on Jun 24th, 2007Cartoon of the week - 6/24
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is on his “farewell tour” — he leaves office in three days. I can’t think of a better friend this country has had in recent years.
Yes, he’s been called “Bush’s poodle” at home but Dubya and his despicable warmongering surely hastened the end of Blair’s time at 10 Downing St. While I haven’t forgotten Blair’s support of his ideological match, Bill Clinton, especially during the Lewinsky mess, I’ll also not forget his standing shoulder to shoulder with his ideological opposite.
Nor will I ever forget that 500+ Britons were slaughtered at the Trade Center.
So thank you, Mr. Blair. Petar Pismestrovic of Kleine Zeitung, Austria paid tribute to Blair on Friday.
Note: As an American, I missed a subtle, but important point in that cartoon. Please see the comments by my British cyberpal, Roads of stone, for interpretation and perspective about Blair.
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I’m sure he is loved in America, but sadly Blair’s stock at home is at an all time low, in the very week when his PR machine were supposed to enable him to depart 10 Downing Street in ‘a wave of euphoria’. A wave of nausea and regret is much nearer the mark.
The lasting Blair legacy, for all of his undoubted achievements, is that he went to war for the most part against the will and instinct of the UK electorate.
The support of UK Parliament was gained reluctantly and belatedly in March 2003 through the now transparent subterfuge and elaborate deception of the whole WMD story. The summary was that they appointed inspectors to gather evidence, and then refused to believe that evidence, so made up their own. They were found out, as well, and people over here will not forget it.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m all for standing with our American cousins in their hours of need. The events of 9/11 were shocking and vile, in the extreme.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with our US friends was admirable, if that is what people think he did. In reality, though, from here it looked as though Blair simply delivered an impassioned speech (he’s good at those) and then flew over to New York for the memorial service.
Such thoughtful and supportive gestures should have had had absolutely nothing to do with the mad plan (or lack of plan) of invading Iraq.
Looking back, perhaps history might show that Blair could actually have done the world a far greater service if he hadn’t stood quite so closely behind Bush in the Iraq venture. If you’re intent on being a poodle, then you might at least snap at your master’s heels a little more energetically.
The key questions in evaluating Blair’s role are whether Bush would have proceeded alone and without Britain (I think he would) and why, as part of the so-called ‘coalition’ Blair patently still had no influence in ensuring that the aftermath of invasion didn’t turn into a complete fiasco. The Guardian in London demonstrated last week how Blair already knew the planning was defective before the invasion, but simply chose to press on regardless. If the rose petals on the streets of Baghdad had materialised, he might have got away with it. They didn’t, and he didn’t, either.
The result of Blair’s decisions has been severe and lasting damage to the international position of Britain abroad, in almost every country outside the United States. The security of British citizens both at home and across the globe has been threatened, and our bargaining position in the European debate (our main trade arena these days) critically compromised.
Blair has had some real domestic achievements, and fought tirelessly and finally successfully in the long struggle for lasting peace in Northern Ireland. The social and economic fabric of Britain has changed immeasurably for the good over the past ten year’s whilst Blair has been in power.
But as for foreign policy, I’m sorry - he simply cocked it up.
That John Bull-style cartoon must be American, since I can’t imagine anyone in Britain seeing Blair like that, right now. This cartoon sums up rather better how he is (and forever will be) perceived by the electorate at home.
http://www.respectcoalition.org/img/gallery/p849.jpg
‘All political careers end in failure’. That was Enoch Powell’s famously cynical line - perhaps the only line of his which history has proven to be correct. And in the case of Tony Blair, the verdict of the British people is more or less unanimous on that.
I see that cartoon is from Austria, and not America. But perhaps the key to its true interpretation lies is in the trousers.
John Bull, the redoubtable symbol of British strength, always wore white trousers.
Those stripy ones which Blair is wearing in the cartoon show he’s wearing the US flag below the waist. That’s Uncle Sam’s livery, definitely.
Roads - You’re so right about the John Bull reference in the cartoon, which I missed totally! I saw teeth and a clever caricature — I’m such a Yank!! (Had we had an American cartoon available I would have used it; that we didn’t speaks poorly of us.) I will amend the post and hope those who are interested will read your comments.
Thank you for the thoughtful, insightful “your side of the pond” assessment. I agree - Bush probably would have gone it alone. Bush hasn’t been called a cowboy lately, but the name, as a pejoritive, still fits.
I recall Blair saying shortly after 9/11 that his support was to repay the debt he felt for WWII — a national debt of gratitude, perhaps? — and I remember thinking Debt settled, we’re even now. He certainly ended up paying out of pocket, so to speak. I know the opposition at home has been long-standing and after 8 years of Bill Clinton “focus grouping” even the tiniest matters, that courage of one’s convictions was a gust of fresh air.
What is so remarkable for me is that, while the Thatcher-Reagan alliance was a natural, Blair-Bush spoke of Blair’s character and integrity, which he has in spades over Bush, at least from my perspective.
Cool Britannia seems so very long ago, doesn’t it?
Thanks again — oy, all this over the first cup of coffee — and let’s note that more Americans would rather buy a book about a dead British pricess than one about a complex woman who might become president. If that’s not sad, I don’t know what is.