As everyone knows, former British Labour Prime-Minister Tony Blair has never apologized for urging the invasion of Iraq on what we now know were false pretences. Never never never. Never never never never never! Tony Blair will go to his grave insisting to anyone who will listen that invading Iraq was such a good idea that it was worth sacrificing thousands of lives and spending over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money. (He wouldn’t call the deaths, in the invasion itself, of 100,000 Iraqis a “cost”, of course. Perhaps they were complicit in Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, some how.)
Most amazingly, he doesn’t look at Iraq today and see failure, even though the invasion has been a complete disaster in every single respect. It did not bring democracy and prosperity. It did not bring peace. It did not open the door to democratic progress in the Middle East. It did not improve the security of Israel. It did not weaken Iran.
Blair must go to bed some nights weeping over the Nobel Peace Prize he should have won and imagining how great it would have looked hanging over the mantel, next to the pictures of him cuddling with George Bush or Cher, or kissing Bono, or schmoozing with Bill Gates.
If you think he might eventually succumb to facts and information, dream on. The invasion of Iraq is what I call an “identity issue”. If someone likes a movie that you think is garbage, and you say so, that is not an identity issue: everyone has different taste. But if you say you are lousy father and you ruined your son’s life, you have created an identity issue. To concede that you are right is impossible because the issue goes right to core of a person’s self respect and identity.
Blair’s self-image, his identity, is tied up with this image of an enlightened, rational, successful, beneficent leader. To admit to have helped cause a massive political and military disaster would be unbearable– it would be tantamount to admitting that you are a worthless human being. He’ll never do it.
He cannot give quarter on this issue. He cannot display one second of weakness on his major points: Saddam Hussein was an awful man who had to go. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Dick Cheney was right. And if Iraq is now ten times worse off in terms of stability, law and order, prosperity, and hope, well, it’s not my bloody fault they wouldn’t do their share.
Now he bemoans the Labour Party’s interest in a far-left candidate, Jeremy Corbyn. He’ll spoil everything, he thinks. He’ll make it look like the rich have been ripping off the working classes all along, even while I was prime minister. He’ll make the rich pay taxes. He’ll invest in infrastructure. He won’t go to war. Worst of all, he’ll lose the election, and, for Tony Blair, that is the unforgivable sin, the identity sin, the one that makes him want to flee politics altogether: if it’s not my party, I won’t come.
[whohit]Tony Blair’s Miraculous Self Delusion[/whohit]