Tony Takes Some Spankings

Poor Tony. (No, not really.)

Yesterday he had to put up with his military's explanation of the futility of excessive force when fighting insurgencies and terrorists going public. That's something Tony once understood when the problem was right next door but he forgot when attempting to bask in the reflected neocon limelight he thought he would get from Dubya. Let's face facts here - Tony wanted to be a "war leader" like Maggie Thatcher in the hope it would propel him to a two-decade-plus reign of popular adulation. Boy, did that backfire. He's now odds-on to end just as unpopular as the Iron Lady and, like her, go whimpering to his "exit, stage right".

Today, Tony has been given a couple of sharp lessons. One in parliamentary politics from his own backbenchers:

Ann Clwyd, chair of the parliamentary Labour party, said the "vast majority" of Labour MPs were "very critical" of Israeli policy and wanted a ceasefire to get humanitarian aid to the Lebanese civilians.

Clwyd then went on to damn Tony with faint praise for his support of Israel:

"I think the vast majority of [Labour backbenchers] felt that there should be a ceasefire and the vast majority of them are very critical of Israeli policy.

"That I know is a fact because that is a view that has been expressed very strongly in the House of Commons." She did not criticise the PM, saying: "He has not taken his mind off the ball I can tell you that. I know the amount of time he has spent phoning individuals up, attempting to get some movement on what is a very difficult issue.

"He wants conflict to end. His argument is there's no point in having a pretend ceasefire.

"We have seen that of course in the last 48 hours where Israel was supposed to cease its air bombardment, but certainly that didn't happen. It continued on and off.

"He wants a ceasefire that's going to be meaningful."

Ouch. In parliamentary terms, from the Chair of his own party, that's a strident clarion call for Tony to get of his complacent ass and do something that isn't just parrotting Bush-speak or be faced with a rebellion.

The second lesson from the conservative Brit who is deputy secreatary general at the UN:

The UN's deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch Brown, said the current crisis should be dealt with by France, the US, Egypt and Jordan - with the UK "following not leading" on Lebanon.
In an interview with the Financial Times Mr Malloch Brown said the crisis between Israel and Lebanon could not be resolved by "the team that led on Iraq".

"This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel," he added.

Mr Malloch Brown said the UK and US were poorly placed to broker a deal over Lebanon because of their role in bringing about war in Iraq. "One of my first bosses taught me it's important to know not just when to lead, but when to follow. For the UK, this is one to follow.

And the third stinging lesson:

In another interview, with the BBC, former foreign office minister Tony Lloyd bemoaned the UK's loss of influence with allies such as Egypt and Jordan, and expressed the hope Mr Blair's speech represented a "rowing away" from Washington's stance.

He said: "Any sensible observer would have said that these last weeks and days have meant that Britain's influence on the people worth influencing - our friends like Egypt, our friends like Jordan - is smaller now than it would have been at the start of this present conflict.

"If the Foreign Office were advising a much more cautious approach, a much more sensible approach, an approach that said that values do consist of not bombing the life out of the civilian population of the Lebanon, then the Foreign Office would, of course, be right in that."

"I hope it's a rowing away from Washington. I do hope, very fervently, that what we can see, for example, is a recognition that most of the issues in the Middle East that we've got to resolve - the settlement, for example, of the question of Iran's nuclear ambition - have been probably made more difficult by the last three weeks, not easier.

"An independent Palestine is more likely to see a democratically-elected Hamas element in any government and a democratic Lebanon would almost certainly see a stronger Hizbullah.

"That's the price we all pay for the last three weeks.

"I think people this morning waking up in the slums of the now broken cities and towns of the Lebanon might wonder about the values being stronger and better and more just, and would look at America as being part of the problem, frankly, not part of the solution," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"US-inspired policies see Iraq engulfed in problems, Afghanistan not finished and Israel tearing apart both the Lebanon and Gaza."

A triple ouch.

And as if that wasn't bad, Tony's attempt to straddle the rhetorical fence has also backfired badly. His speech urging a rethink of the war on terror while at the same time making clear he wouldn't actually change his own thinking has been poorly received by both sides of the neocon/realist divide.

The neocon dismay is best exemplified by Malkin's Hot Air website, where "Allahpundit" is most upset at Blair's suggestion that "a settlement would be the living, tangible, visible proof that the region and therefore the world can accommodate different faiths and cultures".

Whereas everyone else understands that Blair has always been a two-faced toerag who can spout about listening to others and rethinking his policy while actually meaning no such thing. Billmon gets it right:

Great. Lebanon is in flames, the Iraqis are playing Name That Death Squad, the neocons want to renact Hiroshima in Iran, the Turks are talking about settling scores with the Kurds, the Taliban are cultivating their Pashtun gardens, and Bush's butler is giving us existentialist psychobabble.

I think he may be even more deranged than his master. The other day Blair said something to the effect that he was absolutely confident -- way down in that "irreducible core" of his -- that his Middle East policies are correct. It was the sort of thing Shrub might say if he knew what the word "irreducible" means.

I remember thinking: Anyone who has even a smidgeon of knowledge about, or experience in, the Middle East, and who says he is absolutely, 100% certain he has the right answers, is either a liar, a fanatic, or Tom Friedman -- which is to say, a world-class educated fool.

Blair, unfortunately, is all three.

I think I will leave the last word to Dai Havard MP, quoted in the Guardian today (link above):

In the letter he wrote: "We need you to change the 'realpolitik' not by retaining the delusion that you 'have the ear of Bush', but by stating what is morally, politically and strategically right.

"I recognise that action is required on both sides of the conflict but the misdirected obsession with continuing to publicly mouth the same policy as the Bush administration in order to convince yourself and others that this gives you the ability to influence and ameliorate its actions is a deluded pretence, which we all need you to abandon."