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 Thursday, December 07, 2006

Tony Blair's Head Still in the Sand Despite the Release of US's Iraq Study Group Report

  Quote:

Before flying off to America yesterday, Mr Blair told MPs in the Commons that while the war was not being won, the important thing was "that we do go on to succeed in the mission that we have set ourselves".

That is at best misleading - British policy on the ground increasingly embodies an acknowledgement of defeat that is in conflict with the prime minister's insultingly rosy rhetoric - and at worst the comment of a man in denial.

He should use his influence - if it exists at all - to demand broad changes of US policy in the region, especially over Israel-Palestine, and make clear both to the president and in public the increasing reality that Britain is getting out of southern Iraq as soon as practicable anyway.

No grovelling. No blurring of advice.

Just hand Mr Bush the revolver and tell him he must do the honourable thing with his failed policy.

It is still possible for America to minimise the damage not only in Iraq but to the US's role in the region and the world. And if not now, when?
- The Guardian, UK

Read here full editorial in The Guardian (UK)

Yesterday's report of the Iraq Study Group may eventually be seen as a pivotal moment in the reassertion of a realistic American role in Iraq and the world, and not remembered as the well-intentioned but failed political rescue mission that it risks becoming, given the all too seriously worsening situation in Iraq.

The report is not merely a repudiation of the disastrous United States policy in Iraq - though it is certainly that too.

It is also something larger and more strategically potent in the history of the early 21st century - an implicit repudiation of the entire divisive international and domestic political project that President George Bush has pursued since 9/11, with the unfailing and dismaying public support of Tony Blair.

The study group's co-chair, former Congressman Lee Hamilton, came straight to the point when he launched the report in Washington yesterday. The current approach in Iraq, said Mr Hamilton, is not working.

But the report goes much further. As the other co-chair, former secretary of state James Baker, immediately emphasised, what is needed is a new consensual approach, mirroring that of the 79 unanimous conclusions reached by the study group's 10 members, drawn equally from both wings of American politics.

We in Britain need to be very clear about this, as do the American people: when Mr Baker called for a new consensus both in the US itself and internationally, he was, in effect, indicting the failure of the knowingly unconsensual policies followed so foolishly by Mr Bush both at home and abroad, and supported so recklessly by Mr Blair.

The report is unquestionably the latest centrepiece and climax of a rapid nationwide recognition in the United States that the Iraq war has failed.

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating," the group pronounce in their first sentence. This frankness has many echoes in post-midterm elections America.

At the weekend, even Donald Rumsfeld was shown to have informed Mr Bush that the strategy in Iraq was not working.

On Tuesday, Mr Rumsfeld's prospective successor Robert Gates dramatically admitted that the US is not winning. Shamefully and distressingly, such candour has not yet been matched in this country.

Before flying off to America yesterday, Mr Blair told MPs in the Commons that while the war was not being won, the important thing was "that we do go on to succeed in the mission that we have set ourselves".

That is at best misleading - British policy on the ground increasingly embodies an acknowledgement of defeat that is in conflict with the prime minister's insultingly rosy rhetoric - and at worst the comment of a man in denial.

It is imperative in Washington today that Mr Blair puts himself publicly and unambiguously on the side of Messrs Baker and Hamilton.

Even at this late stage, the prime minister must not go to the White House counselling caution in the acceptance of the study group's proposals. He should use his influence - if it exists at all - to demand broad changes of US policy in the region, especially over Israel-Palestine, and make clear both to the president and in public the increasing reality that Britain is getting out of southern Iraq as soon as practicable anyway.

No grovelling. No blurring of advice. Just hand Mr Bush the revolver and tell him he must do the honourable thing with his failed policy.

There is no guarantee that the Iraq Study Group's approach offers a sure path to success. A continued slide into chaos could sweep away the al-Maliki government and plunge the country into an even greater catastrophe than the one that exists now, drawing in Iraq's neighbours.

The window of opportunity for the Baker-Hamilton policy may already have closed.

Much now rests on Mr Bush.

Does he have the vision, commitment and willingness to make bold strategic changes that are now required?

His abysmal record says no.

But the imperatives of the current disaster brook no alternative.

The central political allure of the report - an end to the US combat role in Iraq before the 2008 presidential election campaign - is surely tempting even to a leader who may go down in history as America's worst.

It is still possible for America to minimise the damage not only in Iraq but to the US's role in the region and the world. And if not now, when?

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