February 27, 2007
Tony Blair’s declaration of independence
The idea that Tony Blair is George Bush’s "poodle" is now so firmly established in the public mind that it would take a political earthquake to shake it. But, in fact, there is growing evidence that in his last months in office Mr Blair is quietly but effectively distancing himself from key aspects of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. There have been three important divergences in just the past ten days.
First, came the decision to start pulling British troops out of Iraq. Of course, the official British line is that this is completely compatible with American policy - the situation in Basra is different from Baghdad, and so on. There may be an element of truth in this. But the political symbolism of Britain withdrawing troops while America "surges" is hard to miss - and indeed has been picked up in Washington. At the very least, Blair was willing to risk embarrassing Bush at a very difficult time.
Then on February 21st, Blair spoke about the possibility of talking to the "sensible" elements in Hamas - as part of an attempt to get a national unity government going in Palestine. But, as far as the Bush administration is concerned, Hamas is a terrorist organisation pure and simple - there are no sensible elements. The differences go deeper even than this. Although Blair pays lip service to the joint position of the Quartet (the EU, US, Russia and the UN) that they will not talk to a Palestinian government that does not recognise Israel, he is privately impatient even with this position.
The day after his statement on Hamas, Blair also appeared to all but rule out using force against Iran. He said - "I can’t think that it would be right to take military action against Iran." Given that there has been speculation that Jack Straw, the former British foreign secretary lost his job for ruling out military action against Iran too unequivocally, this is an important statement from Blair. Naturally, he once again strove to make his latest Iran statement appear compatible with American policy, by arguing that nobody in Washington is planning a military strike either. But it is not at all clear that that is the case. The movement of aircraft carriers and patriot missiles to the Gulf suggests that America is at least keeping the option very much alive. And indeed within days of Blair’s statement, Dick Cheney had re-iterated the American position that "all options remain on the table".
So what lies behind these Blairite declarations of independence? There is certainly none of the reflexive dismissal of George W.Bush that is routine in most of the British establishment. Blair remains completely convinced that Britain and the United States are ultimately on the same side.
But the British prime minister knows from his experience in Northern Ireland that you have to talk to terrorists and "evildoers", if you are ever to have a chance of feeling your way to a political settlement in places like Palestine and Iraq. That is why his first "declaration of independence" came late last year, when he welcomed the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq - with its emphasis on talking to Syria and Iran - even though it was clear that the Bush administration was likely to reject this particular recommendation.
Blair’s belief in talking does not stem from a naive belief that it will always be possible to negotiate an agreement. It is just that he thinks that - as someone close to him puts it - "the door should always be open." As far as Blair is concerned, you can combine an "open door" with tough talking and threats. Unfortunately, for the Brits, however - the Bush administration is still completely unpersuaded of the virtues of unconditional talks with Iran, Syria or Hamas.
Blair is not a poodle. He is what poodles deposit on the sidewalk.
If he is whimpering noises that are mildly in discord with what Bush says, it is because most Americans have, at last, come to see the folly of the lunatics that have taken over the asylum in Washington. With an eye to raking in the millions in the after dinner speech circus that he will join after his ejection from Downing Street, B Liar is hedging his bets to ensure maximum bookings. He has a large mortgage to repay, after all.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 27th, 2007 at 1:23 pm | Report this commentTOO LITTLE; TOO LATE!
Posted by: Rick | February 27th, 2007 at 2:19 pm | Report this commentIf Blair thinks he can turn around his poodle reputation now he is sadly mistaken. He will be forever known as that British Quisling that was at the beck and call of the most incompetent President the Untied States has ever known.
Tony Blair did a huge political mistake by siding with Bush. For me we could save his image if he did the following things:
- Bring the UK into the Euro (ditching the £)
Posted by: John Midle | February 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pm | Report this comment- Help make the EU constitution a reality
- Help Europe destroy NATO and set-up an EU-only Military force
- Become an EU MP
Blair is right-of course UK and USA are on the same side - in their “take control of oil” foreign policy. It started long ago and maybe the best example is 1953 coup in Iran. They also have a project for natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to Indian ocean. That is why the US initially silently supported Taliban when they come to power.
Posted by: OM | February 28th, 2007 at 9:17 pm | Report this commentRe: “But the British prime minister knows from his experience in Northern Ireland that you have to talk to terrorists and “evildoers”…”
Good point. The same process needs to happen in Afghanistan with the Taliban, or at least with elements of the Taliban that are more amenable to negotiation. What the Australians and Dutch are doing in Uruzgan province appears to hint at this approach.
Posted by: Peter | March 4th, 2007 at 4:43 am | Report this commentBlair’s continuing legacy will be that he kept the atlantic alliance intact, without him assisting Bush, Europe and the US would have developed a much deeper and much more fundamental rift over Iraq. One has to imagine that the UK would have taken position with France and Russia at the time knowing that the US intended to go it alone anyway to appreciate the consequences. The world economy is too intertwined for the US and Europe to be divided to any great extent, Blair sacrificed himself for that unity, something that neither Washington nor the anti American populists in Europe seem to comprehend let alone appreciate.
Looking back in a couple of decades I hope history will rank him along with Churchill as one of Britain’s finest. Let’s hope so because we know who supposedly gets to write history.
Posted by: Felix Drost | March 9th, 2007 at 11:32 pm | Report this commentDear Felix,
I suspect that history will not rank Mr. Blair along with Churchill but somewhere beneath Eden, the prime minister who dragged the United Kingdom into the Suez crisis.
I say beneath Eden because, at least, Eden’s intervention was on the basis of clearly identifiable British interests whereas sending troops to Iraq, in defiance of international law and the wishes of the international community, and based on a tissue of lies and fogeries, served no British interests whatsoever. In fact it put Britain, and the British, much more in harm’s way as collaborators with aggressive NeoCon-Zionist war on the Muslim world.
If Britain had acted more wisely and in tandem with the French and the Germans, there is a small chance that the US would have been dissuaded from her disastrous intervention in Iraq as the “coalition of the willing”, would have been reduced to the US and a few broken down former communist states in Europe whose main role in the world appears to be providing prostitues to Western Europe. (Even Poland is withdrawing its troops. Soon they will turn up in England as plumbers and bricklayers!!)
This would have been a real service to the Americans and the rest of the world.
After all your true friends are not those who encourage you in your mistakes but those who discourage you from doing wrong.
All the Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am | Report this commentPacifist, why is it necessary to so characterize Eastern Europe? The people there are strongly pro NATO and pro US because of their experiences under Nazi and Soviet occupation; now they are free and have democratically chosen to join both the EU and NATO. The progress they have made since the fall of the Berlin is impressive. All you choose to focus on here to aid your polemic is Eastern Europe as a source of prostitutes and plumbers. How is that not condescending and one sided?
Spain, Italy, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Norway, and virtually all smaller Eastern European countries politically and militarily supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. There was a very large majority block of European allies in support of the US. If Britain would not have assisted in the initial invasion it would have sided with the atlantic allies on the continent in giving political support and lateron military support. If it was up to you to write history, you’d rewrite it.
Your characterization of the Iraq war being a “NeoCon-Zionist war on the Muslim world” is, much like your characterization of Eastern Europe, irrationally one sided. Zionism is Jewish nationalism, it is as questionable as any form of nationalism but believing Jewish nationalism is behind a war on the entire Muslim world is as extremist a view as the one that professes the Muslims are out to convert the entire planet by force. Neither view is in evidence, such polemic pollution can only radicalize the debate. If there was a war on the Muslim world then why on Earth weren’t we helping the Serbs kill off the Yugoslav Muslims? Why did the US characterize the murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Darfur as genocide? Why are billions in aid being sent to Indonesia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations when natural disasters strike them? Why did Israel help save Turks after the earthquake in 1999? Why did Israel offer the same to Iran after the earthquake that hit Bam?
Posted by: Felix Drost | March 11th, 2007 at 6:21 pm | Report this commentFelix,
The “characterisation” of the Eastern Europeans was meant to be humorous and, I guess, you fell into the stereotype of the humorless Yank.
The rest of what you say is a rant.
- Zionism is a form of racism that has resulted in stealing other peole’s lands and committing despicable atrocities against them for many decades. Not all Jews are Zionists and many are declaring their regret
over the Israeli actionss.
- America is only against atrocities committed by regimes that it disapproves of, such as in Darfur. Bush, for example, characterises the annihilation of the Chechen nation as part of the war on terrorism and is a strong supporter of Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
- The billions that are being sent to Pakistan are to prop up the small, unrepresentative elite against the general hostility of the population that don’t want continued colonialism by satraps.
- The support for Saudi / Egypt / Morocco etc. is not support for the people of those countries but for the tyrannical, unrepresentative governments of those nations that keep their people down.
- The Americans, and the West in general, are wrong to be so scared of Islam and Muslims and they are wrong to support the corrupt elites that serve the Western interests rather than their own people.
The “Moderate Islam” so desired by the West, will not come about from the kleptomaniac Sheikhs in the Persian Gulf but from the Islamist parties that represent the majority of the people in the Middle East being allowed to run the affairs of the state and face the realities of statecraft.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 12th, 2007 at 10:21 am | Report this commentP, your comments don’t strike me as radiating the aura of benign pacifism, you always seem to be trying to inflame the debate. If I am humourless I am a humourless Dutch person, not a yank, who, like yourself, spell humour without the u. The billions I distinctly referred to as being given in humanitarian assistance are being sent in response to tsunamis and earthquakes by western governments and peoples in their desire to help the people of Indonesia and Pakistan in their hour of need. Saying that that money is sent to bolster the regimes present against the will of the population is a misrepresentation of what I wrote and, to me, shows your lack of understanding of a sympathic reaction with victims of natural disaster. Don’t you understand that people in the west sent billions in aid to those people to help them? You’re so caught up in your rethoric you lost a sense of what is the human thing to do in these matters, which is to help people in need, which is what Israel did for Turkey and wanted to do for Iran. But since in your book Israel always does things out of a nefarious political calculus they only send rescuers and hospitals to Turkey to make world opinion think better of them. Sadly enough world opinion barely noticed.
The west isn’t scared of Islam no matter how much your blinders filters your reality; in a country of 16m, 1 million of my fellow Dutch are Muslims and I shop at their stores, I eat at their restaurants, I befriend them and I enjoy the plurality; the majority enjoys plurality.
Next time you see fit to humour Europeans make sure you actually don’t alienate half of the continent and their friends with your condescending slur that few recognise for the attempt at humour you claim it to be.
Posted by: Felix Drost | March 13th, 2007 at 3:02 am | Report this commentHi Felix,
I also spell Humour with a u. It is just that I am not good at typing!
The humanitarian aid is generally promised is due to the pressure of Western public opinion who, on the whole, oppose the warmongering of their leaders.
(I remember how reluctantly the Blair government was forced to increase its contribution to Tsunami victims because of the public opinion. The same government has no hesitation in allocating 56 billion for the Trident project.)
By the way, only a fraction of the promised aid is actually sent and is often misdirected by the government of the recipients.
Moreover, the reason for much of the aggression against the Middle East nations is that they happen to have oil and gas that the industrialised nations want to control so the case of aid in earthquakes and Tsunamis is a bit like giving with a teaspoon and taking away with a very large shovel.
Israel has taken other people’s lands unfairly, illegally and immorally and should give what was taken in 1967 back and compensate properly for what was taken both before and after 1967.
Sending aid parcels to Turkey (Israel’s major military ally, in contravention of what most Turks want )is hardly an adequate substitute for the real action needed.
Finally, whilst my typecasting of the E Europeans as a the principal suppliers of prostitutes on the streets of W Europe was offensive, it was not any less true for that.
I fully understand the fear of the Russians that drives the Poles into the arms of the Americans but to send soldiers to places like Iraq is overstating their case and betraying their claims of vulnerability and victimhood.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 13th, 2007 at 10:13 am | Report this commentP,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/asia_earthquake/numbers.html
You make it seem as if the Blair government was unwilling to increase its contribution to the Tsunami victims out of some kind of ignoble purpose related to their ‘warmongering’ but politicians were not eager to donate even more because aid groups would have great difficulty spending the billions already pledged and collected in the first place and many politicians privately and in retrospect had wished some of that money could have been used in places where famine is structural.
Turks didn’t question what they wanted when Israelis pulled them out from under the rubble; at the time of the 1999 quake Turkey was very grateful for the direct and substantial Israeli assistance that saved lives. Iran, in refusing the same Israeli teams helping out in Bam did its own population a great disservice. Who knows how many Iranians could have been rescued by Israeli rescue teams who are expert at sorting through rubble? It would help if you knew more about the actual history of events before you belittle Israel’s assistance as ‘aid parcels’; it was much more structural and immediate.
There isn’t any organized western aggression against Middle Eastern people; if Iraq was a liberal democracy now then the Republicans would be in solid control of the US, Blair would be named alongside Churchill and would not abdicate and Israel would be much more secure than it is now. What benefit is there in violence? Only the religious extremists that actually do the killing at this moment are the ones who are being aggressive; thousands of Iraqis are being killed every month by Sunni and Shia religious groups. Most fear that if the allies leave the killing will only get worse simply because the alliance is trying to keep the peace and is, contrary to your thinking, actually trying to stop aggression.
Israel won Arab land in a defensive war; that is legal according to international law. Territories were returned, which is not unusual after a war when peace deals are reached. Egypt had the entire Sinai returned to it. Egypt and Jordan withdrew their claims to Gaza resp. the West Bank after reacing peace deals with Israel, in effect handing Israel control over those territories until Israel and the Palestinians could reach a solution (which at this time is hampered by the Palestinian government refusing to recognize Israel) over the disputed land.
The issue between Israel and the Palestinians is a very delicate matter that isn’t helped by calling one party’s actions unfair, illegal or immoral when there’s no historically accepted narrative to support such terms; others call all Palestinian organisation terrorist and while some are, others are not; with such radicalism in debate nothing gets solved. The trouble in Iraq, Lebanon and the occupied territories indicates that Arab nationalism itself is very weak and that Arabs; Muslim, Christian and Jew alike, would be best served by a pan Arab federation of liberal democracies where minority rights are observed and enshrined in a constitution.
Pacifist, you blame Zionists and/or neoconservatives for some of the greatest wrongs on the planet without presenting evidence to support your assertions; you say “Zionism is a form of racism” when Zionism is a “A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.” (Answers.com dictionary) Zionism is a movement that protect Jews from racism. The only nations who still hold Zionism to be a form of racism are the ones that voted against resolution 46/48, nations including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. These three nations are well known for their antisemitic (racist) TV programming and educational curriculum from which Zionism (as a movement of self protection) tries to protect Jews. Go google it a little; it’s evident.
Posted by: Felix Drost (jvd70) | March 15th, 2007 at 9:08 pm | Report this comment