The Blair Factor

Apparently, Tony Blair's in all kinds of trouble and will leave office soon. Isaac Chotiner sees this as some sort of tragic turn, and I suppose there's a sense in which he's right. Still, I can't help but feel that, in the USA at least, Blair has tended to escape his fair share of the blame for the Iraq mess. I'd forgotten about this myself, but a little while back I was having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather mentioned that he'd been against the Iraq War but turned out and decided to support it on the strength of Blair's endorsement. I can't totally reconstruct what my thought-process was at the time, but once he mentioned it it seems to me that similar considerations played a role in my own (badly wrong) thinking about the issue.

People tend not to be up front about this kind of thing, but clearly in the real world decision-making is highly heuristic. When leaders you think of as smart and admirable get behind a bad idea that ought to reflect poorly on the leader, but what it often does is make you think better of the idea. In that sense, I tend to think Blair was more influential than is often recognized in terms of moving American public opinion in Bush's direction.

Of course the same thing could be said about many of the congressional Democrats. They backed the war in large part out of perceived political expediency. But the fact that the Democratic leadership -- Daschle, Gephardt, etc. -- was supporting the war served to make the anti-war position look marginal. So the politics of the issue became largely circular -- the leaders of the opposition were supporting the war because it was the politically safe bet, but it was the safe bet in part because the leaders of the opposition were supporting it.

Comments

If I'm remembering correctly, Kevin Drum has been explicit about how much Blair's position influenced his own willingness to support the war for a while. It made a difference to me too; I figured that he's he's not as dumb as Bush, so there must be something rational about the enterprise, or a plan that hadn't been made public.

Posted by ogged | September 7, 2006 5:24 PM

I did not trust Blair's government once it started in with the abolition of jury trials. (Which was in the late 1990s, or 2000 at the latest; well before 9/11 anyway.) And I have always wondered, why the American liberal love for Blair? Is it the accent?

Posted by slolernr | September 7, 2006 5:38 PM

It's an old story. Whenever an emperor sallies forth naked, there's always a shortage of brave little boys and girls.

Posted by David Tomlin | September 7, 2006 5:46 PM

I don't know if the accent explains everything, but explains his influence on Americans as regards the war; there wasn't much else there to do the work.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 7, 2006 5:51 PM

The funny thing is, it assumes that Blair took an objective look at the issues and evidence and decided a war was justified. It's fairly obvious that a large part of Blair's reasoning was that he wanted to maintain a close relationship with the US. So if Bush was going to war, Blair felt he had to support him.
So anyone who though Bush's reasons were bad, but was partially convinced by Blair's position... was actually being convinced by Bush's position.

Posted by Ray | September 7, 2006 5:52 PM

anyone who though Bush's reasons were bad, but was partially convinced by Blair's position... was actually being convinced by Bush's position.

Which includes Bill Clinton.

Posted by slolernr | September 7, 2006 6:21 PM

As a European who was always against the Iraq invasion, Tony Blair was pretty much the only one who came close to making me change my mind. To most Europeans the entire Bush administration always seemed like a bunch of born-again illiterate happy-go-lucky christian clowns, and anything they said came across as utterly moronic and dangerously fanatic. (And if I come across as a total retard myself, it might have something to do with my lack of experience in arguing a point in English. I'm Scandinavian and I normally write and speak Norwegian.)

The thing is, when Blair was trying to convince us that "regime change" in Iraq was a good idea, he often appealed to our least selfish instincts: People in Iraq are living under a horrible dictatorship and it is our duty as humanitarians to come to their aid. To me, that remains the only good argument for resorting to the kind of drastic measures we(the West)took.

Bush et al, on the other hand, were constantly pushing the fear button. And when confronted by journalists (to the extent that they actually were confronted by journalists), their answers were always machinelike in their illiterate talkingpointness. But when Blair talked to the media, he listened to the questions and answered them in a way that made you suspect he had actually given a fair amount of thought to this. He genuinely cared. He had his doubts. He was not fanatic about it. He understood those who disagreed. He realized that things might go horribly wrong. And above all: He didn't sound like he had been appointed by God to carry out His Plan.

Posted by frodo | September 7, 2006 6:25 PM

The British accent alone adds about 20 IQ points, I have to admit.

If Blair had the job of selling the neocon agenda to the world, a lot more people would actually be persuaded. Thank god George Bush is the face of the movement.

Posted by Steve | September 7, 2006 6:25 PM

"It's fairly obvious that a large part of Blair's reasoning was that he wanted to maintain a close relationship with the US."

I've often wondered about this. Is Britain's so-called "special relationship" with the U.S. so valuable that the government there will agree to any policy in order to preserve it?

Posted by rented mule | September 7, 2006 6:53 PM

Come on guys. Blair's case for war shared some substance with Bush's (depending on which of Bush's dozen rationales you're considering) but it was presented in a much more convincing and palatable way.

Posted by ogged | September 7, 2006 6:54 PM

"I've often wondered about this. Is Britain's so-called "special relationship" with the U.S. so valuable that the government there will agree to any policy in order to preserve it?"

Yes is the most frequent answer to this question.

Posted by otto | September 7, 2006 7:01 PM

Another possibility is that Blair hoped to be a restraining or moderating influence on Bush and the neo-cons. As in al-Jazeera didn't get bombed. Some the news conferences seemed to show Blair with "a deer in the headlights" look.

Other possibilities include actual sincerity, smart people can have bad judgement; and Blair did get control of Basra. Have the British media looked in British graft and ear profiteering?

Posted by bob mcmanus | September 7, 2006 8:02 PM

When leaders you think of as smart and admirable get behind a bad idea that ought to reflect poorly on the leader, but what it often does is make you think better of the idea.

I think this is wrong. None of us have the complete facts or perfect understanding of any issue. When someone you trust based on their previous track record comes down on the side opposite your own, you should rethink your own position, at least a little. Opinion from someone you trust is a new and valuable data point.

Posted by Mark | September 7, 2006 8:14 PM

Without Blair's support it is not at all clear to me that Bush could have sold this war in the US; whatever we think of Bush (and I do not know anyone who has a lower opinion of him than I do), he seems to have believed that his war had some overarching good intentions; I always felt Blair was too intelligent to buy into that bilge; an opportunist pure and simple...the lowest type of all.

Posted by dellaRovere | September 7, 2006 8:40 PM

There was a time when I greatly admired Blair. Now I believe he should spend the rest of his life in jail, and that his and George's imprisonment would be a good deterrent for future leaders.

Posted by theCoach | September 7, 2006 9:36 PM

Wasn't there a serious rumor that Blair supported the Iraq invasion in return for Bush going into Afghanistan? I seem to recall this in the Guardian, but I'm too lazy to Google it. That said, after Iraq, Blair has done nothing to separate himself from the mess.

Posted by Thomas | September 7, 2006 10:29 PM

Frodo,

No need to apologize for your English, which would put a lot of native speakers (and I don't just mean Bush) to shame. I think you speak for many Americans as well as Europeans.

I think there was something impressive about Blair--it's not just that he seemed principled and articulate by comparison with Bush (though appearing next to that maundering cretin couldn't help add to his luster). And it's not just Americans who found him impressive. It's worth looking at the disillusionment of British progressives-there was an illuminating piece about this in the LRB a while back. It was an amazing feat to lead the Labour party out of the wildernes, where it had been for two decades, and though there was a lot to complain about in New Labour from a left perspective, there were good things too. Politics is the art of the possible, and for a while it seemed like Blair's labour party was doing as good a job as any progressive party in the real world making compromises and getting something for it. And he did try to place intervention in Iraq in a broader framework of humanitarian principles--which, as a number of posters have already noted, provided the only argument that had any force.

And he sacrificed all of that on the that altar of Bush idolatry.

Harold Wilson had enough sense to resist LBJ and stay out of Vietnam. Why couldn't Blair have been as sensible? If he goes down as the greatest failure in post-war British politics, it will be his own doing.

Posted by J | September 8, 2006 12:14 AM

"I've often wondered about this. Is Britain's so-called "special relationship" with the U.S. so valuable that the government there will agree to any policy in order to preserve it?"

Not any policy, but they'll certainly go the extra mile. And they should. It's really in their strategic interests to do so.

If I had been the American President, I wouldn't have invaded Iraq. It wasn't in the US national interest. But if I'd been the British PM, I'd have followed a very Blair-like policy. It was in the British national interest.

Posted by Petey | September 8, 2006 12:38 AM

I think Blair was more enthusiastic about invading Iraq than Bush was, just as he was more keen on bombing Serbia than Clinton was. Those familiar with his domestic policies see nothing surprising in his belief that a bit of intervention can make anything better anywhere.

His political weakness today is purely the result of his longstanding self-imposed term limit that he would not contest the next general election. Labour MPs are forced to start jockeying now for positions under his successor.

Posted by Andrew | September 8, 2006 6:44 AM

Anent the Democrat leadership support: whores gather on street corners.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 8, 2006 9:42 AM

"Have the British media looked in British graft and ear profiteering?"

... nice typo.

If you would pay some attention to the British media rather than seeing Blair simply as a guy who put a gloss of respectability onto the Bush foreign policy, you would see he is quite unpopular domestically for reasons other than Iraq. (Although dishonesty over Iraq was a big catalyst to losing general credibility...)

A big part of it is the stagnation and corruption that often come upon people who are in charge too long. He has no ideas left and has merged into 'the establishment', which is Brit-speak for ineffectual reactive big government. The last notable policy debate was on fox-hunting... currently it is immigration and ID cards. For a few years now there have been endless scandals of party financing, corruption, unethical behaviour and/or marital infidelity among Cabinet ministers. Blair can't seem to find people who can do their jobs reasonably competently and not have affairs with their secretaries.

This kind of news doesn't really travel across the Atlantic, but it has come to define the Blair government.

Posted by Thomas Dent | September 8, 2006 11:32 AM

"Of course the same thing could be said about many of the congressional Democrats. They backed the war in large part out of perceived political expediency."

this is a damning charge. surely some of them backed the war because, based on what they knew at the time, they agreed with it.

Posted by chris | September 8, 2006 1:14 PM

"But the fact that the Democratic leadership -- Daschle, Gephardt, etc. -- was supporting the war..."

Tom Daschle lost his Senate seat in large part for speaking out against the war in spring '03 right before the invasion began.

I never cease to be amazed by the rhetorical dishonesty of conflating supporting the 9/02 resolution to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq and "supporting the war".

Posted by Petey | September 8, 2006 1:41 PM

I never cease to be amazed by the rhetorical dishonesty of conflating supporting the 9/02 resolution to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq and "supporting the war".

The dishonesty is pretending a vote for that resolution wasn't a vote for war.

Posted by David Tomlin | September 8, 2006 5:56 PM

For a few years now there have been endless scandals of party financing, corruption, unethical behaviour and/or marital infidelity among Cabinet ministers. [The PM] can't seem to find people who can do their jobs reasonably competently and not have affairs with their secretaries.

Strangely enough, this precise paragraph could have been written about Tony Blair's predecessor(s), and it would have fit perfectly. It seems to be a truism of modern British politics that no Government - of any Party - seems to be able to last more than 6 or 7 years in office without devolving into scandal-ridden ineffectiveness. Of course it doesn't help matters that of both the last major shifts in political power in Britain (the "Thatcherite Revolution" of the 1980's and '90s, and the New Labour sweep which followed it after 1997) happened, apparently more due to public weariness and disgust with the existing Party's control than with any real enthusiasm for the new bunch's policies, Maybe term limits ARE a good idea, after all.

Posted by Jay C | September 11, 2006 11:59 AM

Jesus Christ ... can't you think for yourself? The invasion wasn't a highly complex issue; it was clearly, obviously a war crime. But hey, Tony Blair told me it was OK, so I believed him? Give me a break.

Posted by Jason J. | September 11, 2006 9:25 PM