Blair-the final word.

This article from Deborah Orr in today's Guardian is one of those articles that takes your breath away. It is a sane voice in an insane chorus of crap. I don't agree with all that she says, but i do wish that I was able to put my own views across in such a clear, concise way. This is real intelligence which comes from a clear, objective, knowledgeable study of the 'picture'. This is truly journalism at its best.
click the link for the article at source. Or just read my stolen copy below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/04/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair

The Chilcot inquiry can't change the past. No inquiry can. But let's imagine so for a moment. Let's imagine that a couple of years after the invasion of Iraq, when the folly of the Anglo-American military action had become all too plain, long after Dr David Kelly had died so shamefully, the electorate had been given a chance to make their views on Tony Blair's leadership heard, in a general election. Except there is no need to imagine that. It happened.

So something else has to be imagined instead. Let's imagine that a man called Reg Keys stood against Blair, in his own constituency of Sedgefield, during the 2005 general election. Let's imagine that this man had lost a son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, in a particularly notorious incident in Majar ­al-­Kabir, in which five other young men had also been killed by an angry Iraqi mob. Except that this happened too.

So something else has to be imagined instead. Let's imagine that Reg Keys had a powerful and logical appeal to make to the voters of Sedgefield, so powerful and logical that a coalition of other representatives of servicemen's families were happy to back him. Let's imagine that Keys's proposition was that by voting for him, people in Sedgefield would be able to grasp a unique opportunity to express their disgust against Blair over Britain's involvement in an illegal and unjust war, without betraying their loyalty to Labour. (Keys being, in the normal run of matters, a Labour man himself.) Let's imagine that to bolster this proposition, Keys ­attracted an agent who was also a ­Labour man, a leftwing former MP called Bob Clay capable of running a professional and mature campaign. Except that this happened too.

So something else has to be ­imagined. Let's imagine that Keys's ­invitation was widely taken up, and that Blair was compelled to ­acquiesce to election results that delivered a damning verdict from the liberal ­democracy that he had been so ­industriously trying to export (down the ­barrel of a gun) and accept the loss of his seat in parliament. This, of course, really is in the realm of the ­imagi­nation, because Keys got 4,252 votes, coming fourth. Blair, through the supposedly brief invasion had entrenched as a bloody occupation, got 24,429 votes, down just 6% on the previous election, and with a majority of 18,429. That's precisely how angry the electorate was with Blair, about the war. Not very.

The righteous indignation of those who hang on every word uttered at the Chilcot inquiry – looking in vain for the revelation powerful enough to puncture Blair's awesome sense of personal rectitude – is based on an imagined strength of wider feeling. People didn't like Blair's conduct in the lead-up to the war. They didn't like the war ­either. But there is nothing for Chilcot to­ ­uncover that will make 24,429 people in Sedgefield change their minds about who and what they endorsed in 2005, or suddenly ignite a more widespread desire for the enactment of that thrilling radical fantasy – Blair's arrest and trial for war crimes. This isn't just about deliberately narrow remits, or suspiciously lamb-like ­panellists at the inquiry itself. There just isn't much of an appetite for ­endless, futile recrimination.

Chilcot is a waste of time, money and energy. Thus far, it has merely confirmed an interpretation of events that was perfectly apparent even as those events were unfolding. Blair was ­obviously, from the start, a ­messianic hawk, thrumming with the slick self-belief that helped to make him such a powerful vote-winner. The latter ­ensured that Blair was bolstered by a cabinet keen to facilitate the things that its leader wanted (with the deeply honourable exception of the late Robin Cook).

Even those who were uncertain, most notably Clare Short, were flattered into submission. Short now says she was lied to, although she admits she has no evidence of this. Largely, I'm afraid, Short heard the things she wanted to hear, just like her ­colleagues. Her resignation, eight weeks after the invasion, was decent enough. But she had already allowed herself to be neutered, not by lies but by promises of the wonderful nation-building opportunities ahead.

Chilcot reveals only a series of "what ifs", a list of moments whereby, had the players not been so keen to be persuaded, things could have been different. But the players were keen to be persuaded. Nothing can change that. Nothing in this past can be different.

The saddest thing is that I'm not even sure that very much can be learned from the nightmarish debacle that was the Iraq war. ­Paradoxically, for one thing, its very existence ­actually helps to keep alive the idea that ­countries can be liberated by ­"humanitarian" invasion. How many times has it been suggested that without the "distraction" of Iraq, outcomes in Afghanistan may have been better? Another "what if". Another piece of armchair speculation that can never be anything more.

And the rest? Old wisdom, stuff that is already known, that has ­already long been known. That too much power should not be invested in single personalities. That careful people do not research situations with a view to finding the answer that they want. That ­expert opinion from ­experienced ­people should not be lightly ­discounted. That forces of invasion, even with what they think are the best of intentions, are seldom greeted with equanimity for long. That when nobody else in the entire international community agrees with you and your pal, then there might be something wrong. And so on.

Blair did what Blair did. He wanted to keep his sentimental promise to Bush and "stand shoulder-to-shoulder" with him. He believed what he wanted to – on Saddam's supposed links with al-Qaida, on Saddam's supposed ownership of weapons of mass destruction, on the ease with which a troubled country could be fixed. He continues to believe what he wants to, and many claim ­astonishment that he can ­manage this. Yet all there ­really is to learn is that Blair's ability to believe what he wants to is utterly unquenchable, ­totally unassailable. All those little "what ifs" that could have ­altered the course of this chunk of history rely on this powerful flaw in Blair's personality having a chink that isn't there.

It all came down to Blair, his own essential personality that had served him up 'til then so well, and his own strange instincts about what a leader ought to be. I think we may all have learned by now that Blair should never be prime minister again. But in this ­unpredictable world, I wouldn't even bet the farm on that, not quite, because it was post-Iraq Blair who was chosen last time we got to choose.