LONDON, 28 April 2004 — An utterly undiplomatic letter from former top diplomats has made clear how isolated Prime Minister Tony Blair has become for his uncritical support for US policy in the Middle East.
The 52 former diplomats of ambassadorial rank, who represent “the cream of Foreign Office expertise in the 1990s” as the Financial Times put it, said that policy was “doomed to failure”.
Although the scathing letter addressed to Blair came from retired diplomats, it was clear they had support among serving Foreign Office staff. Marrack Goulding, former head of United Nations Peacekeeping, used diplomat-speak to make that clear in a BBC interview.
“I think that almost all of us who signed that letter have the impression that the regional expertise in the Foreign Office wasn’t as fully used as it should have been in the formulation of the government’s policy on Iraq,” he said.
And Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary who resigned from the Cabinet ahead of the invasion last year, said: “I think the fact that they have gone public reflects the fact that there is quite a consensus among many in the diplomatic community that we are in danger of doing a lot of damage to Britain’s standing around the world.”
The diplomats reserved particular scorn for the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with US President George Bush regarding Israeli disengagement from the Occupied Territories, calling it “one-sided and illegal”.
They predicted more Israeli and Palestinian blood would flow as a result.
Turning to Iraq, the former diplomats said the description of the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners - Blair’s characterization of the anti-coalition forces - “is neither convincing nor helpful”.
And they put the number of Iraqis killed by the coalition at between 10,000 and 15,000, saying: “It is a disgrace that the coalition forces themselves appear to have no estimate.”
Sir Marrack said military force would not resolve the crisis. “A hated, loathed occupation in Iraq is not creating the conditions in which political progress can be made,” he said.
“How long can Blair survive?” prominent leftwing commentator John Kampfner asked, writing in the Daily Mail. Bush and Sharon had “contemptuously torn up” the Middle East road map that Blair had put so much effort into backing, Kampfner said.
The Independent said Blair could not afford to ignore the warning the way he had ignored dissent within his own Labour Party. The letter had been “driven by dismay and alarm at the damage done to British interests around the world”, the paper said.
Blair now had to show whether he had any real influence in Washington - as British officials have so often claimed in the past — or cut his losses and rethink his Middle East policy, it added.
Blair’s office issued a perfunctory response Monday afternoon as the letter was published. “They are entitled to their views. What I would stress is that our objectives both in Iraq and the Palestinian conflict remain stability, peace and freedom in the Middle East,” a Downing Street spokesman said.
Downing Street send out the relatively junior Foreign Officer Minister Mike O’Brien. Interviewed by the BBC yesterday as the furor peaked O’Brien said the letter was based on a “false premise”.
Bush and Blair had made clear Sharon’s proposals could not pre-judge the shape of a final Middle East peace settlement, O’Brien said, adding Britain continued to support Security Council Resolutions calling for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.
This interpretation conflicted with that of most observers, who have seen Bush as endorsing Sharon’s plan, and Blair in turn as backing Bush. O’Brien hinted at Britain’s lack of clout in Washington. “I think we have got to be realistic. We can influence the United States but we can’t control the superpower. They listen to our quiet diplomacy but they also have their own policy,” he said.
Blair’s critics were, however, querying whether the prime minister’s much vaunted influence in Washington had any basis in reality.
The diplomats’ anger, taken together with concerns expressed by British military commanders in Iraq over “heavy-handed” US tactics in Fallujah and Najaf have led many to believe Blair’s uncritical support of the US has lost him the support of the establishment.
The Independent said mission creep was inevitable in Iraq following the Spanish withdrawal. “There is, as the diplomats say, no real exit strategy nor any political goals that look achievable. It is, as they correctly say, a policy doomed to failure. And Blair cannot say he hasn’t been warned,” it concluded.
