FORMER British Prime Minister Tony Blair is currently supposed to be the leading candidate for the job of European president under the new quasi-constitution of the EU, enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty. If he were chosen it would be a disaster for Europe.

Blair is an extremely accomplished politician, whose words are always imbued with apparent sincerity and deep thought. But a leader should be judged by his deeds and not what he says.

Blair provided unstinting support for President George W. Bush’s illegal and catastrophic 2003 invasion of Iraq. He fixed British intelligence reports to provide false “evidence” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be readied in just 20 minutes. That overarching lie was used to justify the US-led Iraq attack, which unleashed misery and bloodshed on Iraqis and gave Al-Qaeda bigots a whole new battlefield on which to operate.

Blair also talked much of putting Britain “at the heart of Europe”. In fact he did no such thing. He kept Britain out of the single European currency. He tried to bully fellow EU states into supporting Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair also promised the UK electorate a referendum on the EU constitution. When that document was rejected decisively by French and Dutch voters and was replaced by the Lisbon Treaty — effectively identical save it lacked any reference to a constitution, Blair reneged on that promise too. This time his lie was that Lisbon was not a constitution, so therefore no British referendum was necessary. Yet now he wishes to become the EU’s first constitutional head.

After Blair gave way as prime minister to his long-time rival Gordon Brown, Bush made his faithful ally the Middle East envoy. This appointment was a joke, since Blair had done as much as anyone to sow suspicion in the Arab world. Despite his fine and emollient words about the search for peace and a Palestinian settlement, Blair’s main deed in his new role has been to back Israeli economic plans for the occupied territories. It is significant that the Obama administration has very quietly sidelined him in favor of its own special Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

In political terms, Blair is therefore deeply tarnished goods. He carries the baggage of aggression, deceit and double-dealing. If this man ever becomes the president of the EU and thus for his two and a half year term, its main voice and face around the world, the organization will have a weight hung around its neck. Talk from Blair’s UK political allies that the EU needs a hard-hitting president who warrants a large and impressive motorcade is partisan bunkum.

What the EU really requires is a politician of proven integrity who will be respected in the world’s corridors of power. Along with fellow members of the Middle East Quartet, America, Russia and the UN, the EU needs to speak with a clear and honest voice on Palestine. The tainted reputation of Blair means he simply does not possess such a voice.

The politics of war

EXCERPTS from an editorial appearing in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times:

Tons of explosives, suicide bombers in coordinated attacks and triple-digit death tolls. The wreckage at the Iraqi Justice Ministry and Baghdad’s provincial council headquarters this week, like the devastation at the foreign and finance ministries in August, is a reminder that foreign powers cannot impose peace on a divided nation. Two years after a US troop “surge” helped tamp down Iraq’s sectarian war, the bloodletting illustrates why military advances must be accompanied by a steady march of political progress. This is true in Iraq and it’s true in Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama is weighing deployment of up to 40,000 more troops to battle Taleban insurgents.

Then President George W. Bush sent tens of thousands of additional soldiers to Iraq in 2007 to provide security and create conditions that would allow for ethnic and political reconciliation. Sectarian conflict has diminished overall, but the Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Arabs have failed to address fundamental issues of wealth and power-sharing at the root of the violence. The immediate deadlock centers on a proposed law to regulate parliamentary elections on Jan. 16, particularly in the disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Failure to hold the vote could leave a political vacuum after the current Parliament loses its mandate and there is no new legislature to select a prime minister. It also could delay the departure of US combat troops by August and the rest of US forces in 2011.

The bombings bear the hallmarks of Sunni extremists seeking to overthrow US-backed Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who has been campaigning with his Shiite allies on a record of improving security. Even many moderate Sunnis distrust the Shiite majority and are apprehensive about the US withdrawal. But while the United States can continue to train and aid Iraqi security forces, the violence will not cease until the parties come to a political accommodation. Only Iraqis can pass an election law, decide what kind of government they want and divide the country’s oil revenue. Resolving these problems will weaken extremists and diminish violence.

This is instructive for those seeking to pacify Afghanistan with more soldiers. US and Afghan troops can fight to clear areas of Taleban insurgents, but absent a legitimate government, the fighting will not stop. President Hamid Karzai’s agreement to a runoff in an election tainted by fraud is a step forward, but there’s more to be done to address corruption and win support for the government over insurgents. As Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said after returning from Kabul, “The legitimate government of Afghanistan cannot be less accountable than the Taleban.” That’s a prescription for war, not peace.