Blair's Losing It Big Time.

There's an extraordinary article in tonight's Evening Standard (the online version is here, but they've re-edited it from the print version) in which Blair says he'd invade Iraq all over again. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he means knowing as little as he knew at that time, rather than assume he'd go in even if he knew they didn't have WMD. Although after his Sedgewick speech (which I'll touch on further down the page) that's open to questioning.

In today's speech, it is said Blair makes "his strongest case yet for intervention in trouble spots abroad". He calls for a "strongly activist approach by the West," stating that "future foreign intervention will be justified by values".

Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Rewind the tape!

Values? What values? Could the bugger be any more obtuse? Now we must always remember that Blair is a trained barrister and he's left this phrase deliberately vague to give himself future wriggle room. Nevertheless, it's hard not to wince at his chilling, imperialistic tone. A tone not heard since Queen Victoria dispatched British Troops to "civilise" the natives.

This reminds me of the speech he made in Sedgewick, early in his tenure as PM, when he called for a renogatiation of The Treaty of Westphalia.

The Treaty of Westphalia has held good since 1648. It is often said that the Peace of Westphalia initiated modern diplomacy, as it marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states (or "Westphalian states"). This is because this was the first time there was mutual acknowledgment of each country's sovereignty.

So lets piece together Blair's Sedgewick speech and today's announcement. He wants to renogiate our obligations under international law (that state we must respect another country's sovereignty) and he wants us to be "strongly activist" as we justify "all future foreign interventions by values".

Hmmmm.

So we needn't, in future, even have to make the tedious falsehoods about WMD, now we can intervene simply to "export our values!" (Which, it is taken as a given, are superior.)

This reactionary rubbish deserves to be addressed.

Leaving aside the blatantly imperialistic posturing of this, "let's civilise the natives and give them democracy" argument; Blair has ignored the fact that all past attempts to export democracy have not produced the kinds of governments that Blair and Bush would have wished for.

Nor did they provide regimes that are in any way more stable than the regimes they replaced, for the simple reason that democracy only truly works in secular societies where people vote for what they believe will be best for them.

As the examples of Palestine and Iraq both prove, theocratic societies tend to vote along religious lines or along the lines of ethnicticity, often resulting in hardline goverments. Hamas in Palestine; and, in Iraq, a Shia dominated government naturally aligned to Iran.

I personally think Blair would find it hard to argue that either of these goverments has made the West any safer, nor has either had diddly-squat effect on challenging the problem of global terrorism.

So, I don't think this policy even needs to be attacked simply because it's imperialistic bunkum, it can be opposed on the grounds that it simply won't work.

He then rounds on those of us who oppose him by saying that he believes we have made "a superficial deal" with extremists to leave them alone.

This is classic Blair "strawman" tactics. He often does this when discussing Iraq. He describes a position that no-one on the planet holds - and then describes his alternative vision to this imaginary counter argument. I suppose it's the only way that someone who has been proven so wrong can ever construct a set of circumstances to validate his position.

Let me, at this point, nail my colours to the mast. If either Bush or Blair could have ever proven to me that Saddam Hussein had WMD I would have FULLY supported the invasion. Saddam had an obligation, under the terms of the cease fire, to disarm himself of such weapons.

However, even a cursory Google search told those of us inclined to ask questions that chemical and biological weapons of the highest grade (a grade Saddam never achieved) have a shelf life of five years. When I considered the fact that Iraq had been under punative UN sanctions for twelve years, it seemed impossible to me that he could have them.

So, and I know this would be hard for Blair to contemplate, the simple fact is most of us opposed the Iraq War - NOT because we feared terrorists and wanted to make a pact - we opposed it because we knew in our hearts that that it was based on lies and was, therefore, IMMORAL.

Blair ended this remarkably right wing diatribe by saying, "This is not a clash between civilisations, it is a clash about civilisation."

Queen Victoria would have been proud. "Let's civilise the natives."