AS he began his long goodbye as British prime minister with his final speech as leader to the Labour Party conference this week, Tony Blair demonstrated more clearly than ever how half-truths, self-delusion and fabrication have been spun into a foreign policy, the deadly price of which is now being paid daily in Iraqi blood. Defending his slavish support for the Bush invasion of Iraq he said: “If we retreat now, hand Iraq over to Al-Qaeda and sectarian death squads . . . we won’t be safer; we will be committing a craven act of surrender that will put our future security in the deepest peril.”
Not for one moment did Blair betray any understanding that it was the invasion itself that plunged Iraq into its present chaos. Al-Qaeda only moved in its killers after Saddam’s ouster. Die-hard Baathists retreated to long-planned arsenals and found a ready supply of fighters from the police and army, which the Americans so precipitously disbanded after their initial victory. The Shiite militias and death squads only arose after Al-Qaeda thugs and Baathist insurgents repeatedly attacked their community.
Even when forced to admit that the WMD intelligence used to justify the invasion was entirely phony, Blair still sought to defend his actions by saying that the Iraqis had been freed from a terrible dictator. Yet as the bombings and death squad massacres become weekly ever more terrible, does he seriously suppose that Iraqis are grateful for what has been done to their country? Iraqis from all communities are beginning to say that lawlessness and torture and terror are now worse than they ever were under Saddam.
Even while Blair was speaking, the world was digesting a formerly secret US intelligence report that makes patently clear that, contrary to what the Bush administration continues to insist, the Iraq invasion has boosted, not reduced the menace of terrorism, while the occupation of an Arab country by foreign troops has produced a rallying point for jihadists around the world. The impact of this report, to which all 16 US intelligence agencies contributed, is undoubtedly the greater since only a fraction of the document has been published. The Democrats in particular are demanding to know what other information and analysis is contained in the larger part of the report which has not been declassified.
Politicians reaching the end of their careers are always anxious to secure their place in history. As he continues to insist that his unwavering support for the Bush blunders in Iraq was absolutely right, Tony Blair is on dangerous ground. His Labour Party and much of the British electorate, even those who originally supported the invasion, now see it as a terrible miscalculation that has released far more demons than it could ever have slain. The British see themselves as Middle East experts, but if Blair ever passed on any warnings from his Foreign Office officials, Bush ignored them. Thus the British premier tied himself to a foolish US policy that has surely damaged British influence in the region for years to come.
