The Abandoned Poodle
It had to happen sooner or later, someone from the Bush administration articulating what has been pretty obvious for years, namely that Tony Blair for all his standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the USA, has absolutely no influence. A senior State Department analyst has exposed the myth of Blair's special relationship with the Bush administration.
He added that he felt “a little ashamed†at Mr Bush’s treatment of the Prime Minister, who had invested so much of his political capital in standing shoulder to shoulder with America after 9/11.
This revelation has caused consternation on both sides of the Atlantic with officials rushing in to do some damage limitation.
That statement would be far more believable if it wasn't for the numerous examples of Blair's sycophantic fawning for the USA and Bush's imperious behaviour. 'One sided' doesn't even begin to describe the 'special relationship'. There is also the evidence that the Bush administration has frequently ignored British advice over Iraq, and even changed the attorney General's advice over the legality of the Iraq war. Bush also betrayed Blair over the Israel/Palestine conflict when he reneged on his promise to engage in finding a solution.
With all these examples of what a sham the 'special relationship' is, it's incredible that Dr Myers comments provoked such a fuss. Myers also discussed the history of the 'special relationship', starting with Winston Churchill and going on to praise Harold Wilson's refusal to involve Britain in the Vietnam war.
“He succeeded by sounding good but doing nothing. Blair got it the other way around and in the end joined us in the Iraq adventure. If you can leap forward 25 years or so and write that biography of Blair one would have to say that one of the most brilliant [sic] prime ministerships of modern times was brought a cropper by the Iraq war. He will never recover, he has been ruined for all time . . . that is tragic.â€Â
Blair's claim that he was a bridge between the USA and Europe has also been exposed as rubbish as his relationship with Bush has been regarded as hampering Britain's links with Europe. It seems that now that Britain's support for the Iraq war is irrelevant, the poodle is no longer needed.
Blair is of no use to the US
Blair is of no use to the US as he is seen as discredited, and the UK is an embarassment to the Washington crowd for their support of a war the US devoutly wishes it could dematerialise. Some brighter sparks hoped (I think) that Blair would pull the Giant Moron back from the brink. Instead he revealed himself as a spineless courtier who walked shoulder to shoulder with the Great Moron into the abyss. His performamce last July, from "Yo, Blair" downwards was the kiss of death to a US political elite that recognizes fawning but does not, in the perverse way of these things, admire or reward it.
Labour does not appear to realise that "our side" is no longer in power in DC (how ironic...I guess we should be grateful the Blair Junta haven't also adopted the KKK along with creationism as their new political thrust). Our political junta are closing their eyes to the fact a growing number of US politicos view the UK as morally ambiguous cannon fodder and feel genuinely sorry for the British people for their appalling leadership.
As slightly calmer voices return to the US political dialogue, ours is dominated by the politics of fear. The likes of Brown, Reid etc paint such a bleak future of a terrorism-bedizened future that frankly I want to leave as soon as possible. I don't recognise, any longer, the country that I (ironically) emigrated to nearly 30 years ago, and whose democratic heritage, largely decent civil society and humane values have been swept up in this tsunami of political hysteria and public inefficiency and waste. The flood of our money wasted on serially inefficient mega projects at a time when levels of poverty in this country remain too high; the cripplingly steady rise in taxes that is making me fear my children will never attain even the modest middle living standards we worked so hard to achieve; the destruction of a lot of positive attainments for political ends (oh, citizens of Hammersmith, did you think you'd be paying back for voting conservative by having the local centre of excellence for neurology closed?). We have been impoverished by our leadership, and left with a group of men with such narrow, cynical and expedient political vision that it is hard to understand what they thought they were bringing to Iraq, let alone what they believe they are leaving behind.
The other tragedy of Blair
The other tragedy of Blair is that he has misled us all so much over the years that he is no longer fit. So when he says "The Police need 90 days" we won't believe him. When he says ID cards are a good idea, we won't believe him. When he says he will not abuse green taxes to tackle global warming, we know he's lying. If, god help us, he had to ask us to go into a war that we actually SHOULD be in, no one would trust him. He is not fit to be PM. How could he have so deliberately destroyed the huge trust he brought into office with him? BUt betrayed we have been, more than possibly any PM since the lying toerag Heath (who claimed the Common Market would not lead to political integration when he had seen the plans)
If you check out the Daily
If you check out the Daily Mail website Lord Steyn has attacked Blair and Bush calling them both war criminals for a wide range of things. I blogged about it a short time ago and the link to the mail story is here
"brought a cropper by the
"brought a cropper by the Iraq war"
Indeed, but it was his hubris that did it. His nannyish, passive-aggressive attitude (as so brilliantly spotted nearly a decade ago by Private Eye) has been his undoing, and rightly so.
In Saki's words: 'he could learn humility from a Duchess'.