John Kampfner :: author, broadcaster & commentator

John Kampfner on Blair's sixth war
Monday 27th September 2004

Blair's announcement of a new war - his sixth in seven years - did not go down well with his guest, the Iraqi leader. Nor did it with one diplomat who described it as "grotesque." By John Kampfner .

Iraq is coming home for Tony Blair. The public torment of Kenneth Bigley has added a distressing element to the politics of this war. The violence of the past weeks has shattered any hopes the Prime Minister had of "moving on". Even he acknowledges that he is now in a corner, but he seems more determined than ever to fight it out.

That was the message Blair sought to convey when he spoke of Iraq as the "crucible of global terrorism". His strategy now is to draw each and every threat beneath the umbrella of the "war on terror" - just as George W Bush did after 9/11 and Vladimir Putin has done since Beslan. His statement did not go down well with his guest Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister. Nor has it among diplomats. One described it as a "bland abstraction, content-free" and "grotesque."

It is not hard to fathom Blair's logic. Only the perverse and the unpatriotic could oppose him in his new "war" - his sixth in little over seven years. The arguments over the old war can be put to one side, as the country unites behind the battles to flush out insurgents from Baghdad to Fallujah and beyond. In these desperate times, every rhetorical flourish is attempted in public - particularly by those who have long harboured doubts about the war. Jack Straw sought to oblige his boss, in his interview with me on page 48, by suggesting that even if the US and UK had not taken military action, Iraq would still have become a haven for terrorists.

Blair was alarmed by the leak on 18 September of confidential documents that provided further evidence of the concerns in Downing Street and the Foreign Office about policy towards Iraq and the US. It shows the lengths to which some may be prepared to go - including some people close to Blair - to expose the many mistakes that led to war.

Blair is now more exposed internationally than ever before. Not a word of support comes from the Middle East, while in Europe he can rely only on Silvio Berlusconi and the leaders of a couple of ex-communist states. The leaders of "Old Europe" have been emboldened by developments. At a dinner on 13 September, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder welcomed Jose Luis RodrIguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, as their newest recruit, while Chirac reminded Blair and Bush that the invasion of Iraq had opened up a "Pandora's box, which none of us can shut."

Zapatero's election in March showed how, far from coming together to support their leader, Spanish voters drew a direct link between the Madrid train bombings and the pro-war policies of the then prime minister, Jose MarIa Aznar.

Whatever the arguments over the legality and justifications for war, Downing Street aides acknowledge that Blair is most vulnerable on the question of effectiveness, with voters increasingly taking the view that the war did not work. The question being asked is: did it make them or the wider world any safer? Aides fear that, having believed they were over the worst in the early summer, Blair might again be entering liability territory.

That is why the kidnappings and recent attacks on British troops have been so important. The news agenda is again dominated by Iraq. Each miserable event will increase the pressure on Blair to withdraw forces straight after Iraq holds elections in January.

Blair's advisers are deep in thought about what language to use in his conference speech. Allies who urged a more contrite approach to Iraq earlier this year now admit that "at this stage it would be wrong politically". Instead, Blair is likely to talk up the threats and the "vision" - the one he shares with Bush of "democratisation" of the Middle East. He will tailor it to the audience, seeking to play to traditional leftist notions of internationalism.

There is concern among Blair's people over the anti-war appeal of the Liberal Democrats. Charles Kennedy appears confident that his party's unequivocal opposition to the war has not backed it into a left-of-Labour corner, and that it can be reconciled with the new centrist pitch on domestic issues.

This conviction stems from polls showing that hostility towards Blair on Iraq transcends party politics. Conservative aides would love to be in the position Kennedy is in over Iraq. They privately acknowledge that because of Iain Duncan Smith's original commitment to fulsome support for Bush, the Conservatives' subsequent attacks on Blair's trustworthiness are having little impact.

The most telling setback for Blair in recent days came from the US. It was not what John Kerry said - "the president misled, miscalculated and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking" - but why he said it that mattered. Kerry's campaign was languishing and he needed to give it some momentum. If his advisers believe Iraq may deliver that electoral boost, it bodes ill for the man across the ocean, locked on a very different course.

This article first appeared in the New Statesman and may not be reproduced without permission.