Blair and his opinions are toxic; he should be ignored

Since he stepped down as Britain’s Prime Minister in 2007, Tony Blair has made a number of public interventions in support of military action in the Middle East. The latest was at an event hosted by Prospect magazine, where the former Middle East “Peace Envoy” called for ground troops to fight against Daesh: “If you want to defeat these people, you’re going to have to go and wage a proper ground war against them.”

In what seems like damage control before the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry, the “mastermind of Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq” also admitted that “Britain and America profoundly underestimated the chaos that would be unleashed by the toppling of Saddam Hussein.” While conceding that the complexity of post-Saddam Iraq defeated him, instead of being contrite, Blair confidently told his audience at Westminster Central Hall that the lessons from the Iraq War were “not complicated” and that Daesh must be taken on “on the ground.” Whatever conclusions were drawn from Iraq, “not complicated” is surely not one of them.

The statements made by Tony Blair are telling: one would assume that having overseen the worst foreign policy disaster in British history — a decision which the former prime minister may have felt obliged to make — he would now display greater caution about supporting military intervention anywhere, least of all in the Middle East North Africa region, especially as it’s no longer a decision he will be called upon to make. Many are right to be suspicious about his frequent interventions in Middle East affairs given that the Blair brand is now toxic in the public’s eyes; most rational people do not make further public statements after being so profoundly and publically wrong.

Tony Blair, however, is neither ordinary nor rational. He is a man of deep convictions, a political warrior even, motivated by unwavering religious certainties. His decision to go to war in Iraq was part of what he believed to be a “Christian battle”, according to one of his closest political allies. “It’s very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior,” said his former political agent. “It was part of Tony living out his faith.”

I’m no Christian but feel that I know enough about Christianity to say that Blair’s world-view is about as un-Christian as Muslim extremists are un-Islamic. I suggested as much to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the heads of the Churches in Syria and Lebanon from 1997-2002, Stephen Griffith. He told me that the teachings of Jesus are against violence. “Jesus talks to his followers in terms of loving their enemies,” he explained, “doing good to those who hate them and praying for them.” He also provided an account of the advent of the “Just War Theory”: “Christianity after the time when kings and emperors became Christians developed a ‘Just War Theory’ which seeks to find ways of putting Jesus’s extremist values into a context of the real world.” This, though, was by no means universally accepted: “At the Reformation many rejected this so that groups like the Quakers and Mennonites refused to participate in war or acts of violence.”

On the specific question of Tony Blair’s call for ground troops, Mr Griffith, who calls Syria his second home, added, “To suggest that using armed forces to defeat Jihadism when their political use is one of the main causes of the existence of ISIS is surely foolishness.” He concluded his Christian response by pointing out: “You can attack and disperse jihadis, but they will simply move on, regroup and continue their acts. People need to be helped to understand that this way of behaving is wrong, so no one joins, and those who are fighting need to be restrained and helped to understand that this is not the way of a pious Muslim.”

Given the manner in which Tony Blair dismissed international law so readily, upholding the principles of “Just War Theory” was most likely the last thing on his mind. Despite his pretensions, he has always been more of an idealist and free thinker. To say that he was rational in the lead up to the war would be to assume that he had considerations beyond his deep convictions to check his decision-making.

Some would argue that there is little to distinguish between Blair’s idealism and that of militant jihadists, who also believe that they are engaged in a civilisational battle to remake the world through violence, unchecked by any moral and legal restraints. These parallels have not gone unnoticed. “Like Marxists and neo-liberals, radical Islamists see history as a prelude to a new world,” wrote John Gray in Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern. “All are convinced they can remake the human condition.”

The professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics debunked many of the widely-held assumptions about militant jihadists and argued convincingly that “radical Islam is shaped as much by western ideology as Islamic traditions.” Such projects, he added, “are best understood as an attempt to realise a modern European ideal.” In other words, to use a central state authority to reorder human societies according to knowable principles (no matter how insane they might be). Other scholars of Islam have also pointed out the inherent contradiction between Islam and the appropriation of Islam to create an “Islamic” version of a modern nation state. The “Islamic State”, as Professor Wael Hallaq points out, is an “Impossible State”.

It would not be ignorant to suggest that the better version of a modern “Islamic state” might mirror the Zionist state and adopt discrimination and separation as official policies. That’s not a reflection on Islam, just as the Zionist state of Israel is not a reflection on Judaism. It’s more a statement about the nature of the modern nation state, wherein the key characteristic is the absolute centralisation of power and the regulation of access and privilege on the basis of narrowly-defined nationality. If grafted onto ancient religious traditions, this inevitably undermines the moral and ethical foundations of their universalist principles.

Predictably, John Gray’s views did not grab the attention they deserved. Along with his neoconservative mentors, Blair was undeterred in the effort to eradicate the plague of “militant Islam” as equally as they and he were in enforcing democracy on the Middle East through military means and regime change. That policy was sold to the public using a false narrative about the origins of modern day terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. It is worth remembering that people who are now branded as militant jihadists once worked hand in glove with the US when it suited Washington for them to do so.

While making the reluctant confession that Iraq was indeed a mistake, Tony Blair doesn’t appear to have corrected the underlying false assumptions that led to the war in the first place. If anything, his persistent call to arms shows that he has doubled down on his beliefs that “militant Islam” is rooted in a distorted version of Islam but is Islam nonetheless; that its rise had nothing to do with western foreign policy, military power and American hegemony as a force for good in the world which should be used to destroy the likes of Daesh.

Despite the fact that the war on terror has gone unimaginably wrong, the false certainties of Blair and the neocons, which fuelled the war, have not shifted from their central position in driving western foreign policy. The invasion of Iraq spawned the rise of Daesh; the war on terror has exposed US power as anything but a force for good; and western support for brutal regimes has fuelled extremist politics. If these charges were laid at the doors of countries other than Britain and America, or a political ideology other than neo-liberalism, we would be safe in assuming that both the country and the ideology would be completely discredited and claims of their moral superiority would be questioned for generations to come.

In fact, Tony Blair’s idealism seems to have blinded him to the radicalism of neoconservative policies. “The invasion and occupation of Iraq,” wrote journalist Patrick Cockburn, “meant a revolutionary change because it ended continuous Sunni rule lasting hundreds of years.” Moreover, the neocons’ bungling foreign policy gave Al-Qaeda exactly what it wanted: a “cosmic war” between good and evil. As others have noted, Blair fell right into the hands of militant Muslims. Such a policy created a vast reservoir of recruits for the extremists and reinforced their narrative that Islam is at war with the west; ultimately, it provoked the US and Britain into an over-the-top reaction.

The surest way to victory in a cosmic war is to not engage in it. There are no victories in such a war, as the past decade has demonstrated very clearly. Every military intervention by the west perpetuates the cycle of violence and conflict. The only possible victory is to change the narrative and the worst possible outcome is to launch a “dirty war”, turning the whole world into a battlefield in the process. This would entail the deployment of covert Special Forces such as America’s unaccountable Joint Special Operations Command (JSoc), which has already carried out military strikes in seventy different countries. Under the radar of most mainstream media, these operations have fuelled extreme anger and resentment as a result of indiscriminate targeting of civilians during night raids and drone strikes by US troops.

Tony Blair may feel that his “enlightened” world view and access to power gives him special privileges and insight into dealing with the likes of Daesh, but the reality is that he has been one of the greatest contributors to the rise of such groups. Even if we concede that troops are needed on the ground, every intervention he makes poisons the debate. He and his opinions are toxic; for that reason alone, he should be ignored.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.