and not simply let Martin Rowson's cartoons do our thinking for us. Which British Prime Ministers do you define as not being disastrous? I'll grant you Wilson and Callaghan didn't invade anyone, but Blair isn't likely to let Thatcher burn the place down in a year or two. (And to answer the inevitable "Who needs Thatcher when you have Blatcher," I'd cordially invite anyone that thinks that to reconsider just how pungent the real deal was.)
>>His participation in Bush's international projects has been helped the world move in directions I wish it hadn't, but I do give him some small credit for better motives, as well as for a continued (if not very successful) attempt to recognize and tackle third world issues.
Really? And what successes would those be?
I think you may have read that last sentence a little hastily.
Jason,
Would you please enumerate those successes instead of your usual talking points? Facts are uncomfortable things and you seem to be a bit thin on them.
In Jason's defence, I think he initially spoke of 'attempts' not successes.
As for the piece in today's Globe, cited by skdadl, it may well be a 'legacy speech,' but it also sounds notes Blair has been trumpeting for some time now; and frankly the substance of some of his arguments shows why Tony Blair is among the least credible spokesmen imaginable for a renewed internationalism.
I've recently been reading a book by Philippe Sands called Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global Rules, which offers a trenchant critique of the US administration's efforts at undermining international law and multilateral institutions, unfortunately with the aid of the soon-to-be-outgoing Mr. Blair.
Sands looks at Blair's claim (reiterated in today's Globe) that international institutions can't meet today's challenges, tracing it to his 2004 'Sedgefield speech,' and even before.
Of that speech's emotive muddling of anticipatory self-defence and humanitarian intervention, Sands writes that the address was 'confusingly constructed upon a series of false premises,' before going on to evaluate Blair's central claim that 'emerging doctrines' are needed to counteract the danger of currently inadequate rules:
I am not persuaded by his argument. He has aligned himself with a US Administration which behaves as though international law does not matter, that has withdrawn from international agreements with impunity, and that is willing to bully other states which seek to promote initiatives such as the ICC and the Kyoto protocol. The Prime Minister may believe that global rules matter, but ultimately his actions speak louder than his words. His actions on Iraq have degraded the international rule of law and contributed to a dangerous fiasco. They suggest a rather lesser attachment to the international rule of law than he professes.
Sands shows elsewhere in his book why Blair's, Labour's and even Britain's reputations for internationalism now lie in ruins. According to Sands, for instance, 'The views of some of the diplomats from other states who received Britain's assurances when Security Council resolution 1441 was being negotiated are unprintable.'
Ouch.
And what has Blair to show for this alignment with the Bush administration? Has he had any influence? Is the US administration any less vehemently opposed to multilateralism and the international rule of law? Ask John Bolton.
Blair's piece in today's Globe struck me as quite hypocritical: here was a person who has done more than most to weaken the already fragile framework of international law warning us that the international order was in danger. And his closing argument that the 'divided world' must get over its 'divisions' on Iraq and support democracy struck me as particularly self-serving.
The world was indeed divided in the run-up to Iraq: between people like Bush, Howard and Blair on the one hand, and people concerned about the implications of violating the UN Charter on the other. Blair's call to sweep those divisions under the rug in the name of the UN and a renewed global system of order and peace conveniently ignores his role in sabotaging both.
Finally, I think we should treat with skepticism those like Blair who push for the unilateral enforcement of 'emerging norms,' outside the current frameworks of global security. Sands writes of Blair's pre-war musings about overriding the UN Charter in the event of an 'unreasonable' French veto of a security council resolution.
The 'unreasonable veto' is an innovation unknown in international law, much like 'unlawful combatant' (aka Donald Rumsfeld's 'bad people'), or that vaunted alternative to the security council: 'a coalition of the willing / of free peoples.'
The danger in such terms is twofold: both in the way their deployment will weaken international order, and in the way they will be used to deceive the publics at which they're aimed.
'Unreasonable vetos,' for example, will always turn out to be practiced by governments other than the ones leading their publics towards war: the greedy Chinese or the perfidious French. The foreign policies of such states are not based, like those of Britain and the US, on a committment to democracy coupled with a devotion to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount.
Moreover, any right given to a 'coalition of free peoples' to intervene militarily somewhere without UN sanction, will automatically, whether we like it or not, become a right for the Shanghai Security Group (Russia, China, Iran, etc.) to intervene as and where they see fit. Not a pretty picture.
Tony Blair may indeed be right that some of our international institutions need reform. The man and his methods, in my view, provide us with few models for how to proceed with the task.
Would you please enumerate those successes instead of your usual talking points? Facts are uncomfortable things and you seem to be a bit thin on them.
I never said he had successes, Ti-Guy misread my post, which is why I repeated what I said only for you to elaborate on his misreading. Do you want me to list out instances of, to quote myself again, "a continued (if not very successful) attempt to recognize and tackle third world issues?" Since you can probably think of one or two yourself off-hand.
I am little taken aback by the 'talking points' rhetoric; are there talking points circulating for people who disagree with Tony Blair's foreign and domestic policy but think he's a little demonized? What party writes them? Guilty Lib-dems? And my usual talking points? Calling someone's writing 'talking points' is a pretty blunt insult, and a pretty uncalled for one in my case.
To return to the subject; I would actually never even bring up the issue of a visceral dislike of Blair among, say, a group of Benn-style old Labour activists; for them, he's someone who stole their party; people take that sort of thing personally. Fair enough.
But in Canada, we can just disagree with the man dispassionately without having to tack on some de rigeur formula about how he's an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet. We might even try to empathize with and understand his political point of view without sharing it. Simply dismissing him as incomprehensible, mad or evil is either blind emotion or analytical laziness, imo. Call him enigmatic - call him wrongheaded - but incomprehensible? Hardly.
I am little taken aback by the 'talking points' rhetoric; are there talking points circulating for people who disagree with Tony Blair's foreign and domestic policy but think he's a little demonized? What party writes them? Guilty Lib-dems? And my usual talking points? Calling someone's writing 'talking points' is a pretty blunt insult, and a pretty uncalled for one in my case.
Yes, I think you're right. In reflecting on Blair's record, we should all remember that, despite the illegal war, the 100,000 dead Iraqis, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, rendition and diminshed civil liberties in the US and Britain, in the end, it's really all about you.
agitfact, I have read one analysis of Blair's motives that I found moderately convincing (and that has little to do with the, to me, transparently cynical rhetoric about democracy). Sometime during the run-up to the invasion a British journalist spent some days almost living with Blair, given full access to observe most things that were going on through each day and to write about them independently -- does anyone remember this, or who the journalist was?
Anyway, he came to believe that Blair was fixed on the problem of preventing American unilateralism. This relates as well to Ti-Guy's assertion above that the UK's position in the EU was in play in Blair's mind as well. In other words, we're looking at the old-fashioned diplomacy of realism, so-called, Kissinger-think, a British PM worried above all about power imbalances among those with power.
By that logic (no, I don't follow it either, but then I'm not Henry Kissinger), Blair became convinced that it would be worse for the world to allow the Americans to proceed with the invasion alone than for the UK to join them -- and he was convinced that the Bush administration would proceed alone, no matter what.
There was probably some vanity involved in the formation of that view as well; Blair no doubt does flatter himself that his game-playing serves the higher cause of humanity, but the underlying strategy was not idealistic, pure balance of power.
(NB: Obviously, on the basis of that reading I should concede that I don't really believe that a personal fondness for Mr Bush was a factor at all, and it is a bit smart-mouthed of me to riff off the act those two have put on in public, although God knows, they've asked for it.)
Stephen: magnificent post, and thank you for the Sands reference. As a footnote to what you've written: the continual harping of the neo-cons on the failure of international institutions, especially the UN, seems to me a blindingly obvious self-fulfilling prophecy, and in the case of the neo-cons, I think that is obviously intentional: they want those institutions to fail.
There are liberals about, however, like Blair, who probably even partly believe what they say about the need for international good governance, but who embed in their idealistic rhetoric little escape clauses like "emerging doctrines," presumably for those times when the great powers that have their allegiance will want to go ahead and do whatever they want to do, and damn the international institutions.
Y'know, Stephen, all the way through your post, I kept thinking of someone other than Tony Blair, someone to whom that analysis of Sands' applies so well too, a Canadian, actually ...
Which brings me to Jason. Hi, Jason. ;-)
Jason, I will make this one concession. I do see some British action out in the world, especially in Africa (and God knows, the British owe Africa), that looks like attempts to overcome the polarization that American foreign policy is often provoking. I have to concede that because I'm about to write about it.
Ti-Guy: Real classy and relevant. Hope you manage not to punch out the teacher in remedial reading.
Oh, contraire, mon frère. I teach remedial reading, which is probably why I'm easily irritated with pretention and sophistry.
I believe Tony Blair's actions were entirely wrong-headed, and I'm mystified as to why he didn't see that back when he might have been able to make a difference.
Well, look, Ti-Guy, you misread my statement - I pointed it out - Melanie made what I thought was an unduly personal remark and I replied within the context of a more substantive post. I don't see how this is elevating some (nonexistent) personality issue over your litany of international disasters and war-crimes, and nations trekking from progress. If anything, that is injecting personal drama, not my observations.
Leaving aside by-blows about 'sophistry and pretention' I suggest we simply return to the Blair discussion with mutual civility.
skdadl: I definately think that 'managing' American policy has been central to Blair's activities; but managing them to what end? Blair's entire foreign policy is suggestive of a certain very 'forward' interventionism; Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the post 2001 Anglo-American business and his third world projects are, to me, all comprehensible within a distinctive Blairite vision of doing 'good' in the world. Calling it do-gooding might seem distinctly perverse, but from Blair's standpoint that seems like a sounder common thread than pragmatism as such.
It seems to me that the a simple and workable interpretation of Blair's actions is that he believes in his humanitarian arguments. Certainly, such arguments don't stand up in light of the last three years of failure and misery and didn't convince us even at the time. But Blair would have been on no firmer logical ground with that suggested realpolitik rationale than with the moral one; imo it makes more sense as a secondary consideration.
Jason, this isn't really that personal. There is nothing civil left when talking about Tony Blair. I'm sorry...the crisis in the ME is proof enough of that. Blair had other Realpolitik options available to him three years, and for mostly reasons of agrandisement and power, he made the wrong choices.
I see no point in defending him at all.
Just to follow up quickly on that, what Blair might have done was not to isolate Canada within the Commonwealth's ABC countries (Australia, Britain, Canada) in terms of his realpolitische approach to the US. Tony Blair might have thought he could influence American policy, but we all know Canadians, on a personal level, can influence Americans much more directly (you'll notice how the New England states and the eastern provinces banded together to stand up to the border issue recently). Americans and Canadians know each other more intimately and are more willing to listen listen to each other, outside the halls of power. I've realised that quite clearly in the last while.
It might have helped steer the US along a saner approach to its WOT.
I agree; there were a lot of fruitful avenues left unexplored.
My disagreement is with Blair himself; I don't think aggrandisement or power are the most logical motives for us to attribute to him. The man's words, actions and history suggest to me that he means more or less what he says. The the problem is that it's completely unecessary for him to be mad or evil for him to do harm.
Without specifically dealing with Blair, I think the real problem with any "US management" strategy by Canada, the UK or anyone else was that the Bush administration itself was utterly inexorable in its march towards war. UK/Canadian unity in opposing the war might have had an impact on US public opinion, but I very much doubt it could have prevented the war. And, given the preposterous popularity of the Iraq-9/11 link in US public opinion, even the former supposition seems questionable.
The the problem is that it's completely unecessary for him to be mad or evil for him to do harm.
That may be, but when Blair suggested that any discussion around linking the London tube bombings with Iraq was "obscene", I gave up. At that point, I simply felt it was easier to consider Blair irrational.
I still do.
UK/Canadian unity in opposing the war might have had an impact on US public opinion, but I very much doubt it could have prevented the war.
First, I'm not convinced of this and second, it certainly might have influenced the conduct of the invasion, which went off the spools almost right from the beginning.
Two documents that have provided me with some insights into why Blair went to war are Stephen F. Diamond's The PetroChina Syndrome and Muhammad Idrees Ahmad's Labour Friends of Israel.
In The PetroChina Syndrome, Diamond makes a distinction between two forms of capitalism, the Anglo-American model and the European and Asian model. He writes:
quoting Michel Albert who according to Christopher Caldwell was "the first economist to systematically draw the U.S.-Europe comparison in contemporary terms [...] in his 1991 book Capitalism versus Capitalism."As for Idrees Ahmad, he suggests that Tony Blair "was groomed" in a sense by 'Labour Friends of Israel', a powerful lobby group for Zionist interests in the UK. In a section entitled 'Buying Influence', he writes:
And if there is any doubt as to the importance of Israel for the Anglo-American economy, Finkelstein in my view lays them to rest in his article on The Israel Lobby:
Put all that together and one can weave a very good argument (way beyond my limited capacity, I am afraid!) for why Blair went into war! For the good of Humanity, my eye!
Poor Tony, indeed. He wanted to be the British answer to Franklin Roosevelt, returning the favour of standing by an ally in a time of crisis (never mind that the present crisis was largely manufactured by the ally in question, or that Roosevelt's support remained behind-the-scenes in nature until the U.S. was itself directly attacked).
Or failing that, at least to be like Winston Churchill, right about the one thing that mattered most (never mind that Churchill's career was for the most part characterized by abject failure, or that his one correct historical guess was as much a matter of luck as one of foresight).
Instead, he's ended up supporting an unjustified and ultimately disastrous war, reduced to irrelevance and detested by his own people. Blair will have to settle for being a modern-day Mussolini, and to hope that the parallel won't be exact.
If Jason's opinions about Blair's motivations are true, then Blair is far more stupid than even I think he is.
No individual can be so completely earnest and generous in their motivation and then so stubbornly persistent when both the results and their own conduct in obtaining those results are so poor, without being a completely clueless airhead.
The British are there in Iraq because they have always meddled that part of the world in order to obtain privileged access to its petroleum reserves. They were literally the king-makers after World War I, and they have desired to be king-makers again ever since they were unceremoniously kicked-out of the important countries in the 1950s. (Though only vicariously, since the United States is their only means to get into this position.)
In going along though, Blair miscalculated. He overestimated bush II's gratitude for the British contribution to the illusion of a "coalition." He has alienated his Contintental allies and hasn't gotten anything substantial in the way of access to Iraq's oil or to the "reconstruction" scandal.
It is about oil plain and simple. Blair has lied through his teeth, deliberately and consciously. He has known that the behaviour of British soldiers has been as abominable as that of the US. We hear less of this because there are far fewer British troops there with subsequently far fewer opportunities for major atrocities. Blair has deliberately lied to Parliament and the press. Read the limitations placed on the cope of the inquiries into his shenanigans if you have any doubt that they were meant to be white-washes.
Blair's "internationalism" takes much the same form as our own Paul Martin's "Responsibility to Protect" nonsense. Imperialist countries unilaterally declare some place a "failed state" (usually because of "political unrest" caused by a tiny minority of elite thieves and wannabe Quislings) and move in to topple popular regimes and install thier puppets. It's the same old filthy game, just with rhetoric designed to appeal to minds "infected" with the plague of social justice from the social movement activism of the past.
I know exactly when Tony Blair lost all credibility with me, it was Sept 7 2002 at Camp David. This is when he and Bush cited a IAEA report claiming Saddam was as close as six months to a working nuclear device. I happened to follow Iraq's nuclear development from after the first GW so I knew this was flat out wrong. It took three weeks for any American media source to discover that the IAEA had NEVER issued such a report about Iraq. When a PM with Blair's intelligence and ability is willing to stand behind a clear deception on what is arguably the most serious allegation short of an ongoing genocide by a country (rogue nuclear power/threat) by citing a non-existent report then I can no longer consider such a person credible.
By the time the (in)famous excellent UK documentation of Saddam's WMD programs that Powell cited at his UN briefing turned out to be nothing more than cribbed/stolen academic work by a student working on old documents seized in 1991 I could not understand why anyone thought Blair was credible. History is likely to judge Blair at least as harshly as Bush, possibly more so since Bush was known for his ignorance of foreign affairs and lack of interest in learning things whereas Blair had something of the opposite reputation/history. There is nothing Blair can do at this late date to change this. The only sympathy I have for Blair is that he put it all on the line for Bush and America and never got anything substantial back for it. I do not consider friendly rhetoric and photo-ops having anywhere near the same value as Blair's support for Bush and his international plans. He couldn't even get his own citizens out of Gitmo despite being America's closest ally on the so called War on Terror. Now that shows exactly which one was the leader and follower, as well as just how badly Blair misread Bush, something any person of his capabilities should not have done given how obvious this pattern was in Bush's history.
I think I have a better appreciation of why folks' feelings here are what they are for Blair.
Without putting words in peoples' mouths, I think in some cases I differ in some underlying assumptions:
1. In interpreting leaders' actions which may have multiple meanings, what should our starting assumptions be?
and
2. To what extent was the Iraq war part of a single (especially cohesive) imperial project? And what sort of project, particularly?
My own take on the first question is that we should start with leaders' own accounts and explicit rationalizations; we shouldn't stop there, but I think that we should take account of what people say. Then you interpolate contrary evidence, reasons they might have for being dishonest, different influences which may have affected the political discourse, and so on; a little bit like looking at a 'dishonest witness' in the historical record, or a dishonest narrator in literature. Thus, I begin with my impression of what motivations Blair emphasized, and then attempt to deconstruct that based on other evidence.
As for the second question: I don't question the definition of Iraq as a war that involved an imperial design, and furthermore, a covert imperial design. (That is to say, the more important reasons were never publicized. 'Secret' would be pushing it.) However, and this is crucial, I don't believe it was a cogent, rational, cohesive imperial design, or that different actors shared the same goals and assumptions. Differing motives - Saddam's ouster, democratization, bases in the middle east, the security of the Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi oil, what currency oil is traded in, and increasing influence along the southern fringe of the former Soviet Union are 6 rationales that might loom quite differently in the minds of different key actors pre-war.
My own views of historical imperialism are not very 'intentionalist;' if you will; that is, if one end of the historiographical spectrum is Hobson and Lenin and the other end is empires being created in 'a fit of absence of mind,' I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle; and the work I've done tends to suggest that it is quite a muddled, irrational and haphazard process, perhaps closer to the 'absence of mind' than anything else. To some people, that might sound exculpatory; to which I say pish posh, stupid and irrational imperialism is just as foul as that plotted in a smoke-filled room.
So when I see rationales for war that don't make sense, I say "Aha, more imperialism that doesn't make sense." I don't look for Blair's secret shares in Haliburton, or the 'Labour Friends of Israel' lobby group. There was, undoubtedly, something which one could describe as a 'war plot,' but it wasn't a particularly secretive or confusing business - just very irrational, contradictory, and dishonest. Blair, I think, just jumped on the bandwagon from hell.
To avoid any more unfortunate misunderstandings, the first sentence means I think I have a better understanding than I had formerly why feelings are as they were.
Blair, I think, just jumped on the bandwagon from hell.
I've been willing to entertain this for the last three years, but I have no obligation to consider it legitimate. In any case, with every rationale given for this invasion (WMD's, regime change, domino effects, PNAC), we've been restricted by a selective meting out of the facts -- or "facts", if you will -- and we never seem to have all the information at any given point to judge decisively what has motivated people like Blair. Usually, it takes a while.
So, I'm still waiting. If there was simply no other hidden motivation beyond what Blair has publicly provided evidence for, so be it. But I'll believe it when I see it.
Blair beefed up his Iran speech to please Bush
This seemed apropos.
A good critical account of a Paxman-Blair interview: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/war/paxman.html
Tony Blair:
"would not be correct to say there is no evidence linking al-Qa'ida and Iraq"
"If [Saddam] was to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in the rest of his region there is no way Britain could stand aside from that."
[From the link: It is a shame that Paxman failed to note that in the 1980s that neither Britain nor America "stood aside" but rather they actually supported and armed Saddam.]
Blair again: "even if I am the only person left saying it, I am going to go on saying it - it is a threat and a danger we have to confront."
In the face of such damning evidence of lies and fraud, such words are revolting and undemocratic indeed.
bush II and Blair don't give a damn about "democracy" either in their own countries or in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, they loathe and hate democracy and will do whatever they can to thwart it.
He's either pathetically stupid, or merely a stupid liar. I don't think tony blair is worth any more of my time.
This seemed apropos.
Not to mention relevant and to the point. I'm assuming that Blair does have a clear interest, even at this late date, in playing nice with Washington power brokers. He needs a lucrative career post-politics, and if stitching one up means continuing to compromise for the sake of the very people who have dragged him to disgrace, he's happy to do that.
Substantively, I disagree with Blair's policy of compromising with the Bush administration; I think most of us here agree that a diplomatic strategy vis a vis the United States can be best summarized as 'containment,' or maybe 'tactful containment.'
But it's easier to imagine it being part of Blair's continued belief that he can affect US policy than to see it as in terms of personal interests.
Why would his post-political career need padding as it is? In the event that PM Menzies Campbell sends him into exile on pain of death, the two US political parties would just fight over who got to use him as their new mascot.
Jason, get serious. The man is headed for big money.
That's just my point; he already is, and nothing he does one way or the other now is likely to alter that. If he were to have a Pauline conversion to our political viewpoints tommorow, he still would; perhaps with slightly different groups and organizations.
nothing he does one way or the other now is likely to alter that.
I know. Would that something we could do might alter it.
Something like, I don't know, starting to lay the groundwork for a Pinochet-type legal proceeding in 2026.
Now that's an 'emerging norm,' I'd like to foster.
Well, a person can dream...
Why do men where ties? Because it's a great big arrow pointing at their penis. :)
They hide the shirt buttons, were a fashion statement before the formal-dress business era and became a fashion statement after the formal dress business era. There was a period when they were an unusually ritualized bit of garb, but really, noone asks why people wear earrings, necklaces, hair ornaments, cufflinks, rings, coloured clothing, etc.
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At last! Someone answered my question. Thank you, Luna.
Jason, I dunno. Lots of things that people put about their necks enhance the neck or the face -- necklaces, jabots, ascots -- one can see the architectural justification. But ties? They just hang there, like a piece of string (if narrow) or a bib (if wide).
Are we past the formal-dress business era? I never get that feeling when I look at the class photos from G8 or other summit meetings. In fact, the first thing that always strikes me about those photos is how awful those guys look, how truly dreary and awkward and past their best-before dates. They will be posed in the middle of some splendid historical or natural site -- risers on the Plains of Abraham, eg (and wasn't that absurd? risers?), or a medieval palace in Genoa, or a valley in Kananaskis, and there they are, all those guys, standing in stiff rows wearing dark suits and those expensive but puzzling ties.
If only the world they are ruining could afford to laugh at them, or yawn.
http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2006/03/30/imageTHX11203302310.jpg
Jason, that's a flak jacket little Stevie's wearing, right?
Tee hee. Jason, I would still say that that's an improvement. Fox looks terrific, and George had slightly better advice than did Stephen, but they all look better than they do in suits.
Spare us the cowboy shots, though.
Much as he's a bastard, the real fashionista of the G8 leaders is Putin, with his snazzy light-coloured gangster-esque numbers. I couldn't really find any good examples on google images, but I've seen compilations on TV.
Back to the earlier discussion: was Blair clued in to this White House doctrine?
'War is swell'
Test post, need to reset blog addy here, sorry for the inconvienence.
well what is up with this
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