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The Legacy of a man is often judged by what he does, more than what he says.
Why did former Pesident George W. Bush and PM Tony Blair seek to topple Saddam Hussein? He was not strong militarily. Saddam had lost most of his planes, tanks and warships in the first Gulf War - 12 years before?
A good part of what was left in his pathetic little armoury was destroyed by the UN. The stiff sanctions were working.
Why did Bush & Blair persuade themselves and try to persuade the world that war was necessary when they KNEW that this was a lie?
Why didn鈥檛 the United States and Britain not seek a second resolution from the UN to legitimise the invasion; that鈥檚 what Tony Blair had said (promised) that he was going to do.
On September 1st, Tony Blair will publish his memoirs. Leaks are saying that Blair refers to Bush as a 鈥渧isionary鈥� and a 鈥渉ighly intelligent friend鈥�.
Blair is unlikely to be remembered for the Labour Government鈥檚 progress on social policies, the significant increase on money that was appropriated for the poor, the ill and the aged. Instead his legacy will be an unnecessary and horrible war in Iraq.
Remember Blair鈥檚 dossier 鈥� the one that claimed Saddam could deploy WMDs within 45-minutes. Over the course of the build-up, Blair repeated and repeated this warning. The intelligence that led to this statement must have been uncorroborated because it was so blatantly untrue.
Where was the British Intelligence Services? Why wasn鈥檛 it screaming the truth into Blair's face 鈥� or maybe it was, and Blair couldn鈥檛 bother listening. The Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, said that it was always known inside the Government that the 45-minute claim only applied to non-serious battlefield munitions.
Ex-foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in his book 鈥渢hat when he was visited by Scarlett he was told that Saddam had no long-range weapons of mass destruction and neither did he have useable battlefield weapons.鈥� "
And here鈥檚 the clincher: one year later, Blair was saying that he had never understood that the intelligence agencies did not believe that Saddam had long-range weapons of mass destruction.
After the invasion and toppling of Saddam, Blair and Bush had to admit that they were wrong about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. So they justified the invasion by saying that Saddam had worked alongside Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda. But almost every respected expert on Al Qaeda said that there had been no friendship between Osama and Saddam. Indeed, bin Laden considered Saddam an apostate.
Blair鈥檚 legacy:
- thousands and thousands of lives lost,
- thousands and thousands of horribly wounded persons,
- deformities in newborn babies (likely do to the deplated uraniam and/or white phosphorous that was used in bombs),
- destabilization of Iraq, especially between Sunni and Shiite, leading to terrorism and suuicide bombing,
- thousands of refugees.
And on top of all this, American forces, regardless of what they say, are still maintaining a military presence in Iraq and this force will be maintained into the indefinite future.
Blair, a force of good? He might have been, but unfortunately he wanted to be a good friend and ally to George W. Bush, and Iraq will be Blair's outstanding legacy.

I hope I wouldn't be sidestepping the question too much to comment that Tony Blair at least believed he was a force for good. Blair was well-intentioned and at no time did I ever feel that he wasn't going to try to do what he thought was the right thing. What more can we ask of a leader, than to do what he or she feels is right? In answer to that, someone might respond that they should also be expected to have good judgment about what that is. And that leads us to big questions about the war in Iraq, etc. But ultimately, whether going to Iraq was right or wrong (most feel retrospectively that it was wrong, and there's no doubt Blair wouldn't do it over again had he known in 2003 what we know now), Blair cannot be reduced to Iraq, Blair did what he thought was right, and Blair was more of a force for good than he was a force for bad.

I'm not sure we can ask too much more than that. And for those who say we can, I'd ask you to name a Prime Minister in recent history that fulfilled that expectation.

John,
What more can we ask of a leader, than to do what he or she feels is right?

To examine whether his or her "feeling" is shared by the people who put him or her in power, and to consider the possibility that they MAY be wrong.

Supposed "sincerity" and "forthrightness" and "lady-not-for-turningness" are vastly over-rated. I respect people who change their minds on the basis of evidence, who are willing to concede that they may have made a mistake. I *do* expect them to take decisions, but sometimes the right decision is to hold fire.

It certainly now seems clear that Blair did not tell the truth about the justification for war; this was something he would have known - or SHOULD have known. Of course he should not be reduced to Iraq, but this was a fiasco that could have and should have been avoided.

Was Tony Blair a force for good? Why not ask hundreds of thousands of folk in Iraq. Oh sorry, you can not - for they are dead - thanks to Tony Blair's lies and deceit.

Hundreds of thousands? According to some studies, the Iraq War killed 1.3 MILLION Iraqis. But of course, they are just statistics, like all the dead Afghans revealed by WikiLeaks.

I am not sure about Blair's so-called sincerity. The general feeling was that he was 'phoney Tony': a man who, if not prone to conscious deception, was full of self-deception which, if anything is worse. In other words, he wanted to believe that WMD existed, so he asked for intelligence to support his desire.

What was his desire? To go to war. Here is where the lies lie. He claimed he sought peace right up to the last minute, when what in fact he was seeking was UN legitimacy for a war he wanted, so that he could bask in the glory of a US-led victory.

For the greater part of his time in the hot seat he was a force for good however the fact that he must have known that WMD were a figment of his imagination and yet still continued to claim to the country that the existence of WMD gave him the moral right to continue to keep the army in Iraq, indicates the contrary. There is no doubt that if he had been more forthright especially after all the investigations since have showed how weak the evidence in support of the war was he would have completed his political career in a much more positive vein and perhaps would not have contributed to the downfall of the Labour government.

Helio:

"To examine whether his or her "feeling" is shared by the people who put him or her in power, and to consider the possibility that they MAY be wrong."

The implication you make that feelings shouldn't be the basis of policies is a thought I share. But I'm not talking about feelings. If anyone imagines for a second that Tony Blair took a decision like going to war lightly enough to do it on the basis of a feeling that it was right, in the absence of long days of listening to advisors with opinions, diplomats with agendas, international relations and a lot of haggling and mind-wrenching internal struggle, I think they are naive.

I'm not suggesting Blair was right. I'm suggesting he sincerely believed he was right, a belief reinforced by a lot of things told to him by people he would not have been unreasonable to trust.

In a world as confusing and complicated as this one, good intentions matter to me, a hell of a lot.

The reasons the UK went to war were to do with realpolitik. The British state has needed the 鈥榗lose relationship鈥� with the US in order to continue to act like a British bulldog on the world stage. Being America鈥� poodle is the only way it can do it. The US went to war with Iraq in order to reassert its power after 9/11 against a state that was 鈥榙oable鈥� (i.e. easy). The UK followed in the US鈥檚 footsteps. It鈥檚 as basic as that. These have nothing to do with 'good' intentions. They are based on power politics and the need to present an image of strength to the rest of the world.

What is so annoying about what Blair did is the fact that he continued Britain鈥檚 self-deception about being a world power. In other words, it is the fact that he acted no differently from a Conservative PM that is so galling. For Labour supporters, Labour was supposed to be different. It had an 鈥榚thical鈥� foreign policy, in Robin Cook鈥檚 words. Cook was proved wrong by Blair鈥檚 actions and realised it and resigned. That is why he is respected and Blair is maligned.

People seem to think that it's the British who need the Americans, however, when you look at history, it's very different.

The last time the US and the UK had a war, it was decidedly ambigious who 'won' (1859 - the Pig War!), and America has never won a war in which the UK didn't help it out (Vietnam anyone?) so it seems that American needs the UK.

Plus, whenever we fight a war on the same side, half our casualties are due to Americans killing them in 'friendly' fire.

;-)

Yes, I believe firmly that Tony Blair was a force for good, both nationally and internationally. The problem at present is mainly the ongoing concerns over Iraq, even if they are actually wrong-headed and unbalanced at times. Ours is a media which tends to focus only on what they consider "negative" (newsworthy) outcomes of various policy areas. This is encouraged and added to by various and disparate pressure groups whose combined political clout can be far stronger than those of political parties despite being way out of kilter with their actual numbers. But the combination of attack and some devastating criticism compounds to the effect that it is not surprising that we are left with a nasty taste about certain policies, and since we tend to personalise 'blame', about certain politicians. Tony Blair is foremost among those so regarded or rather disregarded.

I see his treatment as utter calumny of a hugely reforming political leader, whose agenda, policies and vision have been taken up almost in their entirety by the other main parties. He is highly regarded throughout the world, despite (perhaps in some parts because of) his being known as close to the USA in the Iraq decisions.

And have we noticed how Blair's vision and policy agenda is now that of other parties? Have we noticed how and wondered at why other countries often regard him so highly? If not, why not?

Devolution throughout the UK, and particularly the historic settlement in Northern Ireland would have been enough in and of themselves to elicit praise (if not necessarily agreement) for ANY government in the past, given how momentous they actually were and still are. And yet how often do we hear Tony Blair and his government thanked or duly recognised for any of this? How often do we hear him thanked for the minimum wage, Freedom of Information, the PFI, huge investment in Health and Education, the rising of Britain to top spot in financial services? Would we have had ALL of these without his government? I doubt it. Remember, the Conservatives worked hard to avoid much of it, notably devolution AND the minimum wage.

Now all parties seem to be on board the Blair train, but they'd prefer it if we didn't notice.

The opining on the Iraq war is the spoiler on the Blair record. And it is the OPINING rather than the facts which lead the 'dismissing Blair' agenda.

We are still told that if only Blair hadn't supported America in 'its' wars in the Middle East, we would be a better country, with moral 'right' on our side, and thus Blair would be recognised as a better politician and more honourable and trustworthy man. And, of course, almost without argument it is insisted that all those poor Iraqis would not have died. So many aspects of life and politics are blithely ignored in this thinking. For a start it is far too early to judge whether the Iraq invasion was worth it. Those in Iraq who are happy with the way their country is presently developing are seldom heard within our media. Iraqis who supported the allied "invasion" are even less frequently heard. Even as Iraqis' concerns move towards their economy rather than security - . - the call by those in Britain in judgement of the decision is stuck in a "wrong decision"/"illegal"/"lies" rut.

And his critics seem seldom to look at what is behind the ongoing murders in Iraq. They seem to accept that WE in the west are to blame for these killings, even today. It's as though no-one in Iraq or the region has had any input into ongoing deaths of their own. As though WE made them kill one another.

The arguments against Tony Blair seem to have been hijacked by anti-war people, or anti-Blair people. Not always the same thing, or even found in the same places. But they are a toxic combination.

People in Sierra Leone and in Kosovo do NOT see Blair's interventionism as destructive OR as war-mongering. They are very grateful to him for stopping rebel limb-chopping and murders in the former, ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the latter. Yet the print-space afforded to these achievements is minisule compared to that on his "wrong" decisions about Iraq.

Tony Blair in the round, and in history should not and will not be seen as an unfortunate blip on British political history. In fact he may well be seen as the last British Prime Minister with a conscience. A conscience wide enough to focus on, and influence the whole world. Now, there's a thought for some to chew on.

"And yet how often do we hear Tony Blair and his government thanked or duly recognised for any of this? How often do we hear him thanked for the minimum wage, Freedom of Information, the PFI, huge investment in Health and Education, the rising of Britain to top spot in financial services?"

Zeitgeist, your choice of things to thank New Labour for is rather unusual. Minimum wage, great, Human Rights, even better, but Devolution? A bureaucratic and obstructive Freedom of Information act? PFI? The gross mismanagement of national resources and the dependency on the gamblers in the city of London? Admittedly, blame for these latter features tends to fall on Brown's shoulders rather than Blair's, but they are nonetheless failures, rather than successes, of the New Labour project.


Honestly, I find the question ridiculous. Force for good indeed; what the heck is that supposed to mean? One man's milk is another man's poison. We cannot ourselves determine whether the neoconservative attitude towards war adopted by Blair (basically, that we are in a position to intervene militarily in the affairs of others) is something that's in their long-term interests. We picked a side and funded it. Was that the right side to pick? Who knows? We just picked a side we empathised with, putting ourselves in their shoes and acting accordingly.

The idea of being "a force for good" can only be held sensible if the Golden Rule is an actual principle of "good" action. And it might not be. Maybe our intervention at a crucial turning point of a nation stops it properly expressing and resolving its differences on its own accord. Maybe our "good intentions" set back its independent growth and well-being by years. This is something we should have learned in the colonial era; more than that, it's something we should all have learned as kids. If you don't know what you're doing, then your attempts to be "helpful" just end up getting in the way.

As long as we think every problem in the world can be solved from our constrained perspective of it, there'll be more Iraqs and Afghanistans to come. The Western Governments are not the arbiter of Justice; we don't decide what the right thing is. Justice is organic, with a life of its own, and Blair's biggest fault was forgetting that.

Pardon, Paul R?

"Justice is organic, with a life of its own, and Blair's biggest fault was forgetting that."

Justice is "Organic"? Organic being defined as "forms, methods and patterns found in living systems such as the organisation of cells, to populations, communities, and ecosystems."

What puzzling semantics you use, PaulR. Despite the definition above seeming to disprove your "organic" position I have another possibility for this "organic justice" line you propagate, organically, of course.

You seem to be taking us away from the initial debate. Plus ca change when it comes to Tony Blair. Perhaps some "organism", judicial or not, will hand him his 'just' deserts. Organically, of course. So in today's zeitgeist, that's the way it should be. Hmmm?

The idea that some "organic" action (or inaction) is how our complex world invariably develops (or not) is puerile indeed. It is OUR actions (and inactions) that bring consequences (or lack of), development, democracy, laws and societal change. These changes do NOT just happen organically.

We can argue about whether or not Blair made the right decisions - I think he did, you probably think he didn't. But this kind of philosophical neverland-dwelling negates the need for ANY decision-making by anyone at any time.

This lateral thinking of yours seems to abrogate all human input or/and human responsibility for everything and anything. Do you have the moral right or authority to DO that?

Blair was a real leader. Unusual in this country, even world. Perhaps that's why you don't seem to quite get him.

On the topic of the justification for war, in the light of Blair's Iraq and Afghanistan adventures, I've just finished a biography of Neville Chamberlain ().

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I am one of those subscribers to the "Chamberlain-Churchill myth" (the former being viewed as a coward and the latter being the inspirational opposite) you couldn't be more wrong. Robert Self's book is, I think, likely to be considered the authoritative work on this subject (given his virtually exhaustive research of the extensive Chamberlain archive, much of which has just been released to the public), and in no way is he uncritically sympathetic to Chamberlain. However, he does go a long way to redressing the balance and bursting the Churchillian myth concerning the dangers of appeasement.

With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to criticise - or even outrightly condemn - the idea of appeasing dictators. However, the historical context has to be taken into account, and it is certainly true that Chamberlain's policy allowed Britain time to rearm. Had we gone to war in 1938 the outcome may have been very different.

But the urgent need to rearm (without bankrupting the country with all the social consequences of that) was only one aspect of the wisdom of appeasement. Another reason for Chamberlain's course of action was to ensure that Hitler would actually be seen to be the aggressor in the eyes of the British public (as well as in world opinion generally). This should not be understood to mean that Chamberlain's policy was a cynical ploy (like the equivalent of a UN rubber stamp. He genuinely hoped and worked for peace, but neverthless realistically prepared for war). A long and difficult period of negotiation and diplomacy may seem like a policy of cowardice, but, in fact, if such a procedure is not followed through properly, the moral justification for war can be undermined. No war can be fought effectively unless you take your people with you. Therefore the moral justification for war is of paramount importance.

The message of history is that preemptive wars based on a less than absolutely certain prospectus - such as Iraq and Afghanistan - will not be waged with sufficient moral justification, at least in a media conscious age and in the eyes of an understandably sceptical population (especially when the coffins start returning).

I am disturbed that the word 'appeasement' has become a dirty word - especially in the mouths of a certain belligerent and vociferous constituency of people "over the pond". Chamberlain was pursuing his policy of appeasement at the very same time that the USA refused, not only to get involved with a serious European war (with its obvious global implications), but even to take any concerted action against the sabre rattling of the Japanese in the Pacific. If appeasement is cowardice then I dread to think how we should describe isolationism! Apparently it was all down to little old Britain to sort out the world's problems on three fronts (the Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Western Front), but where were the Americans?

I am not a pacifist, but the issue of casus belli is vitally important, and I am not convinced that Blair (unlike Chamberlain) made the moral case for war. In fact, the whole sordid 'dossier affair' (not to mention the tragic death of David Kelly) only served to inflame the sceptical view that the British public were being taken for a ride. Everything that Blair did leads me to think that the Americans can safely assume that they can take Britain's support for granted. It's an appalling situation for this country to be in - and, in fact, ironically, it could be described as a kind of diplomatic 'appeasement' to the demands of a highly belligerent and demanding 'ally' (I am not anti-American, but I don't interpret 'anti-Americanism' as meaning 'failing to agree with everything the USA demands, irrespective of whether it is within one's own interests').

He believed in what he did; but so did Hitler!

I do not count myself as a Tony Blair supporter. I never voted for him. In fact, at all those elections I deliberately spoiled my ballot papers writing 鈥渘o suitable candidate鈥� across them. I am an admirer though.

I think you have to give him credit for a number of things. He rescued Labour from its madness and turned it into a credible and electable political party. That was good for democracy. He finished off the good work that Margaret Thatcher had done on the unions. He was her true successor. Now the only nutters that we have left are Tweedledum and Twitterdee from Unite and the mad and bad Bob Crowe from the railways.

You have to give him huge credit for Northern Ireland, for Kosovo and Sierra Leone. I think he was also responsible for a fundamental change in British politics in that he reconciled caring with competition. For the first time it was accepted that you could have a social conscience but still believe in business and the free market.

On Iraq, clearly it is a good thing that we got rid of Saddam Hussein although, personally, I think we should have assassinated him. If there was a moral justification for war, for shock and awe, then there was for assassination. Even if we had lost thousands of special forces that would have been better than hundreds of thousands of innocents. I do think that Blair became carried away with George Bush and that was a mistake. Bush will be forgotten long before Blair. He was not of the same calibre. All he had to offer was the might and power of America.

Fundamentally, what you have to ask is did Tony Blair act in good faith? I believe he did. I believe he is an honourable man. Look backwards from Blair to Thatcher and there鈥檚 noone else until Churchill and then Lloyd George. That is the company in which Tony Blair will be remembered. He is a great man.

I Was There For You Tone!

The one thing I really don鈥檛 understand in this man of vision and intelligence is his conversion to Catholicism. I can just about accept his Christianity although why a man with his intellect needs organised religion I don鈥檛 know. I really can鈥檛 understand why he wants to be allied to the institution that has been responsible for more evil over the last 2000 years than any other. I think it demeans him. He has far, far more to offer the world than that stupid old bigot the Pope, for instance. It seems to me the Catholic Church will benefit far more from him than he will from it. That鈥檚 his business though.

RE #14, "The idea that some "organic" action (or inaction) is how our complex world invariably develops (or not) is puerile indeed. It is OUR actions (and inactions) that bring consequences (or lack of), development, democracy, laws and societal change. These changes do NOT just happen organically."

Obviously sir has never engaged in scientific investigation. Deciding the results in advance of the experiment is a notoriously poor way to deal with the unfamiliar.

We make laws. So what? Is there no such thing as an injust law? When one's rulings are held to define, rather than approximate, conditions for optimal social function, we call that dictatorship.

Justice isn't about the imposition of will, but about the establishment of persistent well-being and the elimination of harm. That semantics should be simple enough for anyone to understand. There's a distinction between the subject of a theory of justice and the theory itself; this distinction is what I'm claiming Blair missed, and so, it seems, have you. The spread of democracy was carried out for its own sake, done because of a love for it, rather than a desire to bring justice about, and in so doing, Blair and the neo-con project took conceptual shortcuts they weren't entitled to. Hence the post-war quagmire, the unleashing of international terrorism and the great struggle to deal with the people of the middle-east: our leaders didn't even appreciate the inheretly imperialistic nature of their efforts.

Does this mean don't act on peoples' behalf? Heck no. It means Properly consult and engage in dialogue with them, rather than storm in and expect to be able to run the show and have everyone coming out squeaky clean. It means humility, care and a willingness to engage. It means not thinking you have all the answers. That is what good leadership is, rather than the kind of Comic-book heroism you seem to suggest.

'He rescued Labour from its madness and turned it into a credible and electable political party'.
What all on his own? I don't think so.
Surely Mandelson - the architect of New Labour - should get the credit (if there is any) for this.
Blair was just the 'presenter' and he didn't always check his notes.