Dynamic shift

Iraq sealed the change. Throughout his second term of office (2001-5) it never went away. Indeed, it increasingly dominated every aspect of the man and his government. Who now remembers anything about what else Labour did in power during those years? What we were sold as a quick, efficient liberation turned into a blood-soaked occupation. On and on it dragged. Blair seemed obsessed by it - or rather, obsessed with not letting it become seen as a bad thing.

Now that Blair has been gone from Downing Street for almost a year, perspective has dealt his legacy a woefully bad hand. Whatever good he did as Prime Minister feels like it happened in spite of, rather than because, of his own personality. Whereas everything that went wrong, of which Iraq is most prominent, is traced right to his own doorstep. His entire premiership gets summed up under the heading: Fighting The Wrong Kind Of War.

Of course, a lot of scorn was poured on Blair for that 'special relationship' with George Bush.

Initially Blair had been able to define himself on his own terms, and not on those of another world leader. That all changed when Blair started repeatedly claiming he thought it was worth sticking with the US President in order to better influence the outcome in Iraq. His blinkered idealism prevented him from realising he would not - could not - have any influence at all.

How has Iraq left its mark on George Bush? The man himself appears not to care. He is spending his final months in office fooling around, behaving like it's the last day of term and openly stating his eagerness to get back to his ranch. After all, when you claim to have God on your side, who else do you need?

Almost everything he tried to do in his stint at the White House, however, is in ruins. He won power in 2000 speaking of compassionate conservatism and of America leaving the world to mind its own business. The fact those aspirations were but fig leaves to mask a nakedly militarist agenda was made plain by the speed at which Bush used the events of 11th September 2001 to launch a 'war on terror' and promote an 'axis of evil'. Both backfired. Both lost his party control of the Congress. Both lost his country a titanic sum of dignity and respect across the planet. And both have meant those people hoping to replace him have run a mile from any kind of similar sentiments.

As for that tête-à-tête with Tony…well, as is so often the case with such liaisons, the chance to remain just good friends has rather been scuppered by one of the couple behaving like he was never really that interested in the first place, and the other choosing to spend more time with his family.

Truly, long distance relationships never work – except tens of thousands of innocent people don’t usually pay for it with their lives.

By Ian Jones, MSN home page editor

March 2008

引用

 What the Iraq war has done for Bush and Blair: MSN UK