Twenty years ago yesterday Tony Blair became Labour Party Leader. The man who delivered a landslide victory for Labour in 1997 is now seen as a polarising figure in British politics.
Blair loved to be seen as a ‘modernising’ force in his party. Whether it was the abandonment of Clause 4, the drinks receptions for celebrities or leading a Government which was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, this was a world away from ‘Old Labour’.
As Prime Minister, however, there is no doubt it was his approach to foreign policy that defined his premiership.
Britain’s involvement in the illegal war in Iraq left a particularly indelible mark. Blair seemed to offer Parliament a choice. But his case was built on sandy foundations: his personal word that the intelligence case presented to MPs had not been exaggerated or ‘sexed up’.
Blair had used his own personal charisma to defeat opposition to his changes to the public sector and indeed to the Labour Party itself. He used this tool once again in making the case for the Iraq invasion, alongside a particular brand of political ‘spin’ that grew to typify Labour’s approach in office.
Over a hundred thousand lives were lost because of the war in Iraq, a war started by our invasion and justified by a ‘dodgy dossier’ which erroneously claimed that Iraq was ready to deploy weapons of mass destruction within minutes. The war led to the deaths of 179 British troops, and shattered the lives of many more Iraqi children and civilians. It fatally distracted western governments from the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Both we and the Iraqis are still living with the consequences.
However, aside from the impact of the war itself, the damage that was done to British politics and our Parliament cannot be overlooked.
Blair’s decision to ignore over a million people marching against the war, combined with the lack of genuine grounds for the war did a huge amount of damage to public trust in politics. Perhaps Blair was sincere in his motives, but on this he was simply wrong.
The politics and conflicts of the Middle East are complex, and it is over simplistic to seek to explain every nuance through one action or individual. However, the handling of the 2003 invasion is held up by Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003 as “perhaps the most significant reason” for the sectarian violence that now blights Iraq.
The war in Iraq is still used as a recruitment device for Islamists in the region. Sectarian divides in the country were exacerbated by the war, and a generation of Iraqi children have grown up in the sectarian violence that followed the invasion. ISIS are now exploiting those divisions today.
Tony Blair focussed on his record in public service reform, and his reinvigoration of the Labour Party as an election-winning machine.
His wish to do so is understandable because it ignores the fact his real legacy now rests on his decision to go to war in Iraq.
On this Blair has become masterful in retreading the ground of his old arguments, stubbornly oblivious to the impact that decision has had – not only on Iraq, and those serving there, but also on British government and politics.
* Martin Horwood is Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for the South West of England & Gibraltar. He is a member of the European Parliament’s Iran delegation. He is Borough & parish councillor for Leckhampton, Gloucestershire.
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40 Comments
“the damage that was done to British politics and our Parliament cannot be overlooked. Blair’s decision to ignore over a million people marching against the war, combined with the lack of genuine grounds for the war did a huge amount of damage to public trust in politics. Perhaps Blair was sincere in his motives, but on this he was simply wrong.”
That’s an extraordinary argument. Polls at the time showed the public was strongly in favour of the war. Our elected representatives were also in favour. Ignoring all that in favour of bowing to those million marchers – impressive though they were – would have been deeply undemocratic.
“Polls at the time showed the public was strongly in favour of the war.”
Yes, but I am pretty sure the reason WHY so many were “in favour” was because they then believed what the Government and the media had been pouring into their minds about the “threat from Saddam and his WMD” for months as part of a fully orchestrated campaign of manipulation (the true originators of which were, of course, to be found among the Neocon advisers of Bush2 who had never forgotten or forgiven 1991). The fact the LDs opposed the war in my view constitutes, on the other hand, one of its finest hours and we need to try and revive memories of this principled stance, standing up to and, if needs be, opposing what a (even quite large) majority of the public may think at any one time (in the spirit of John Stuart Mill)!
Beyond Iraq and failures in economic terms (mainly caused by giving Brown a totally free hand at the Treasury and, indeed, being frightened of him and his associates), I personally feel that Blair’s primary legacy is going to be what is also touched on in the article; a profound disillusion and indeed disgust with ‘Westminster politics’, ‘the political establishment’, ‘the chattering classes’ etc and which, in my view, when combined with genuine concerns (whether justified or not) about immigration (and for which the EU is just a handy catch-all scapegoat), means that the current true heirs of the legacy of Blair are the Kippers and their “stuff the lot of you!” wisdom.
Why do Liberal Democrats blame Tony Blair for Iraq? Parliament voted on it, and the dodgy dossier wasn’t part of the debate leading up to that vote.
Also, much of the post-invasion chaos in Iraq was caused by monumental strategic blunders by the Americans in the de-Baathificiation strategy. Blair cannot be blamed for that.
Incidentally, the war in Syria is used as a recruiting tool for jihadists more than Iraq, who was in power when Britain opted to sit back and let the Islamists expand their organisations over that?
Stuart
Thus is also one of the dangers of an in out referendum on EU
Compared to a few months of Pre Iraq media manipulation, in the case of the EU. we have been fed 40 years of lies and disinformation , and it won’t take a few months campaigning to redress that .
Can’t wait for Chilcotts verdict on Blair and co
Blair’s decision to ignore over a million people marching against the war, combined with the lack of genuine grounds for the war did a huge amount of damage to public trust in politics
More damage would have been done by letting a loud minority (polls varied, but usually found a slim majority in favour of the invasion; it’s just that those in favour weren’t whipped up by the SWP to march) dictate British foreign policy.
Yes, but I am pretty sure the reason WHY so many were “in favour” was because they then believed what the Government and the media had been pouring into their minds about the “threat from Saddam and his WMD” for months as part of a fully orchestrated campaign of manipulation
No, actually, I don’t think it was. I think it was because Saddam Hussein was a particularly brutal dictator even by the standards of the region who had been using weapons of mass destruction on his own people for decades, and so people could see that removing him would be a good, and morally justified, use of military force.
Of course due to many, many mistakes in the post-war period Iraq ended up in a terrible state (though whether it’s a worse state than it would have been if Saddam was still in power when the Arab Spring happened (if indeed the Arab Spring even happened in the absence of the Iraq War, which is unclear) is debatable).
But it’s insulting to the majority of the country who were in favour of removing Saddam to say that they had all had the wool pulled over their eyes by ‘the Government and the media’.
No. We knew exactly what was going on, we didn’t think that chemical rockets from Mosul could hit Surbiton in forty-five minutes; we were simply in favour of using our military force, at a point in time when, unusually, it was politically possible (in a way that it’s never been, for instance, politically possible to do something about North Korea), to do some good in the world by getting rid of a tyrant.
You may disagree (clearly you do) but don’t tell us we only believed what we did because we were stupid and hoodwinked.
A few guilty Labourites in here this morning? Still a bit touchy on this subject, aren’t you?
Blair lied (or, at least, was way too evangelical), and thousands died, including women children and other non combatants. A stain not just on him and the Labour party, but on our nation’s history.
“Polls at the time showed the public was strongly in favour of the war. ”
“Polls varied, but usually found a slim majority in favour of the invasion”
Actually, Blairite spinners, only the polls taken well before the war were strongly in favour of a war. Opinion shifted strongly towards the anti-war camp as Government wriggled, the dodginess of the dossier began to show, the UN refused to give sanction, and it became increasingly obvious that Blix was not going to be given the time he deserved to find out if those WMD were real. By the time of the march and then the war itself, the polls had moved to support the marchers. There was no majority for war. There was a big majority in favour of at least giving Blix more time.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/18/politics.iraq
Dav, the idea that 50% of the vote plus one voter is a mandate to do anything with no recourse for objection is a very crude way to implement the idea of democracy.
I would personally favour some concept of a blocking minority in cases like the declaration of an aggressive war.
Your other comment is interesting – the blame for the utter failure to deliver a new regime in Iraq is to do with mistakes that weren’t planned for. Now surely, since there have been so many mistakes made and since the plan was so utterly inadequate to the task, perhaps the case might be made that the invasion ought not to have happened, at the very least until after a credible de-baathification strategy had been agreed on by the invaders, and preferably until after Afghanistan had been de-talibanised.
Anyway, Blair’s legacy… its a bit obvious really. The fact that we’re arguing Iraq points at the major component of his legacy. Which is a great shame, really. If he’d been hit by the number 13 bus on new year’s day in 2003, we’d remember a PM who made a huge difference for good in the Balkans, who made progress with Ireland and whose domestic policy did much to reinvest the benefits from the Major government’s decisions back into the country. We’d be making wistful noises wondering what another five years might have been, blissfully unaware of how narrow our escape would have been.
Lots of very unconvincing Labour people here Blair was a cheer leader for Bush and must share a huge amount of responsibility for the poor planning and not challenging it. Many Labour people seem to be oblivious to the 100,000s of Iraq’s who have died and continue to do so because of the decisions that most of there and many Tories blindly followed Blair in taking.
I would personally favour some concept of a blocking minority in cases like the declaration of an aggressive war.
Ah, the good old Lib Dem ‘I didn’t get the result so I want to change the system.’
And when the minority blocks some progressive thing you do want, will you be complaining that they have made a mockery of democracy?
I think you will.
it became increasingly obvious that Blix was not going to be given the time he deserved to find out if those WMD were real
It was never really about the WMD, though, and nobody thought it was. It was about toppling a brutal dictator, and everybody knew it.
Nobody was ‘manipulated by the media’.
But then, Liberal Democrats have never been able to cope with the idea that people could honestly, reasonably, and in possession of all the facts, disagree with them, have they? The Liberal way is so obviously the right way that if you disagree then you must have been manipulated by somebody.
And Cleggs legacy ? Lord Ashcroft poll of marginal Labour/Conservatives seats has the Lib Dems on 4%, down from 15% at the general election and into mass deposit losing territory. Further as the Lib Dem drop in support overall is 14% -15% (not 11%) that means the loss will be greater than 14% in seats where we start from a higher base. Another national poll put the Lib Dems and Greens neck and neck (the second recent one to do so) fighting over 5th place.
“Saddam Hussein was a particularly brutal dictator even by the standards of the region who had been using weapons of mass destruction on his own people for decades, and so people could see that removing him would be a good, and morally justified, use of military force.”
So where are we off to next (after the US has been kind enough to let us have the aircraft to go with the shiney new aircraft carriers)? North Korea? Zimbabwe? Cuba? Iran? Or shall be just go for it and sail down the Neva, direction Moscow? Like Harold Wilson refusing to answer LBJ’s call and not “even send the band of the Grenadier Guards to Vietnam”, you have to admire Gerhard Schroeder’s decision not to fall into line behind ‘Big Daddy’ in 2003, I think: http://www.europeaninstitute.org/February-%E2%80%93-March-2010/dieter-dettkes-germany-says-no-the-iraq-war-and-the-future-of-german-foreign-and-security-policy.html
Dav, you’re clearly not even trying to engage meaningfully with the issue.
In cases like the declaration of an aggressive war, there should be some form of blocking minority possible or a supermajority necessary to press on.
In the unlikely event of a ‘progressive’ aggressive war, whatever that might be and if its even possible, being blocked, that’s fine. I prefer not to drag an entire population into a war if the support for it isn’t wholehearted and broad.
But, feel free to advocate for your little elected dictatorship. Typical Tory, unable to grasp the fact that a tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.
@David Allen
“Actually, Blairite spinners, only the polls taken well before the war were strongly in favour of a war. Opinion shifted strongly towards the anti-war camp as Government wriggled, the dodginess of the dossier began to show, the UN refused to give sanction, and it became increasingly obvious that Blix was not going to be given the time he deserved to find out if those WMD were real.”
You are right – at the time of the vote, public opinion had shifted briefly from being in favour to being against.
But the really odd thing is that as soon as the bullets started flying , opinion shifted again and a large majority of the public said they approved of the war. So if the public were really concerned about all those things you listed, for some reason they ditched those concerns the moment the invasion started.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/ca/180/Iraq-Public-Support-Maintained-8212-The-State-Of-Public-Opinion-On-The-War.aspx
@Charles Rothwell
“I personally feel that Blair’s primary legacy is going to be what is also touched on in the article; a profound disillusion and indeed disgust with ‘Westminster politics’”
I’m not sure about that. Somewhere at the bottom of a drawer I still have Blair’s five-point pledge card from 1997. And you know what? He actually stuck to what he said he was going to do :-
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/factcheck+labours+election+pledge+cards/507807.html
I could invite you to compare and contrast that with a certain other party leader who only made one pledge – and a pledge that was far easier to stick to than any of Blair’s. You know the rest. If you want to know why the public – especially young people – mistrust politicians, you need to loko a little closer to home.
We’re probably looking at another twenty years before Blair’s record can be judged remotely objectively, because at the moment the mere mention of his name still sends people in to a frenzy of allegations (“liar”, “war criminal” etc) that have never been proven.
In cases like the declaration of an aggressive war, there should be some form of blocking minority possible or a supermajority necessary to press on.
Why? What is special about the case of an aggressive war that makes it different from, say, signing a treaty, or constitutional changes, other than that happened to be the issue where you didn’t get your way?
Changing the electoral system would have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the government of the UK than going to war, but I don’t recall you demanding a super-majority in the 2011 referendum — no, in that case 50% plus one voter would have been all you’d wanted to change the whole electoral system, wouldn’t it?
Whereas some people might say that if a ‘blocking minority’ should be able to block anything, it should be such a significant change to our entire democratic system as changing the way MPs are elected.
Basically, it’s one rule for things you agree with (they should be as easy as possible, so only a simple majority is needed for, say, electoral reform) and another for things you disagree with (so a minority should be able to block, say, going to war).
It so transparent.
Dav, if you change the voting system to AV, to PR, to the election of the man with the fluffiest beard, whatever, nobody dies.
If a state goes to war, people kill and are killed on the orders of that state. In a democracy, however flawed, that means that the voter has blood on his or her hands, and you had better hope that it got there for a damn good reason.
If you don’t get why that makes it a particularly special issue, then there is a problem.
Now, as it happens, I think that since the voting system underpins the very mechanism of democracy, it should be a constitutional matter that should also need a supermajority in order to be changed.
Its just a real shame that there is still no constitution to define this principle, so we’re left with your fifty percent plus one voter elected dictatorship, that’s the threshold we need to exceed and until we can exceed it, we can’t change it and simply have to abide by it. You know, on account of it being the law and all.
But whatever, why bother to engage with a discussion when you can just caricature your opponents and knock down strawmen instead?
@GPPurnell: “A few guilty Labourites in here this morning? Still a bit touchy on this subject, aren’t you? ”
I hold no love for Labour and haven’t voted for them since 1997, but it should also be remembered that there was a decent rebellion in the Labour ranks. In fact, more Conservative MPs voted for the Iraq War than those on the Labour benches. 139 Labour MPs bravely defied a three-line whip and voted against the war, while just 15 Tories did the same. Now I know that posters on this website are often more critical of Labour than the Tories, probably because they’re currently your “friends” in coalition, but the Tories were far more eager to go to war than Labour were, especially among the grassroots and rank-and-file members. In fact, from the friends I have who are still Labour members, this split the party horribly and they still haven’t recovered completely from it. There was no split in the Tories on this issue at all.
I think that since the voting system underpins the very mechanism of democracy, it should be a constitutional matter that should also need a supermajority in order to be changed
Then I respect your unexpected consistency.
Stuart,
“the really odd thing is that as soon as the bullets started flying , opinion shifted again and a large majority of the public said they approved of the war. So if the public were really concerned about all those things you listed, for some reason they ditched those concerns the moment the invasion started.”
Not at all an odd thing. Once a nation goes to war and the troops put themselves in harm’s way, all those who had doubts suppress those doubts. If they don’t, then the warriors get very angry, and crush the doubts with an emotional appeal to patriotism and loyalty.
Once the invasion was under way, Charles Kennedy’s opponents asked him the Catch-22 question “Do you support our troops?” It was an unfair but un-dodgeable question, designed to hurt Kennedy whatever his answer. Had Kennedy said “No”, he would have been condemned for abandoning our brave soldiers who were facing the enemy. So he said “Yes”, despite knowing that this would make him look weak, unable to sustain a point of view, and unable to press the point effectively when the aftermath of invasion went so badly wrong.
The nation should never go to war without broad public consent ahead of military action. Blair degraded our democracy when he over-rode that principle.
On WMD
The Iraqis had WMD and had used it to devastating effect on other nations and on his own people. The weapons inspectors had found and destroyed some but from both intelligence sources and the noises Saddams Baath party were making had not found it all. Even Blix had thought there were WMD as he told the Today programme in 2010, talking about a conversation he had with Blair in 2010.
”I said to Mr Blair ‘Yes, I also thought there could be weapons of mass destruction’, but I said ‘Are you so sure? Would it not be paradoxical if you were to invade Iraq with 200,000 men and found there were no weapons of mass destruction?”.
But the war, as Paddy Ashdown intimated was not just about WMD when he referred to ‘a right war, if perhaps for the wrong reason’. It was about stopping the suffering of the Iraqi people. Conservative estimates are of 250,000 people being murdered by the Baathist regime. We saw reports of whole towns being massacred, what we did not hear so much about was the nazi style round ups of entire villages where the male population were gunned down and hidden in mass graves. We heard of the diverting of the Tigris, carried out to deprive a whole people of their source of sustenance, We also heard of the bloody suppression of the remainder of the Shia people, which was not alleviated by the enforcement of the No-Fly Zone.
I agree, the post war era was a debacle. But that was not a given – it was down to an idiot in charge of the US Defence department. When Patraeus initiated his surge the country saw a draw back of violence throughout the US areas of influence. Sadly, this was not, could not be replicated where the British army was in control and so no similar de-escalation of violence took place.
@ Stephen Campbell – you are right in that the key parliamentary failure that prevented effective parliamentary scrutiny and open debate in the run-up to the Iraq war was the failure to have an effective opposition. Hague and IDS (both as shadow defence secretary and then as leader) were so busy trying to outbid Blair for chumminess with the Republicans and insert themsevles so far up Donald Rumsfeld’s back passage it was worrying, they did not really consider the option of being even a secptical friend of the government.
My admiration for Ken Clarke (not consistently a hero of mine) and even (gasp) John Gummer continues, purely for the pragmatic, conservative anti-war arguments they made in the Iraq debates, intended to appeal to a wideer audience than those who would never want a war at any privce and those who revere the UN. They have largely been proved right.
Blair was and is, as others have commented, an authoritarian centrist – he was not that interested in left and right, but he was interested in expanding the power of the state to interefere in others’ lives as it saw fit, as it knew the good that individuals did not know for themselves. This is not an alien tradition to Britain, but he probably pushed it further than many. In that respect, he would probably fit in well in many Asian democracies.
He has certainly left the Labour party with an enormous identify crisis it has not yet resolved, as many celebratedly successful ex-PMs seem to, (see also Iron Lady).
I hope the country can for a spell wean itself away from the alternating long periods of one-party rule we have had since 1979. There is such a thing as too much stability. This is one of many reasons I am not particularly keen on an extension of the current Coalition.
Tony Blair made me ashamed to be British with his war mongor ways, he should have been put in court with President Bush if I never saw his face or name again it would still be too soon.
How the television networks can put him on TV is beyond me and how he has the job he does now is beyond belief, that is not even mentioning the way he stitched this nation in the EU
I don’t know if the country still pays for his security but if so it should have funding removed
Every leader is subject to criticism. It is a part of the job description. However, the passage of time and the long-sighted lens of history often tend to dull the censure and put seemingly terrible decisions into a more tolerable context. If the leader can argue that they acted within the law, that they acted to protect the people who elected them, that they acted reasonably and proportionately and when there was no realistic alternative to the course taken, that the objective was worth the sacrifice, posterity is inclined to be, if not kind, at least understanding.
Blair’s tragedy is that the passage of time is not working in his favour. The overthrow of Saddam Hussain, a brutal dictator by any measure, was doubtless a desirable outcome in the eyes of many, but it was the means employed to achieve the end that will scar Blair’s legacy.
In the aftermath of World War Two the west adopted certain principles – principles that it clarified at the Nuremberg trials. The primary outcome of the trials was to promulgate legal codes that all civilized nations would observe in the future.
The primary charge against the Nazi war criminals was one of conducting a ‘war of aggression’. The crucial principles established by the trial were that a war of aggression was a war crime that should be punished regardless of the reasons, motives or status of the perpetrators. As the Chief Prosecutor, Robert Jackson, observed at the time, war crimes are those that “civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US and UK was an ‘aggressive’ war by the standard established at Nuremberg. Neither country could argue that it was acting in ‘self-defence’, and without the sanction of the UN they lacked the legal cover that could justify their attack as intervention.
We are either subject to the principles of law or we are not. When a country such as ours circumvents the law, relying instead in our own convictions that we are doing the right thing and can ignore established principles if they become too much of an obstacle, we undermine the rule of law and the moral authority that goes with it.
For all his protestations, Blair has yet to explain how we were somehow exempt from the prohibition on wars of aggression. Until he does (and I struggle to see how he can), it is unlikely the public will forgive him.
The interesting history provided by Mark Gallagher suggests to me that the Nuremberg and UN concepts are incomplete, and indeed the idea of “self-defence” becomes somewhat fluid if “self” is geographically extended beyond country boundaries.
For example, many people might agree that a country A could be justified in waging war against its neighbour B in order to stop a genocide that B is perpetrating on its citizens, particularly if those citizens are ethnically A. If remnants from Franco’s Spain took power and suddenly started killing the English ex-pats that live there, would the UK population feel that military intervention would be justified? What would LibDems do?
The question of what is”self” is very relevant today. Russia used the idea to support its largely-bloodless invasion of Crimea, and the concept of an extended “self” may obviously apply to the ethnic Russians in Ukraine: those Russians are considered by some to be part of the extended self of Russia. The US probably use “self” and “self-defence” to justify a whole lot of interventions, particularly in Central America.
Anyone who disrespects boundaries is using the idea of an extended “self” and “self defence” on their neighbours. The Islamic State is using it on the whole world.
Matt Gallagher – Three observations on that.
1) Blair was the first PM who really had to contend with the online world. No PM had that previously. I’m not sure how big a difference it made, but I believe that it was there. Clem Attlee would have been a hate figure like no other had he to face the internet we see now.
2) I don’t know if you read his autobiography, but it is an interesting in terms of the R2P. Personally I think R2P is a load of bunkum, but Blair clearly believes.
3) This UN line interests me a lot. Suppose the UN had agreed to conflict in Iraq – would that somehow have made it better or more moral? Conflict is conflict, regardless of whether or not it has a blue helmet on top. I would have opposed intervention in Iraq even if the UN had said A-OK and even if there had been WMD.
Indeed, was the UN approval for intervention in Serbia clean-cut? You say, ‘When a country such as ours circumvents the law, relying instead in our own convictions that we are doing the right thing and can ignore established principles if they become too much of an obstacle, we undermine the rule of law and the moral authority that goes with it.’ Is that true? Plenty of countries don’t seem to place a premium on moral authority. These aren’t established principles in any meaningful way. I don’t really think I understand what you mean whey you say, ‘a country such as ours.’ But to my mind there is a real debate to be had about whether the goal of foreign policy in the current world can meaningfully be, ‘the moral high ground.’
T-J – ‘If a state goes to war, people kill and are killed on the orders of that state. In a democracy, however flawed, that means that the voter has blood on his or her hands, and you had better hope that it got there for a damn good reason.’
I’m not sure that really holds in the modern world though. Certainly I’d have struggled to see the ex-Yugoslavia as something in the direct defence interests of the UK. But then just because there is no direct interest, it does not necessarily mean that the conflict is not worth having. At least in Yugoslavia it was genuinely a European affair (which is more than could be said for either Libya or Syria). And with the UN and NATO we as a country have to some extent outsourced policy here.
Words like, ‘sovereignty,’ ‘self-determination,’ ‘human rights,’ and, ‘democracy,’ get lobbed around a lot. But I don’t think that these are concepts that can be easily reified, optimised against each other and balanced by foreign judges in an international court under supranational jurisprudence. One man’s damn good reason can very easily be another man’s affront. In a world where the classic nation-state is melting away I’m not entirely sure the classic models of conflict can be applied.
We can’t, sadly, live in a world where things are easy, much though we might all like to.
I don’t really think I understand what you mean whey you say, ‘a country such as ours.’
Apologies, Little Jackie Paper, if I wasn’t clear on that point; I meant that the UK, as a member of the Security Council and a founder member of the UN, should set the standard we wish others to observe. If we break international law and principles when it suits then it opens the door for others to do likewise.
Richard Dean – There will always be scenarios where a country feels it can or should intervene arbitrarily in the affairs of a neighbour, and the Russian intervention in the Ukraine (and earlier in Georgia) are recent examples. But this is precisely why we have a United Nations (the effectiveness of the UN is another matter).
In the 21st century we need an effective international body where the veto is outlawed and majority opinion has the force of law. This ideally should be a reformed UN, empowered to oversee the rule of law and solve disputes between nations so there is no justification for violence. If we truly believe in democracy then we should make this case to the world.
Matt Gallagher –
‘In the 21st century we need an effective international body where the veto is outlawed and majority opinion has the force of law. This ideally should be a reformed UN, empowered to oversee the rule of law and solve disputes between nations so there is no justification for violence. If we truly believe in democracy then we should make this case to the world.’
Well…..Isn’t a part of the problem here that it isn’t clear that democracy is a raving success as an export? I would suggest that Blair’s conflation of democracy with, ‘civil society,’ is perhaps the stronger charge in some ways.
More broadly though you are, in my view, pinning far too much faith in the UN. The days of classic honest brokerage are gone I’m afraid.
Which is why we need a reformed UN, and if we lose faith in the idea of democracy there are some pretty horrendous alternative forms of Government just waiting in the wings.
People who think the UN sets the rule of law – the UN security council features Russia and China, both of which are profoundly undemocratic and nasty. If you want to live in a world where UN rules have primacy over internal democracy then you are saying you want Russia, China and the dozens of other unpalatable states to be able to overrule democracy.
Is that what you really want?
I think the key phrase when it comes to self-defence and the protection of national self-interest by unilateral and agressive action is ‘last resort’; obviously, defining what is the last resort is, is not going to be easy.
Blair felt he was acting multilaterally, but was obviously acting outwith the UN.
The UN is flawed as an objective court of international law, but as the largest, most commonly recognised and widely-participated-in multilateral body, the pragmatic point of view would be, if you have not sought to make your concerns known and action confirmed via the UN, why not, who esle suports you in this and what areyou hiding?
I’ve found the Ken Clarke speech now. Almost enough to make me vote Tory (oh, hang on, I’ve remembered all the other reasons not to):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8194000/8194251.stm
So. the writer is an expert on international law as he refers to an illegal war in Iraq. What a silly argument he puts forward. I would refer him back to Hansard and the debate in the house when even Ming Campbell stated that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Also that the war in Iraq was not illegal according to our law officers and those around the world.
Would any other PM have behaved differently? Not so in my opinion as we have always been allies of the US. We would have lost the Falklands war without their help too.
We live in a democracy. The evidence presented to the government was provided to MPs and a vote took place. Polls at the time indicated that the majority of the public were in favour. Our democracy also showed that people were against the war as reflected in the large protest. Many of those who protested were from the anti war brigade as well as many left wing groups. They are the same groups who have done everything to trash the former PMs character and who loathe the idea that someone can earn large sums of money. We should welcome the fact that our former successful PM is feted on the world stage. He employs many people, does a lot of charity work and pays UK taxes.
The writer has jumped on the bandwagon – it is fashionable to criticise Tony Blair. At least he had convictions and demonstrated leadership. Something that current party lreaders do not demonstrate. A poor, ill judged, inaccurate, and biased account of the events.
Agreed.
He appears to have no truck with the concept of Westphalian Sovereignty, where non-compliance against UNSC resolution 686 (to inform the UN on all chemical and biological weapons), and resolution 687 (to destroy all chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles), which were instigated in response to the invasion of Kuwait and the scud attacks on Israel (a breach of the right to self determination, and the right to non-intervention, under the Westphalian system), led to an invasion to enforce compliance (of the ceasefire agreement). There were many things wrong with the 2003 Iraq war, both in the lead up and in the post invasion phase, but it was not an illegal war.
Jane, I don’t criticise Tony Blair because it is fashionable, and just because the ‘the war is illegal’ argument is flawed doesn’t mean criticism of Blair over Iraq is therefore impossible or unjustified. Other British leaders have refused to go to war for the Americans, it is not the only option open to us.
“They are the same groups who have done everything to trash the former PMs character and who loathe the idea that someone can earn large sums of money. We should welcome the fact that our former successful PM is feted on the world stage. He employs many people, does a lot of charity work and pays UK taxes.”
This is a bit stiff. You don’t have to be from the Socialist Worker party to find Blair’s somewhat OTT capitalism and self-promotion a bit worrying.
I’m very critical of military hard-liners, but for some reason I reserve a bit of respect for Tony Blair. If we take the example of Syria: I was outraged at the way parliament tried to pretend we should attack Syria to protect the children, whereas Tony Blair just came straight out with it and said “extreme Islam is dangerous, the middle east matters because of oil and humanity, so let’s go in with a plan for peace and stability”. It was still a bit hard-line for my liking, but at least he was honest about why he wanted to go in and had a clear idea for what he wanted to achieve – not just throw a few rockets in and see what happens.
When it comes to Martin Horwood’s article, which I thank him for, I think it is quite fair. I think he was sincere in his motives, but probably ill-judged on this one.
I also applaud Jane’s comment for not joining in the Blair bashing. You should use your full name.
Regards
Quite aside from whether starting the war was justified, there is another reason why the whole enterprise was doomed to ultimate failure (after apparent success).
The Multi-National Force – initially the USA, UK, Australia and Poland – had no sensible plan for govern ing Iraq after the invasion. The US, as the world’s superpower, is an essential part of of an invasion, but their record in the twentieth century of staying for the long term is not encouraging. If you’ve tumbled the government, you need a viable strategy to get the show back on the road. You can use your enemy’s forces to maintain order in the interim (as the British used the Japanese in Vietnam in 1945) or you install an AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories). This needs a lot of expertise, shouldn’t be too identified with the ‘enemy’ armed forces and still needs local co-operation. Using the occupying army for peace-keeping gives insurgents/terrorists something to push against.
The British, if they looked into their records from the 1920s onwards, knew only too well how many separate groups there were in Iraq and how many of them would fight their corner when the iron fist of Saddam was removed. We even had the recent example of Yugoslavia to show how freedom allows sectarian hatreds to boil over when dictatorship is removed.
Monty used to say something abour Winning The Peace as a successor to Winning The War. What Bush and Blair didn’t have was a workable strategy for Winning The Peace.
Hardly anyone weeps for Saddam Hussein. The real failure was to have him removed without a working substitute strategy. That is what throws into doubt whether the war – legally or illegally – should have been pursued at that point.
Stuart – while I agree that a government is entitled perhaps not to ignore a million people marching, but to disagree with them, your memory about public support for the war is faulty. Repeated polls showed majorities against the war except for a few days after the war actually started, when of course many felt saying they were against the war was “letting down our boys”. The anti-war majority soon returned.
I do not believe that a government can never take a massive decision against popular opinion, but it should do so with great reluctance, not great alacrity, and on the basis of full and honestly-presented information, not doctored half-truths and outright lies.