Bush and Blair's Swansong.
The script is being changed once again.
It used to be that they were after WMD. And then that morphed into exporting democracy.
As violence erupted in Iraq and the folly of their intervention became ever more clear both men settled on a defence of "Let history decide", as a way of avoiding any awkward questions.
But with the formation of a new Iraq government, Blair has formulated a new confidence.
He has recently started reiterating his belief that his policy of "values based interventionism" is the way forward for the UN and the rest of the world.
It's called clutching at straws, and that's what both men are doing."He's going to make the progressive case for engagement in Iraq," a Downing Street official said. The prime minister would present the US-British invasion and occupation of Iraq, another source said, not as an aberration but as "the natural core of a values-based interventionist foreign policy."
Again and again, the two leaders referred to the formation of a democratically elected government and the transformation that represented. Whatever differences there may have been in the war, Mr Blair said, the international community should now unite behind the cabinet of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Standing alongside President Bush at a White House press conference last night, in what is bound to be one of the two leaders' last summits, Mr Blair portrayed UN reform as a path towards faster intervention by the international community in response to threats to global security.He said: "What we want to do is to make sure the UN is an effective instrument for multilateral action."
President Bush went further, declaring: "The UN ought to be clear in its desire to liberate people from the clutches of tyranny. That's what I think the UN should be doing."
Ignoring the fact that the task of the UN is to avoid warfare if at all possible, the two men who single-handedly ripped up the UN Charter are now arguing that their illegal actions should become the blueprint for all future UN activity.
The lights are slowly dimming on the Prime Ministership of Blair and the Presidency of Bush and both of their times in office will be defined by the conflict that they are now desperately trying to recast in a different hue.
This is almost certain to be their last summit. It's a fitting end.
Gone is the confidence and swagger that preceded the invasion of Iraq. Now, with both men paying the price in opinion polls for the folly of their actions, they look like a pair of used car salesmen trying to convince us all of the benefits of "Yugoslavian engineering".
They can bluster and boast, they can recast and redefine, it matters not a jot.
As they once requested, history will decide. And for all their desperate last attempts to rewrite it, history will judge both these men as failures.
Their greatest failure was that both men did not look at evidence and make difficult decisions - which is the version they would have us believe - their failure is that they made decisions and then set about finding evidence that would back those decisions.
"Fitting the facts around the policy."
It is a folly that all future leaders of both of those great nations should avoid at all costs, lest they enjoy a similar fate and find themselves ending their time in office desperately trying to win long lost arguments.
For that is what both Bush and Blair are now doing.
As I said previously, it's a fitting end.
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4 comments:
A very well written post.
I disagree completely with it, however. But I still think it was well written.
Perhaps, however, you might consider the end-game of what you are suggesting. Like all who are against this war, I have to ask: what is your solution to the problems in the middle east? Now, if you go to my blog, you'll see I rant and cuss a lot about anti-war people, but I'm perfectly happy to discuss things nicely when I'm in the mood and when I see people formulating some ideas a little better than others. So I'm asking, seriously, what is your solution? How could anyone get rid of dictators like Saddam in today's world without bombing the hell out of them and rebuilding from scratch?
It's not a facile question. I'm asking in all seriousness. There are, lest you forget, many Iraqis who do want us to say and who did want us to come in and remove Saddam. I won't say that serious mistakes weren't made in the post-war planning because it is obvious to everyone that there were. But if you are against the removal of tyrants by force, then what are you for? Live and let live? And what about those who cry out for help in the first place? To those people who did, did it really matter if we went in looking for WMD, or to get a military base in the center of the middle east? If somebody has a gun to the head of your entire family, do you care why the guy bursting in the door is doing it? Does it matter if he is doing it because he is getting paid, or simply because he wants to help you?
And if you don't believe in removing guys like Saddam, who do you think will? Or does it not even matter to you or your friends in the anti-war movement? Do you think that the Arab world should be left alone the way it is? Please, don't tell me it has to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem either. Settling issues between Israelis and Palestinians would not have removed Saddam, or anyone else. Peace between Israel and Egypt has existed since 1979 and Egypt is as much a military dictatorship as it ever was. It didn't remove it, nor did Arabs ever claim that it would.
So what will?
I see that you have one of my favorite quotes on your page from Gandhi. I respect Gandhi and I really think that he was a great man in many ways. But everyone knows, as did he, that his movement would never have worked had the Nazis been in control of India instead of the British Empire. It's a foregone conclusion as to what would have happened to every single person who would have stood up to Hitler in a pacifist, non-violent, way.
So, if an Iraqi came to you before the war, imploring you to lobby for the removal of Saddam, what would you have told him? "Sorry mate, it's not my problem?" Didn't we do that in Rwanda? Do we want to really say that to people again? Even for all the hardship that it caused, do you want to tell the Iraqis who are risking their lives every day and who want us to stay and help them: "I'm sorry, but I just don't care what you say. The lives of my soldiers are worth more than the lives of your family?"
That's the problem I see with the anti-war crowd: It's a selfish argument. It's selfish because as much as there may be people who want us to leave or never to have come in the first place, there are also many people who did want us to come in and to stay.
What would you tell them? I do happen to know a few, and I think that they wouldn't like what you have to say to them at all. And, after all, they're more directly affected than you are.
Thank you for posting.
I actually have a difficulty with your notion of "regime change" which, despite Bush constantly calling for it, is actually illegal under international law. You'll notice that Blair, a trained barrister, is very careful never to use the phrase.
The sovereignty of individual states has been recognised since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and we are not allowed to intervene in any other states business unless there is something akin to a massacre taking place.
The problem for me before the Iraq war was that every example Bush or Blair gave - "he gassed his own people" etc., - all took place a full decade earlier, and there is also the valid argument that both of our country's certainly didn't condemn it at the time. So the Iraq war lacked the immediacy that applied to Kosovo and Sierra Leonne, and without that immediacy it also lost it's legality under international law.
You appear to be arguing that there is a moral duty for all of us to intervene in any country that is not democratic. That's not only a tall order, but more importantly, it falls outside of international law which would have to be renogiated if we are to walk down the path you suggest.
I'm also wondering, to take your argument to it's logical conclusion, if you would be willing to sacrifice your own children to enable the people of, say, Zimbabwe to achieve a democratic status.
One of the problems that people who make your arguments face is that brave young American men and woman have offered - with the possibility of losing their own lives in the process - to defend your country from maximum danger. They did not offer to risk their lives in order to ensure democracy in Tajikistan.
Bush made the argument that he needed to invade Iraq based on the existence of WMD. It was only when they failed to materialise that he transferred his argument to exporting democracy.
Had he approached Congress and asked for permission to invade Iraq in order to export democracy, I doubt very much that he would have succeeded.
This democracy that you wish to export starts at home, and few American Congressmen would be willing to look American mothers in the eye and ask them to lay down their children's lives so that people in Uzbekistan can have democracy.
Any Congressman who did would be swiftly looking for a job.
And it is there that I feel your argument collapses.
Thank you for replying.
First of all, I disagree. But no surprise there. However, it should be noted that I don't much care for "International Law" when it is being applied to people of the worst sorts. But if you want a legal argument, there is such: Saddam was technically at war with the United States, the U.K. and the entire international community since 1991. He signed documents stating that he would do things to ensure a cease-fire (not peace, different word and concept). He violated those accords which means a legal state of war existed. Not only that, he loudly and openly defied them and "re-declared" war on the U.S. and U.K. every year on the anniversary of the first Gulf War. Now, I don't know about you but, legally speaking, that's an act of war. So it didn't matter what the U.N. said in 2002 and 2003 because Iraq was already in violation since over a decade, and was still in a state of war. Also, they were shooting at our planes several times a month which, under the U.N. charter, is defined as an act of war. The United Nations never went back and declared those accords null and void, so I don't see how they could have ever declared that retaliation for those things is illegal. The only reason they try to do so is because of political considerations. But, you will notice, no legal action has been taken or is in fact pending, because those documents signed for the cease-fire to be in effect over a decade ago are still legally binding.
But again, I don't care much for legalities. I wouldn't have accorded them to Hitler and I certainly don't accord them to Saddam.
The other point is this: WMD was the public stated goal in the United States, but it was not the only legal reason. If you go and look at the document upon which Congress voted for action to be taken against Saddam, I believe that there are no less than eighteen reasons (or maybe it was fifteen - haven't read it in a year or two) upon which to license the President to go to war. WMD was only one such reason. Human rights was also voted as a reason, as well as the fact that Congress, under the Clinton Administration, made it a law to try to overthrow the regime of (and here's the legal bit again) a country which was technically (and literally) at war with the United States for over a decade. WMD was, again, only one reason. There were many others. It was, in fact, a litany of reasons.
Also remember the code name for the entire Iraq invasion: "Operation Iraqi Freedom". That was before anyone started to wonder where the WMD suddenly vanished to. And if you know anything about military operations, you'll know that these are chosen far in advance of actual combat. The first words out of the White House Spokesman's mouth (and the only ones in the first briefing as I recall) when the bombing began were something to the effect of: "Operation Iraqi Freedom has begun." (and then he left the room).
I'd say that's a telling sign all by itself.
As to your point about defending the rights of people in Zimbabwe: yes I would. But then you are discoursing with somebody who volunteered for entirely ideological reasons to serve in the armed forces in a different country than his own. And not only that, I would make my sons and daughters do the same if I could, though I wouldn't force them because I believe service should be a choice of each person and not compulsory (unless there is a national emergency). So yes, I would. And I started writing about international affairs during the Rwandan massacre, because I felt that no voices were being raised at that time for intervention. I will never forgive Mr. Kofi Annan for not declaring it a genocide and for withdrawing UN troops from the country (and to this day, he is absolutely unwelcome hereafter in Rwanda, I might let you know), and I was extremely pissed off at Clinton for not sending our own troops as well. We should have, and we had a legal obligation to do so. Not only that: I don't care if "international law" tells us we can't save somebody from absolute annihilation when they are innocent and being slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands. I just want it done. Sometimes, the law is an ass; especially laws which are used by dictators to solidify their own power base by oppressing their own people.
I might also add that this is what seriously disturbs me about the "progressive" movement. I always felt that the people who talked the biggest game about being a "world citizen" would actually want to do something for fellow citizens in other places. But it is, sadly, not the case. Either "progressives" see themselves as brothers all over the world to help each other, even at the risk of their own lives (which is, in part, a definition of being a citizen), or they just tell people that they really don't want to bother and that their goals extend only to their own borders because of legal restrictions. That doesn't sound like an ideal into which I can really buy some stock.
More later because I have to run to a meeting.
Cheers.
The fact that you don't "much care" to apply international law to certain people is irrelevant, as you do not get to make the law.
International law exists, and if your only way of constructing an argument is through ignoring it, then you are not a serious person.
Likewise, as Saddam's ceasefire was negotiated through the United Nations, they are the only people who could say if he was in breach of that ceasefire. As you no doubt know, the UN did not back your viewpoint.
You also brought up the myriad of reasons Bush gave for the possible invasion without addressing my main point of whether you honestly think Congress would have backed a war based on the exportation of democracy. My contention is that they would not have done so. Do you disagree with this?
I actually agree with you regarding Rwanda. We should have intervened and it's a disgrace that we didn't.
However, your broader point appears to be that the law is an ass and, as such, should be ignored.
If it is an ass then it should be rewritten with international consensus.
Your point that it can be ignored is simply a criminal charter where the strongest get to make the rules up as they go along.
That's the antithesis of democracy.
So where do you stand? Do you believe in international law?
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