Purveyor of Hot Air Since 1997: Tony Blair's latest essay on the Middle East was so bad that even London's Tory mayor, Boris Johnson, told him to "put a sock in it". The terms "self-deluding" and "self-serving" are barely adequate to describe Blair's bilious bloviating.
FOR NEARLY A WEEK the world has been retching over Tony Blair’s essay on Iraq. Having read it, even London’s Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, curtly instructed him to “put a sock in it”.
This global revulsion is not solely attributable to the fact
that Mr Blair, the second-most-culpable person associated with the bloody Iraqi
omnishambles, is still presuming to tell the world how to fix it – though that
would be reason enough. It’s because his recipe for peace and progress in the
Middle East is exactly the same as it was back in 2003. Invasion, occupation
and the imposition of Western values.
The formula that worked so tremendously well the first time!
According to Mr Blair, the Islamic world, being “inherently
unstable”, cannot actually be damaged by anything “we” (by which he presumably
means the Anglo-American imperium and its assorted hangers-on) do to it. Iraq,
Libya, Syria: they’d all have gone bad regardless of “our” actions. None of it
is down to “us”.
“The problems of the Middle East are the product of bad
systems of politics mixed with a bad abuse of religion going back over a long
time. Poor governance, weak institutions, oppressive rule and a failure within
parts of Islam to work out a sensible relationship between religion and
Government have combined to create countries which are simply unprepared for
the modern world. Put into that mix, young populations with no effective job
opportunities and education systems that do not correspond to the requirements
of the future economy, and you have a toxic, inherently unstable matrix of
factors that was always – repeat always - going to lead to a revolution.”
So, you see, the “international community” has nothing to
reproach itself for when it comes to the Middle East. Those fine fellows, Sykes
and Picot, drawing lines all over the maps of the dying Ottoman Empire back in
1916, were entirely blameless. War, after all, is war. And if you’re foolish
enough to thrown in with the losing side, then you can hardly complain when
your territory is carved up like a (ahem) Turkey.
Yes, yes, yes – alright! His Majesty’s Government may have
encouraged Colonel T.E. Lawrence to stir up the Arabs against the Turks by
promising them their own independent kingdom if they threw in with the winning
side. But that was a wartime promise – and everyone knows (or should know) what
a wartime promise is worth.
And, no, on balance, Mr Blair clearly does not agree that
the Royal Air Force’s deployment of poison gas bombs against rebellious Iraqi
tribespeople in the 1920s and 30s is in any way evidence of “poor governance”
or “oppressive rule” on the part of the British Empire. Any more than the 1918
Balfour Declaration, which, by promising the Jewish people their own homeland
in Palestine laid the foundations for the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, could
be described as the product of “bad systems of politics mixed with a bad abuse
of religion”.
Mr Blair’s essay is not burdened with such irrelevant
historical detail. “We have to put
aside the differences of the past”, he warns, “and act now to save the future.”
Brave words. And
yet, among the 2,833 words of Mr Blair’s bilious essay two very important words are missing – Saudi Arabia.
Which is really
rather odd, because it is the Wahhabism of the Saudis, coupled with the
Kingdom’s extraordinary oil wealth, which is inspiring, resourcing and
providing diplomatic cover for terrorist militia all over the Middle East.
A Caliphate of the Righteous? Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadists pose for the cameras. While Western Imperialism continues to dictate the fate of the Middle East, ISIS will never want for recruits.
If “saving the
future” does not involve imposing UN sanctions upon the Saudis. If it does not
include the “international community” stepping away from the feudal potentates
and military dictators it has been pleased to call “moderate Arab opinion”. If
it is not about openly sponsoring comprehensive democratic reforms. Then, Mr Blair’s self-righteous and self-serving
exhortations notwithstanding, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and
its shimmering mirage of a borderless caliphate of the righteous, will never
lack for followers.
This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru
Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, June 20, 2014.
