Still don't get it...WHY would Tony Blair sell out to Shrub on Iraq?

[DemLikr]

Blair always seemed to have his shit together in working with Bill Clinton.

Then, he does a 180 turn and adopts * as his new best friend, even going into Iraq on obviously precarious information. The whole thing makes no sense to me, unless there was something as crude as blackmail involved, to bring Blair into line with Bushco.

I have seen a lot of discussion of this issue, but other than insults aimed at Blair, not much in the way of earnest theory. Help me out, if you can.

Thanks.

[jos]

1. More like bribery

Poodle boy will have a secure position for life with the Carlyle Group once either the Labour party, or the British people, boot his ass.

[IggleDoer]

37. And the BFEE then can support the takeover of...

the Conservative Party in Britain. Everyone wins!

[mhr]

2. Simple

Blair has a guaranteed job at Carlyle once he is through, just like John Majors his mentor.

[Stoic]

3. Why? Here's one answer

[rman]

4. why would it be a case of sell out?

the most sensible theory to me is that Blair never really was Labour.
he didn't 180, he was a sleeper.

[T_i_B]

15. That looks plausable to me

When you look at Blairite policies on PFI, immigration, strike breaking etc then it is apparent that he is no progressive but somebody who prefers to simply capitulate to the right.

Iraq is a case in point. Blair went along with it in order to appease and moderate the US, but that has failed and the US war machine is more dominant and aggressive than ever. Blair's policy on Iraq was kinda like Neville Chamberlain sending British troops in to invade the Sudetenland on behalf of the Nazi's. Only Chamberlain never went that far.

He certainly was not upholding the international order by siding with the US over everyone else. UK interests? UK firms have barely had a scrap of Iraqi contracts with GOP donors having proirity there same as if Britain had not tagged along. Let's not kid ourselves here, Blair does not have any real influence over the US junta, he is just a useful thing for them to wheel out from time to time for PR purposes.

As to Blair's misreading of public opinion, I think that was Blair assuming that the British public will always support war no matter how flimsy the reason. That assumption proved to be totally false and by the time Blair realized he was in too deep to get out. What we can see though is that the real dialogue in british politics is not between the politicians & the people but between whitehall & Washington. "new" labour is totally out of touch with the British people and does not give two shits what the people of Britain think.

Nonetheless the idea that Blair went into this war in order to moderate the US is the most plausable one, and what's more if that is the case then Blair's policy on Iraq is a total faliure.

[Merlin]

39. Interesting take. But I don't see Blair as an altruist.

"Nonetheless the idea that Blair went into this war in order to moderate the US is the most plausable one, and what's more if that is the case then Blair's policy on Iraq is a total faliure."

Doesn't that suggest Blair would willingly put some kind of misguided idealism ahead of politics? Doesn't sound like the bloke I know.

I think you had it right earlier when you said:

"I think that was Blair assuming that the British public will always support war no matter how flimsy the reason. That assumption proved to be totally false and by the time Blair realized he was in too deep to get out."

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, TIB.

[Damndifino]

28. Tony the liberal

--"Blair never really was Labour"

How true. Here is an edited repost of a screed I posted in another thread.

For anyone else on DU who is under the lingering misapprehension that Tony Blair is some sort of 'liberal progressive' who has been browbeaten/bullied/bribed/blackmailed into supporting the US military-industrial-corporate agenda. He isn't, and he hasn't.

Liberals and lefties here in Britain were suspicious of Blair's progressive credentials long before he was elected. When he claimed to 'admire' Margaret Thatcher, we laughed uneasily and told ourselves that he only admired her drive and determination, not her politics. We also told ourselves that his romantic overtures to conservative concerns and corporate interests were just a way of getting elected.

Well, we elected him. What gullible fools we were.

Some of us still are. Some of us are still asking 'What does Bush have on Blair? What tricks is that gormless ape using to make our PM dance like this?' People who ask that are simply not paying enough attention. Tony Blair is one of the most right-wing, anti-democratic prime ministers Britain has ever had.

He has privatised (or seeks to privatise) entities which even the Conservatives wouldn't or couldn't (e.g. air traffic control, the National Health Service). He allowed US corporations to buy up our privatised utilities (which John Major's government resisted). Reforming the House of Lords? He promised us this, but all he's done is abolish hereditary peers so that their places can be filled with political appointees. He has eroded cabinet government and uses the Royal Prerogative like it's going out of style (which it won't be so long as he's got control of it). Right now he's planning to allow American GM crops into Britain whether we like it or not.

Blair is a free-market neo-Thatcherite and don't let anyone tell you different.

And as for Clinton... The Clinton/Labour relationship pre-dates Blair. The Labour leadership (Kinnock/Smith) helped Clinton to win in 92. (They had lost that year, and taught him how not to repeat their mistakes.) Tony Blair inherited that relationship and made the best of it. But everyone - including Bush (see post re. Stelzer) - was mistaken in assuming that Blair would have to be bullied into cosying up to a Bush-led US. Remember Reagan-Thatcher ("God I love that woman - shame it's only her country I'm screwing")? George and Tony have some of the same chemistry.

So can we not have any more Liberal Tony nonsense? Please?

Here's Greg Palast:

"In his heart, Tony Blair hates Britain ... For four years, he gazed with an almost erotic envy at Bill Clinton, Chairman of the Board of America, Inc . . . finds himself caretaker of a museum of nineteenth-century glories made somnolent by the lullaby of easy welfare ... Blair has been to the Future, and from its source in Washington has taken the Promethean fire ... Tony Blair may be the most idealistic, visionary leader in the non-Moslem world. That should scare you." (The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, UK edition, pp 305-7)

Palast is right - Blair scares the doodies out of me.

For Blair, the Third Way leads only in one direction: into the White House and straight up the fundament of whichever pair of slacks is denting the seat-cushions in the Oval Office.

Unless Britain gets to vote in the next presidential election, we're not coming with him.

[Mechatanketra]

40. A leader in the spirit of King Richard the Lionhearted

... who once bemoaned "I would sell London if I could find a buyer."

[Az]

5. I wonder who manufactures the voting equipment in England?

Is Diebold in operation overseas as well?

[Nihil]

13. Anyone read "Rule Britannia" (by Daphne du Maurier) ?

> "I wonder who manufactures the voting equipment in England?"

As posted in the old version of DU (couldn't get to it when I tried to link) ...

>> Sequoia Voting Systems (the second largest US voting machine company) is
>> owned by De La Rue.
>>
>> De La Rue also own ~20% of the National Lottery and is one of the
>> world's largest "commercial security printers" involved in the production
>> of over 150 national currencies as well as a wide
>> range of security documents such as travellers cheques, ID cards, passports
>> and driver's licences .
>>
>> They provide cash handling machines (ATMs, counters) and banking software
>> to financial institutions as well as retailers.

De La Rue also provided the voting machines (touch screen, no audit trail) for my local elections (in May). Tony & co are going for several trendy new methods of voting (including touch screens, mobile phones, internet), ostensibly to improve on the appalling turn-out for most elections. The problem is that there is no way to recount a one-time electronic vote.

There is quite a lead time before our next general election so both the PR machine and the legislative support will be solidly in place by then. I predict a significant majority will "vote" to keep him and his cronies in power, despite all of the crap he is currently stacking up.

By the time of the following election, we will have national ID cards with biometric data, compulsory satellite tracking for all vehicles and total video surveillance ... not to mention a regular shuttle to the Gitmo Bay holiday camp and disposal area for anyone who dares to question the USUK regime ...

Nihil

[Damndifino]

29. We don't have equipment (yet).

Currently, we're still in the 19th Century here in Britain. "Voting equipment" consists of a paper ballot, a black crayon and a locked tin box.

[Classical_Liberal]

32. Why in the world should voting be hightech?

?

[Damndifino]

36. It shouldn't

I'm quite happy here in the 19th century, and hope Britain manages to remain here. We don't need no stinkin' touch-screens.

[Nihil]

38. Too late ... they're here ...

See above. At the local elections in May the following were definitely used:

Touch-screen in parts of Hampshire (hands on experience!).

Text messaging in Liverpool & Sheffield.

Digital TV also in Liverpool & Sheffield.

Touch-tone phone in Swindon.

Postal vote *only* in Gateshead, North Tyneside, Stevenage & Chorley.

(Mobile voting kiosks were to be used somewhere but didn't catch where.)

> The independent commission, set up by the Electoral Reform Society,
> had earlier cautioned against rushing into such change and recommended
> tight safeguards to prevent ballot fraud.
(Quote from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1802956.stm)

Yeah, so what did the government do? Rush into it with a live local
election before the public could do anything about it ...

I think you will find the next general election is going to have very
little in the way of a genuine paper trail.

Nihil

[meegbear]

6. I read somewhere ....

that immediately after 9/11, * et. al. wanted to use this as a pretext for invading Iraq. Supposedly, Blair "intervened" and said that if OBL was the mastermind, they should go after him where he was, Afghanistan. He said that if * took care of OBL, Britian (well, Blair anyway) would support an invasion of Iraq after.

Don't know if it's true, but it would make sense.

[RogueTrooper]

7. Here is a clue

From Greg Palast...

snip...

The thing is that the average Briton likes Americans, and Americans like the British. Blair is counting on that. On the other hand, you have to worry that Britons really don't like George Bush at all. But the average Briton thinks Americans are just terrific. They watch ER just like Americans, and they think that Bill Clinton is just a great guy. In fact, Clinton could probably be Prime Minister of Britain tomorrow morning if he ran.

...snip

BUZZFLASH: Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were very similar. They were centrists. They were able to get elected by being moderates to both sides of the aisle. And Blair, like Clinton, is known as an intelligent man, unlike George Bush. People are so surprised that Blair is not only supporting Bush's agenda, but is in lockstep, as if he's following the orders of the Bush administration. And I'm not kidding when I tell you that we've gotten a slew of e-mails from BuzzFlash readers that suggest Karl Rove must have embarrassing pictures of Tony Blair, and they're blackmailing him. And it sounds ridiculous, but how do you explain this intelligent man walking his country and his soldiers into hell following the orders of George W. Bush?

PALAST: You're getting warm. The answer is Irwin Stelzer. He is the guy who is a good friend of George Bush from the Hudson Institute, and the most powerful lobbyist in Britain representing British-American interests and, by the way, chief lobbyist for Rupert Murdoch. As soon as Bush seized the White House, Stelzer walked into Blair's office and said ‘we noticed that you were supporting Mr. Gore during the Presidential election' - even though clearly that didn't carry many states. Blair's effective endorsement of Al Gore did not go unnoticed. And there was a price to be paid. Blair was given a list of the things that would befall Britain from military subsidies and equipment, to a reduction of value in the dollar versus the pound, which would destroy England's exportability. And Blair was basically told get in line, stand up and salute or "here's your last cigarette, Tony."

...snip

emphasis is mine.

From Greg Palast's website

[Damndifino]

31. Yes, but

I don't believe Stelzer's warning was required. (See my other post on this page.)

[CWebster]

8. IIt's pitiful

His stammering & stuttering insistance. What a buffoon...the baboon and the buffoon.

He fancied himself Churchill when he is shades of Chamberlain.

[Cha]

9. Maybe it was "something as crude",,,,as OIL?

hmmm?,,,time will tell.

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. my theory

Bush's family hails from England and he and Blair have really powerful friends and allies. Plus, England needs America a lot more than they need Europe right now. So I think Blair just held his nose and went along for the ride.

Clinton, btw, probably would have done the same thing, had he been PM of England.

[noonwitch]

11. He's afraid of dying in a plane crash?

It's that or the money or both.

[Allah Akbar]

12. I think people here in the USA have it backwards

Britain controls the US, not vice versa.

We won the revolution, they still OWN us.

[Trek234]

20. HAHAHA

Good one.

If Britain controlled us Bush would be in jail, same sex unions would be legal nation wide, and there would be one republican in congress.

[AP]

14. Does anyone really think Bush wouldn't be happier if US...

were in Iraq alone?

Does everyone forget the Bush family's tight relationship with British Tory's?

Do you really think Bush is telling his Tory cronies that he likes Blair and wants to work with him and preserve the viability of a Labour government?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. Blair has a seat on the Carlyle Group waiting for him

[ElsewheresDaughter]

17. Blair has a seat on the Carlyle Group waiting for him

just like John Majors did

[WilliamPitt]

18. Protection from Euro monetary expansion, BP operations in AK

etc.

[AnnabelLee]

19. I think it's a combination of reasons

Pressure from British oil companies, incentives that have been offered to Blair by the BFEE, & Blair had deluded himself into thinking that the invasion & aftermath would go swimmingly, giving him a legacy as a great statesman. I wonder if Blair isn't secretly regretting hitching his wagon to the bushco juggernaut.

[Cocoa]

21. he's a friend of the U.S.

he works with Clinton when Clinton is in power, he works with Bush when Bush is in power.

I don't remember, did Blair take sided in Election 2000? I really doubt he would have endorsed Bush, I'd think he would endorse Gore, or much more likely stay neutral.

[T_i_B]

22. He was publicly neutral

As any leader with any kind of diplomatic sense would be.

Privatly he was supporting Gore though. That is no secret. Mind you, that is the way these things always go. Tories always support the GOP in private and Labour always supports the democrats in private.

Trouble is, Blair is a guy who just can't say no to the radical right! :grr:

[Trek234]

23. A couple reasons

Maybe threats. Maybe some other motive that will not be discovered for years. Too many fools think it is all about money. Sometimes it can be all about evil or conquest too. Not exactly unheard of among your dictators/war bringers in history. Maybe black mail.

I think Bush and Blair were in on 9/11. Shit - only HOURS after the buildings were hit Blair was in his new established role as best friend to the states standing side by side with Bush. 9/11/01 was the day I realized there would be major evil carried out by both of them. No one else saw anything of it. No coincidence Blair was on it so fast. I would even venture to say they planned to get together after those attacks.

If you look at the behavior of Blair and Bush on that day you can clearly see they likely had something put together pre 9/11. I'm surprised most of the LIHOP or MIHOP people miss it. (I don't know if they actually organized 9/11 or not, or LIHOP)

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

24. The sex scandal and blackmail

Remember how it just dropped out of the news after Pete Townshend? You figure it out. Young politician goes to a private wealthy party, gets a little drunk and does something he shouldn't - bam.

Video tape, possible criminal indictment - from then on you'll do what your'e told. This happens all the time, remember the APEC summit in Seattle from 1993? Craig Spence in the late 80s?

[Logansquare]

33. Child Porn Arrests 'too slow'

http://www.sundayherald.com/30813
Jan 19 2003

"The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur."

[Aristus]

25. Well, whatever the reason, I was sorry to see it happen.

I liked Tony Blair back when The Big Dog was President. I thought he was a British analog to Clinton; young, hip, cool, attractive, open to new ideas. What a shame to be such a sellout. And at what a cost to The U.S., the U.K., Iraq, and pretty much the rest of the world.

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Royal Dutch Shell!

I Suspect!

[lpbk2713]

27. Blair found out the hard way how repukes apply their craft.......

..... just the same way they screw the naive American voter. They sold him a bill of goods and they pulled the rug out from underneath him. Left him to face the British public with egg on his face. His party's support now dwindles daily.

[tom_paine]

30. He is on the Bushevik Payroll now

It's called the Carlyle Group, and they may well be the bundh of Ferengis who really run the world.

[CaptainMidnight]

34. bribery - READ THIS!

Don't know what most of you think of Sherman Skolnick, but he's been RIGHT about a lot of things:

http://www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar28.html

Captain Mike

[fshrink]

35. All responses so far ignored

history. UK was the ruler of Iraq once. In fact UK was, until not so long ago (late 40s) the largest imperial power. The ME was on the Brits' way back to UK as it was along their supply lines before. They also got kicked out of Palestine. There are still numerous bonds of various kinds and some records to settle. The only time the UK went to war recently was when one of their colonies was repossessed (Falkland).

[Lexingtonian]

41. dreams of Glory, I'd guess

The part about friendship with Clinton and then with Bush doesn't need that much analysis. In both cases there is a sort of class solidarity at bottom of the friendship relative to which policy is negotiable, I think. They're all riding the tigers of nations in internal transition and share a certain kind of helplessness and cynicism about it, that would be the common bond outside of Anglophilia.

Blair knows his historical role is not a sexy one. Slowly ending the British insularity and Empire nostalgia and solving such things as the Northern Ireland problem and the noncompetitive parts of the British economy- it all amounts to slowly bringing Britain into Europe.

Blair has had something of 'the Clinton problem' in wanting some other, more grand, role. In Blair's instance the measure is Thatcher's sort of hollow glory of the Falklands War.

So I think he was bored with the Europe game and jumped at the opportunity Bush offered him on Iraq. There's also some residual Empire impulse in there too, I suppose. And Bush sweetened the thing in several smaller ways.

I'm not sure what the lesson is that Blair has missed. Maybe it's that when making pacts, check for hooves and horns and such of the person offering it. But my guess is that both Blair and Bush are actually just figuring out what Clinton learned about the Fifth Estate during the Lewinsky matter- that it's like a bigger and dumber bulldog than it used to be. Slower and more ponderous and confused, and easy to mislead until it feels abused enough to have a grudge. But what they didn't understand is that it's now very much more relentless and efficient at chewing politicians up once it catches the first loose bit of sleeve or pantleg in its maw. Basically, its diet now consists of a larger RDA of Free Range Politician than before.

[bpilgrim]

42. saw it as inevitable and decided to back the obvious winning horse

and, shoot we are talking bout the LIFE BLOOD of both nations, not to mention the rest of the industrial world.

sees it as a win in the long run for the british people to have garunteed longterm access to all that oil for the next 100 years.

but it looks like the rest of britian may not go along with that philosphy and stuburnly cling to old tradions of law and order, silly old fools ;->

peace

[friendofbenn]

43. at lot of people have got the wrong end of the stick imho

he isnt being blackmailed. he genuinely supports the war, for him iraq is another kosovo. just look at the vichy dems who share the same liberal interventionist philosophy as him. they supported the war too.

he isnt a thatcherite either. he's just a modern day social democrat. ever since the end of the cold war the left has lost the courage of its convictions and taken on neo-liberal policies. there were even privitisations in sweden for gods sake