Alex Massie: Everybody Hates Tony Blair
[Alex Massie, a former Washington correspondent for the Scotsman, writes for the Spectator and blogs at www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie.]
During a visit to Kosovo this summer, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie met with a remarkable group of children. The young Kosovar boys had each been born soon after NATO's bombing campaign successfully drove Serbian forces from the province in 1999. More significantly, each child was named Tonibler in Blair's honor.
As one of the boys' mothers put it: "I hope to God that he grows up to be like Tony Blair or just a fraction like him."
The curiously touching scene was a reminder that reputation is a matter of perspective. In Kosovo, Blair's leadership of the campaign to oust Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has made him a hero; in Britain his determination to deal with Saddam Hussein has had the opposite effect. You're not likely to find many young British boys named after Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.
These days, Blair's name is mud on the eastern side of the Atlantic. The former prime minister has been entirely disowned. He stands accused of selling his soul and, worse, his judgment to a cowboy American president and, worse still, doing it on the cheap. But three years after his ignominious departure from public office, the most successful politician of his generation is back, touting his memoirs ahead of Wednesday's publishing date. In so doing, Blair has reopened some old wounds and reignited some restive quarrels. The process has also inspired a strange resurgence of what one might call "Blair Derangement Syndrome": an absolute and disproportionate hatred for the former prime minister, shared only by a certain group of Britons and found somewhat inexplicable by the rest of the planet.
In Iraq-war-era Washington, Blair was a beloved figure for interventionists both liberal and conservative, a proponent for their views who could be trusted -- unlike America's then-president. If the British prime minister -- so eloquent, so passionate, so persuasive, so British -- was convinced Saddam had to be confronted, then the case for pre-emptive action couldn't be so flimsy as it now, with chastened hindsight, seems. Even Republicans admitted that Blair was often more convincing than anyone in George W. Bush's administration. Not since the Beatles had a Briton been so popular in the United States.
Then came Blair's fall. The failure to discover the promised Iraqi weapons of mass destruction destroyed Blair's credibility in Britain. Meanwhile, the government was bitterly split between Blair's supporters and Gordon Brown's claque of resentful followers. Brown spent the best part of a decade harassing Blair, demanding that the prime minister resign and hand over power to his jealous chancellor of the Exchequer. The result was a broken government that, in its later years, achieved much less than it could or should have.
The Labour Party -- which Blair led to three historic, crushing election victories -- is now embarrassed by the most successful leader in its history...
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
During a visit to Kosovo this summer, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie met with a remarkable group of children. The young Kosovar boys had each been born soon after NATO's bombing campaign successfully drove Serbian forces from the province in 1999. More significantly, each child was named Tonibler in Blair's honor.
As one of the boys' mothers put it: "I hope to God that he grows up to be like Tony Blair or just a fraction like him."
The curiously touching scene was a reminder that reputation is a matter of perspective. In Kosovo, Blair's leadership of the campaign to oust Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has made him a hero; in Britain his determination to deal with Saddam Hussein has had the opposite effect. You're not likely to find many young British boys named after Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.
These days, Blair's name is mud on the eastern side of the Atlantic. The former prime minister has been entirely disowned. He stands accused of selling his soul and, worse, his judgment to a cowboy American president and, worse still, doing it on the cheap. But three years after his ignominious departure from public office, the most successful politician of his generation is back, touting his memoirs ahead of Wednesday's publishing date. In so doing, Blair has reopened some old wounds and reignited some restive quarrels. The process has also inspired a strange resurgence of what one might call "Blair Derangement Syndrome": an absolute and disproportionate hatred for the former prime minister, shared only by a certain group of Britons and found somewhat inexplicable by the rest of the planet.
In Iraq-war-era Washington, Blair was a beloved figure for interventionists both liberal and conservative, a proponent for their views who could be trusted -- unlike America's then-president. If the British prime minister -- so eloquent, so passionate, so persuasive, so British -- was convinced Saddam had to be confronted, then the case for pre-emptive action couldn't be so flimsy as it now, with chastened hindsight, seems. Even Republicans admitted that Blair was often more convincing than anyone in George W. Bush's administration. Not since the Beatles had a Briton been so popular in the United States.
Then came Blair's fall. The failure to discover the promised Iraqi weapons of mass destruction destroyed Blair's credibility in Britain. Meanwhile, the government was bitterly split between Blair's supporters and Gordon Brown's claque of resentful followers. Brown spent the best part of a decade harassing Blair, demanding that the prime minister resign and hand over power to his jealous chancellor of the Exchequer. The result was a broken government that, in its later years, achieved much less than it could or should have.
The Labour Party -- which Blair led to three historic, crushing election victories -- is now embarrassed by the most successful leader in its history...