Iraq War forever tarnishes Blair legacy

The very first thing Gordon Brown should do when he enters No. 10 Downing Street is withdraw British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The vast majority of Brits would be overjoyed. Such an announcement would greatly distance himself from Tony Blair, showing that he is his own man and not President Bush’s lapdog. And it would enhance chances of his party retaining power at the next national election.

As columnist Gary Younge wrote in The Nation, withdrawal would shift Brown’s “image from dour Scot to populist hero.”

Brown, new leader of the Labor Party, will replace Blair as British prime minister June 27. Brown is an academic, a loner, a brooder--but hardly a leftist anymore than Blair was. Polls suggest--astoundingly--that Brown is even more unpopular than Blair.

Blair took an unconscionably long time resigning. He had long lost all credibility, twisting intelligence, exaggerating claims about imminent peril from Iraq and seeing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction where they did not exist.

His effort to place himself among outstanding British prime minsters--Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, Churchill and Attlee--ultimately failed because he blindly joined the Bush invasion of Iraq, a violation of international law without the authorization of the U.N. Security Council.

Even before the invasion, Blair linked up with Bush to carry out a clandestine bombing campaign against Iraq, hoping to provoke a casus belli. As the Downing Street memo made clear, Bush insisted on making war with Iraq whatever his intelligence advisers said.

Cartoonist Dave Brown of The Independent showed Blair desperately trying to wash the blood of Iraq off his hands. All too true. The Brits yearn for a prime minister like their Harold Wilson who refused President Johnson’s request for troops in Vietnam, another misbegotten U.S. war.

Blair has gutted civil liberties, indulged in “wild fearmongering” and remained silent about Bush’s renditions, secret CIA prisons in Europe and embrace of torture.

Deceitful. Opportunist. Chameleon. Arrogant. Hubristic. Messianic. Delusional. Windy. Spinmeister. The words fit Blair.

Despite his silver tongue, the British began to see a glibness about him. He became Captain Showbiz, as a London morning TV host put it.

Brown, in sharp contrast and in tacit rebuke of Blair, said: “I have never believed presentation should be a substitute for policy. I do not believe politics is about celebrity.”

Leftist members of the Labor Party resented Blair’s move to the center. They deplored the change of Clause IV of the party constitution from “common ownership of the means of production” to “wealth and opportunity…in the hands of the many, not the few.”

It is hard to fathom how Blair could have anything but contempt for Bush. Blair: intelligent, quick-witted, articulate, cultured and liberal. Bush: dumb, slayer of the English language, inarticulate, uncultured and reactionary.

But Blair and Bush do share one trait: piety. Blair even prayed with Bush over their decision to go to war. Prayer aside, the Blair-Bush duo have a “poisonously unpopular relationship” in Britain.

Whiffs of scandal also touched Blair and his party, provoking a criminal investigation of peerages being sold for campaign donations.

But Blair was not all bad. He pushed devolution for Scotland and Wales and power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

He supported same-sex marriage and banned fox hunting. (Oscar Wilde quipped about fox hunting: “The English country gentlemen galloping after a fox--the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”)

The Blair government abolished hereditary peerages. It moved to make the House of Lords half-elected and half-appointed--but a mere halfway measure. The bloody House of Lords should either be abolished or all members elected.

Baroness Whitaker, rising in a recent Lords debate, said unassailably: “What I want to defend is the ancient and honorable tradition of people to choose their legislators.” But she knew the reality of the many crusty, old, cane-bearing Lords. She quoted Mark Twain to make her point: “I’m all for progress. It’s change I can’t stand.”

Brown, on the other hand, has proposed election of all 731 members of the House of Lords, declaring that a “different type of politics” is needed.

Blair was also right about urging African debt relief and seeking action on global warming. He secured a minimum wage, about twice that of America’s.

Whereas Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, Blair strengthened the British version. Whereas Bush and his baleful crew accuse anyone who mentions the ever-widening gap between the Haves and Have Nots as class warfare, the Blair government reversed inequality fostered by the rebarbative Thatcher.

Nevertheless, the Blair legacy will be forever tarred by joining an unnecessary, unjust and unholy war in Iraq.