No Apology

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As the Chilcot inquiry continues in the UK with ongoing investigations regarding the decision-making process that led to the Iraq war and the UK’s involvement in it, former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s responses regarding his particular role have been found wanting by many of the war’s opponents. His recently released memoir, A Journey, is no different, leaving those who expected him to endorse a different narrative about the war’s merits highly disappointed.

The three-term prime minister’s autobiography has been met with fierce controversy. From accusations of cinematographic plagiarism (for undeniable similarities between his prose and Peter Morgan’s script in The Queen) to detailed documentation of his drinking habits—the public has only found more reasons to become irritated by Blair and his Iraqi war apologetics.

Whether Blair’s unpopularity should come as a surprise considering Britain’s tradition of becoming all but enervated with their prime ministers should be taken into account when evaluating the exceptionalism behind the egg throwing and near rioting that accompanied many of the book’s promotional events in London. After all, polls documenting Blair’s popularity, or lack thereof, as he left office showed that close to 70 percent of those questioned were unhappy with how he handled his job as prime minister, according to a Sunday Times survey held in March 2007. But that was three years ago, and the question as to why Blair’s ability to incite protests so intimidating that he canceled most of his book signings in the UK lingers uncomfortably.

Comparably, his partner in crime, George W. Bush, was no more popular when he left office for very similar reasons concerning the public’s disappointment with the war in Iraq (and the economy). Yet President Bush has managed to escape this negative attention since leaving office—although his memoir, Decision Points, which is set for release this November, may change that.  Is there then something exceptionally disappointing about Blair and his accounts of the past, or is it Britain’s exceptional disappointment with its leaders in general that is to blame for what could only be described as a choleric reaction to the quite common practice of a leader attempting to promote his version of history?

Take the issue of Blair’s donations. Tony Blair has decided that all proceeds for his book will be donated to the Royal British Legion, a charity providing help and welfare for the country’s veterans. This incredible donation, which includes the 4.6 million GBP advance he received prior to publication, however, has been met with severe skepticism. Some have even called it blood money, a subtle or subconscious affirmation of Blair’s belief that he cost the lives of many British veterans. Others have called it a publicity stunt, pushing more people to buy the book. Few, however, have interpreted it as a charitable donation by a wealthy man to a worthy cause.

Atonement, generosity or publicity stunt—these categorizations have not had a negative impact on the sales of his book. On the contrary, in Britain, the book sold over 90,000 copies following the first week of its release. Its popularity in the US is similar as publishers have already ordered an additional 25,000 copies for printing, and where it has become a New York Times best seller.

Yet, as well as the book has sold, Blair continues to be a stain in the eyes of many, particularly because of his stance on the war in Iraq—a fact he does not deny by the numerous justifications he provides for his decisions. Echoing his comments during the Iraq War Inquiry, he has repeated both in his book and during promotional interviews in the United States that Saddam Hussein was “a monster.” Insisting that he regretted the loss of life in Iraq but that he never wavered about his decision to participate in the war, because even if Iraq did not have WMD, it remained a threat to the world. Comparing Iraq to Libya, Blair assures us that had Iraq complied to inspections as Libya had, the war could have been avoided.

Taken into context, however, Blair’s understanding of the UK’s responsibility to intervene is clarified by his memoir’s references to the war in Kosovo as well as the UK’s intervention in Somalia. Arguing that he was deeply troubled by the international community’s failure to take action during the Rwandan genocide, Blair came to the conclusion that “intervention to bring down a despotic dictatorial regime could be justified on grounds of the nature of that regime, not merely its immediate threat to our interests.” Although this doctrine was said to determine his decision to secure troops for Kosovo, it is certainly possible that this view determined Blair’s decision to invest troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Problematically for Blair’s argument that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to national interests, this implies that motivations for democratization were behind the UK’s involvement in the war.

Unlike Marx, the claim that history will redeem his work may never come to pass for Blair (or Bush for that matter), because history lacks the luxury of counterfactuals. Whether Saddam Hussein had the intention of building weapons of mass destruction is a moot point now, as are claims to the numerous ways apart from its possession of weapons that Iraq threatened international security. Instead, all the public is left with is the lingering question of Blair’s motives. This is perhaps why they are disappointed to find that he is still making the case that Saddam Hussein was an eminent threat to world security.

Blair’s memoir was a strategic decision on his part to present his perspective of the historical moments he participated in. Unfortunately for those disappointed by his decisions concerning the war in Iraq, the narrative he committed to at the offset was not questioned in this account. Rather, the book is a very deliberate tool for “setting the record straight” so to speak, yet another justification for the unpopular decision to go to war.

Paula Mejia – Editor at The Majalla.