Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/18/2003 5:53:00 PM PST by MadIvan
"WHO will celebrate and who will weep if we pull our troops back now?" asked the Prime Minister at the start of yesterday’s Commons debate on Iraq. It was the right question at the right time. Long gone is the earlier, lightweight version of Mr Blair known as "Bambi" - a version addicted to governing by focus group and spin-doctor. Now he has risked everything on being guided by his own moral compass. Gone, too, is President Blair, who often disdained appearing in the House of Commons. The various Iraq debates have not only returned Parliament to its rightful place as the nation’s mouthpiece and political cockpit. The debates have also raised Mr Blair’s stature immeasurably, as did his bravura performance yesterday in the chamber.
There were few good replies to Mr Blair’s forensic questions. Moving an opposing amendment, the former Labour defence minister, Peter Kilfoyle, called the war "illegal, immoral and illogical". The illegal point had already been dismissed in a ruling from the Attorney General. Mr Blair dealt swiftly with the "immoral" claim: he warned that retreat now would send out a dangerous message to other "tyrants", while leaving the Iraqi people in "pitiless terror". He avowed: "I will not be party to such a course. This is not the time to falter. This is the time for this House to give a lead, to show we will stand up for what we know to be right." As to the charge of being illogical, Mr Blair said there was a "clear and present danger" that the twin threats of rogue states with weapons of mass destruction would combine with terrorist groups.
There are now signs in the country at large that Mr Blair’s strong stance is having an impact. A new ICM poll suggests British public opinion is shifting towards backing war, although more still oppose (44 per cent) than back (38 per cent) unilateral action.
A YouGov poll showed a majority in favour of war - Ivan
One speaker in the debate who ran into trouble from an attentive House was the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy. Mr Kennedy insisted that war in the absence of a second UN resolution, authorising force, was "illegal". But he added that his party would give British troops put into action their "full moral support". Mr Kennedy was swiftly impaled on this contradictory stance. If the war is illegal, British troops are thereby open to trial as war criminals. How then, he was asked, could Mr Kennedy claim to give them his "moral" backing? Mr Kennedy was not convincing in his answer. Throughout the crisis, Mr Kennedy has seemed to want to be moderately anti-war without running any risks from such a stance if Saddam is successfully toppled and democracy restored in Iraq. Thus he had to be shamed into speaking at the London anti-war demonstration on 15 February by a newspaper editorial denouncing his apparent reluctance to go.
Nevertheless, despite his Commons performance, Mr Blair still faced a major back-bench rebellion over plans to take military action in Iraq, strengthened by the emotional resignation speech of Robin Cook. There were powerful, if wrongheaded, contributions from MPs from all parties opposed to war.
Meanwhile, in America, another powerful speech in favour of intervention came early on Tuesday morning from President George Bush. Like Mr Blair, the crisis has both hardened the president and polished his public-speaking style. In the sombre address, a calm Mr Bush gave Saddam Hussein and his ruthless sons 48 hours to quit Iraq or face invasion. The president made his appeal directly to the Iraqi people, saying the US would liberate them from an oppressive dictator. It was more an offer of friendship and aid than a declaration of war: "We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbours, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near."
President Bush’s offer of exile for the Hussein clique was predictably rejected by the Iraqi dictatorship. According to Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son and a known murderer: "The wives and mothers of the Americans who fight us will cry tears of blood." It is against this kind of bombast and violence that the Allied coalition is fighting. Yet the true test of the statesmanship of Mr Blair and Mr Bush is that they both seem more interested in rebuilding Iraq and bringing peace to the Middle East than they are concerned with the rhetoric of war. As he tried to win over wavering Labour MPs, Mr Blair argued that the world after Saddam would be free to unify around a new political agenda of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. And there would also be a new UN resolution to rebuild Iraq.
It is that post-war agenda which now requires to be fleshed out in detail. But it will only be possible once Saddam is gone.
Regards, Ivan
And now there will be none of those ever again.
ML/NJ
He fooled me. Watching Blair play pussy-foot and giggling with the kintoon, I thought they were cut from the same cloth.
I loovvvve being this kinda wrong.
You gotta love Tony Blair. It's nice to have allies with strong leaders.
I suspect that 9-11 was a jarring lesson to him of the dangers in the world from muslim fundamentalism. He's one of those fellows who saw what happend and really 'gets it'. Those planes could have as easily crashed into Buckinham Palace. The British aren't universally loved either, due to their colonial history. (all in all, I think British colonialism was good for many parts of the world...in sharp contrast to many of the present hell-holes that were formerly french.)
Make no mistake about Mr. Blair. He's no conservative. He's a dedicated socialist. On this issue though, he sees with clarity. He's expending a lot of political capital by taking the stance he has. For that he's definitely earned my respect.
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