If Tony Blair wants to represent peace, he has a lot of reinventing to do, writes matthew carr |
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Some politicians are too cynical to quit. Others are merely too dazzled by their own sense of destiny. Last week's breathtaking revelation that Tony Blair may become George Bush's 'roving ambassador for peace' in the Middle East when he leaves office may well belong to both categories.
According to the Daily Telegraph, this putative ambassadorial role is part of a post-ministerial attempt to redeem Blair's reputation. Though not yet officially confirmed, Downing Street is already dropping strong hints, claiming that "the Middle East and especially Palestine have always been close to his heart".
A cursory look at the past 10 years suggests otherwise. Blair's record in the Middle East is one of vainglorious and criminal folly, incompetence and devastating violence. In Iraq he manipulated his own electorate |
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| Blair’s record in the Middle East is of criminal folly, incompetence and devastating violence |
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into an illegal war that has so far resulted in some 700,000 deaths, the creation of 4 million refugees and the likely destruction of an entire country.
As for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Blair has persistently pursued a one-sided policy of unrestricted support for Israel. For the past 15 months he has backed the crippling sanctions that followed Hamas's electoral victory and which have brought the Gaza Strip close to collapse. During last year's Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, the peacemaker helped block calls for a ceasefire, thus enabling the mayhem to continue.
All this has little to do with conflict resolution or peace. At the very least, a politician with such a dismal record ought to be more humble and circumspect about playing any further part in the region's politics - let alone on behalf of George Bush.
It is a tribute to Blair's peculiar combination of egocentricity and amoral cynicism that he appears to believe the region still needs him. Though Blair, like Bush, is held in contempt by many ordinary Arabs, he will no doubt be  |
