[Peace-discuss] The poodle throws up on the carpet

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Tony Blair: Poodle or Bulldog?
	By Marwan Bishara in Europe
	on January 29th, 2010

Watching Blair answering questions of the Iraq public inquiry commission was 
fascinating for the same reason it was frustrating. It's British.

Fascinating, because of the precise and disciplined way the five member 
commission probed the former prime minister about the way in which he arrived at 
the decision to go to war along side the United States and how he co-managed it 
with President Bush.

Frustrating, because the commission is internal British inquiry with limited 
mandate - not an international court of justice - one that is commissioned to 
review and reconstruct the political process behind the war, or the politics 
behind the policy.

They stayed focused despite repeated attempts by Blair to turn the inquiry into 
passionate rhetoric about leadership, judgment and good intentions.

The commission kept steering the outspoken prime minister away from the 
macro-strategic to the micro-political.

In the process, Blair who clearly was conscious he was heard on live television 
to audiences within the UK and internationally, reiterated his convictions and 
arguments about post 9/11 threats and risks and about Iraq, Saddam and WMD.

Alas, the former prime minister spoke for so long, but said very little that is 
new. Worse, he made gross generalisations about Iraq before and after the war 
and about the international perception of the war.

But because the commission wasn't about to enter into a political discussion 
with the former PM, they, at times, interrupted his diatribes in order to steer 
him back to the particulars of their inquiry.

Revealing probe

Unlike Blair's answers, the commissioners' questions were quite telling. One can 
detect five main lines of questioning:

Did the prime minister commit the UK to a US war of choice in Iraq a year earlier?
Did he exploit the inconclusive (fabricated!) intelligence to advance the cause 
of the war.
Did he initiate military cooperation with the US and later the deployment 
without a clear legal mandate?
Did he poorly prepare for the aftermath of the invasion?
Did prime minister's relationship with Washington allow the Bush administration 
to take the UK for granted especially when it took major decisions in Iraq such 
as disbanding its army?
At various junctures in the inquiry, it was clear that the well-prepared and 
patient commissioners have much doubt about the premier's motives, logic, and 
judgment.

One needs to wait for the final report to understand the dynamics leading to war 
and Blair's responsibility, but one can already detect scepticism about the 
unapologetic and unrepentant premier who has no regrets.

Tension in the inquiry

Throughout the long day of questioning, the Commission and Blair had two 
different strategies.

Blair tried to emphasize the soundness of the intelligence to go to war, the 
Commission questioned whether it was suspicious and wasn't sufficient for a UN 
inspection team or to go to war.

He underlined the strategic relationship with America, the commission questioned 
whether the UK had committed itself  too early and too hastily to war and 
subsequently ignored by Washington.

He stressed how he sincerely pursued a UNSC resolution before war, the 
commission wondered why he made serious military commitments very early in the 
process.

Blair claimed that he was going through the normal political and diplomatic 
process, and the commission questioned why the attorney General Peter Goldsmith 
changed his mind and why Blair went to war when all his government's 
international legal advisors believed the war decision was illegal.

Last but not least, Blair insisted that it was all about judgment not deception 
or conspiracy, and the commission highlighted the discrepancies and 
contradictions in the decision making process behind the judgment.

Blair was of course the prime minister of a country with long democratic 
tradition- not a totalitarian state - where judgment is  based on transparent, 
accountable and democratic process.

Risks and judgments

Tony Blair based most of his argument to go to war on post 9/11 strategic 
thinking where threats were harder to predict and risks harder to calculate.

But answering the commission's questions about the poor planning and preparation 
for the invasion's aftermath, the prime minister seemed oblivious to the very 
mindset he was underlining in the argument to go to war, the known unknowns.

It was clear that neither Iran nor al-Qaeda, nor most Arabs, for that matter, 
would look kindly or positively at the US/UK invasion. Turkey, the NATO member, 
and Syria were no less skeptical.

How could Blair think that the Islamic Republic would be helpful when the Bush 
administration invaded Iran's two neighbours Afghanistan and Iraq while 
threatening regime change in Tehran?

Blair lumped dangers from Iraq and al-Qaida, even though Iraq is a republic that 
had everything to lose from sanctions, chaos and invasion - all of which benefit 
al-Qaeda, despite the fact that there were no relations between the two.

Throughout the day, Blair tried to resell his stale justifications for fighting 
Bush's war in the public (world) platform provided by the Iraq inquiry, and the 
latter tried to make him answer some very important questions about the 
soundness of his leadership and judgment.

Although he got away with making bombastic and passionate statements and warn 
that Iran is no different from pre 2003 Iraq, the commission left the door wide 
open on whether Blair was indeed Bush's poodle.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/europe/2010/01/29/tony-blair-poodle-or-bulldog

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