Goldsmith speaks at last -- but is anyone listening?

EDDIE

To my mind the UN has no credibility whatsoever. It has so many failed states and dictatorships with voting rights.

MGR

The Security Council, in the few weeks before the start of the war when it seemed likely that Bush and Blair had already decided to go ahead but were trying to get UN approval,made it quite clear that there would be no permissive resolution. Whatever may have been Lord Goldsmith's interpretation of Resolution 1441,we went to war in defiance of the UN. It matters not that, in the end, we refrained from asking a question to which we knew the answer would be : No.
History will show Blair's 'belief' in Iraqi WMD in the same light that it records Hitler's 'outrage' at the international incidents he arranged on the Polish border.

The Attorney may have convinced you that the war was not illegal. It was most certainly not moral the specious legality will undermine any future protest we may wish to make about other nations' dubious adventures. We have given up the moral high ground and gained nothing in return.

Frank P

Would the world have been a better place now if the 9/11 bombers had missed the WTC and hit the UN Building instead? Discuss.

Kojak

MGR,

Please don't kid yourself, there is no such thing as moral highground.

Paul Danon

I don't see how language can be both ambiguous and precisely deployed.

wonderer

I'm not qualified to say whether or not the war was illegal for want of a second Security Council resolution, but if it was, presumably it would have remained so even if WMD had been found.

mitcheltj

Surely the key point is political. In the first Gulf war there was widespread support for military action - as embodied in UN resolutions, and this gave the action a moral force. In the second war, there was no widespread support. Lawyers, both the real type and barrack-room, can argue till the cows come home about the legality but this cant ever be tested; anyway the UN relies for its moral force on commanding widespread support for its actions, not the law, particularly if the latter is disputed. I This lack of widespread support for the second war, coupled with the UK and US criminal incompetence post-invasion, has visited terrible consequences upon the UK for years and years to come, in terms of how we are regarded internationally, heightened risk of terrorism and so on - the list is a long one. The consequences for Iraq are of course far worse - hundreds of thousands of people have died, wealth, prosperity and security have been devastated. True, Saddam is no longer there and that is a good thing, but removing him cannot be justified regardless of ANY cost. Blair and Bush did nothing to weigh the potential costs against the potential benefits - nothing. For that they should be rightly condemned - both now and by history.

arnoldo

mitcheltj,
When you perform a cost/benefit analysis on a given action such as the Iraqi invasion, you cannot assume that you are comparing that given action to a vacuum.

Had we not supplanted Saddam, a number of outcomes were possible, none of which would have left Iraq looking like it did in March 2003.

For instance, if Saddam had retained power, he would have been able to demonstrate the elimination of WMD, sanctions would have been lifted and Iraq would now be a WMD power backed by oil revenues and challenging Iraq to be the first to own deployable nukes.

Or, as the Lib Dems claim, he might have been supplanted by a popular uprising. The number of deaths that would have been incurred without the moderating effect of coalition troops would be hard to estimate, but outright civil war and total carnage would have been the most likely result.

Alex Bensky

Frank P.: I used to think it was just right-wing nuts who said, "Get the UN out of the US and the US out of the UN." Sometimes I wonder.

Certainly the UN was founded after the Second World War as the repository of hopes and ideals but the problem over here, and I'd guess over there, is that a lot of people treat as if it was what was hoped rather than what it is.

R Mitchum

I gather from Melanie's recent appearance on "Question Time" that she is still in favour of the invasion of Iraq. Given the consequences were an expansion of Iranian influence in the region and an emboldened regime who no longer feared Saddam so was free to forge ahead with its nuclear program thereby threatening the very existence of Israel, and the logic is curious from a normally very astute commentator.

Tom Durkin

ridiculous slur against France at the end.
As for legality, I echo the other comments that whilst horse-trading may make it legal or illegal, I don't care.
My opposition to the war was a moral one. Blair et al knew what would happen when they leaked info and prepared a sensationalist dossier - for which they do not necessarily deserve to be tagged war criminals but they certainly do not warrant being held up as responsible statesmen or moral champions 'of the free world'.
I sincerely hope that Chilcot condemns the efforts of politicians and media types to distort the threat level and motivations for war.

blue_&_white_avenger

"Kojak January 28th, 2010 9:00am
MGR,

Please don't kid yourself, there is no such thing as moral highground." And MGR, even if there were, Britain would be the last one to be able to claim it

david elder

mitcheltj, how much 'wealth, prosperity and security' did the Kurds and Marsh Arabs enjoy prior to the removal of Saddam? Poison gas for the former, draining of the marshes for the latter? Why are you outraged at the deaths of hundreds of thousands (about 100,000 by the estimate I regard as most credible) following the invasion of Iraq, yet not by Saddam's body count of 1-2 million? How did you square this comparison with your impassioned certitude that our leaders did 'nothing' to weigh up costs vs. benefits? Perhaps MGR can tell us more about the 'moral high ground' which we would have occupied if we allowed this slaughter to continue. The cost of removing Saddam would on these measures seem a good deal less than the benefits. Recall too that at the time it was generally accepted that he had WMDs; critics of the war said that Saddam would cause chaos with them. I don't know whether he sent his WMDs to Syria (as the Israelis have long held) or got rid of them when he saw troops massing on his borders. Either way, the weapons inspectors concluded that he was doing his best to keep his WMD production facilities, planning to reactivate them as soon as possible using the ill-gotten gains of the oil-for-food scandal - in which that all-important UN, with its higher moral purposes, had typically entangled itself. In a word, on the WMD front Saddam was still basically at it, and would very likely have had to have been dealt with sooner or later. That needs to go in the cost-benefit analysis somewhere too. Note also how MGR dutifully obeys Godwin's law - if your case is shaky, make a gratuitous and irrelevant reference to the Nazis. And hope no-one notices that the Nazis became a global problem because of appeasement, not hawkishness.

Mailman

The real problem here was that the UN sat on its arse for 10 years and allowed Iraq to do what ever it wanted to do.

Couple that with a leader who felt invincible and a whole bunch of useful fools who helped him believe that the US wouldnt invade and you were only ever going to get one result, the invasion of Iraq.

Perhaps the real inquiry should be around why the UN created this situation in the first place because had they done their job then the invasion wouldnt have been required.

Mailman

mitcheltj

Arnoldo - I agree with you. My point was that no such analysis was done. Leaving Saddam on his ownsome was an option as you say, but it was not the only one. There were a lot of ways short of war to have kept the heat on Saddam, but none were considered. You cannot guarantee or anticipate the outcome of any militiary action - all involve enormous risk and uncertainty, just look at history, and this only underlines the importance of proceeding with care. For example, can you think of any major war in history which has been launched solely on the back of "intelligence" if that indeed was the justification?

Compare with the approach being taken on Iran, a much bigger danger in my view than Iraq ever was.

mitcheltj

David Elder - Please dont misunderstand me. I am not trying to defend Saddam. He was an evil man, and good riddance to him. My point was that alternatives to war were not considered. If they were, why hasn't any evidence of this emerged in the many Enquiries and leaks in both the US and UK since the war took place? All the Chilcot witnesses so far have criticsed the lack of planning, and none have mentioned looking at alternatives. I personally ound it reassuring that Obama took so long to determine his Afghan strategy (even though I fear the outcome). Would that Bush and Blair have done likewise.

Overall, surely there can be little doubt that Iraq has regressed materially and economically since the war; day to day things like medical care, power, infant mortality and security - bombs didn't go off every week when Saddam was in power. It will take years to get back to where they were (incidentally where does your figure of 1-2 million deaths under Saddam come from - it's news to me, that's more than 10% of the population!). I do take your point about the Kurds and the marsh Arabs. The alternatives to war were not palatable or by any means wholly satisfactory and without risk. But were they worse than the consequences of war? It is a cliche to say that wars do not solve problems, but it is nonetheless true ; they create enormous risk and uncertainy. Bill Clinton once made the true observation that unless you are going to wipe out your military opponents to the last man, you eventually have to deal with them. You always need political solutions. One only have to look at the outcome of most of the wars in the 20th century, large and small, to realise this. My point is and remains that our political leaders were irresponsible and incompetent in not looking very hard at the alternatives to war.

One last point re appeasement. It is received wisdom that Hitler could have been stopped in 1936 when he marched into the Rhineland, but that's hindsight - it might have triggered the war. The Korean War was supposed to have drawn a line on the sand for the Chinese and Russians, but I am not so sure; ditto, Vietnam was justified by the so-called domino theory but this did not turn out to be the case when the Yanks departed - and look at the cost. History surely teaches that once you start a war, you cannot control what the outcome is going to be. Hence the need to look very, very hard at alternatives.

YouCannotBeSerious!

Where in Resolution 1441 is explicit authority given for the overthrow of the Iraqi regime? This is quite different from providing legal authority for war.

AF Austin, Texas

Fantastic thinking, as always. The whole thing is nuts and when the next big attack happens, they will feel stupid.

Philo

david elder
January 28th, 2010 1:07pm
Or employ Godwin's Law Mark II: When you feel your case is shaky, refer to Godwin's Law. What is gratuitous about the reference to a war of aggression wrapped up as self-defence and waged by a state that denied that international law has any traction?

elixelx

@Paul Danon.
"I don't see how language can be both ambiguous and precisely deployed."
Paul, FYI: Resolution 242 (I believe!) requires Israel to pull back from "occupied territories" it captured in 1967.
Apparently the United Nabobs wanted the word "THE" put in front of "occupied territories" but lost out in the face of a possible veto!
Decide for yourself if the presence or absence of the "THE" brought clarity or ambiguity to 242, and whether it would have been precisely or imprecisely deployed.
For me there is no doubt: The United Natterers are the absolute masters of exact obfuscation, and obfuscating exactitude!

Liz

EDDIE, precisely!
23 years ago an estimated 25,000 people were massacred in Matabeleland by ZANU PF because they were 'enemies' of Mugabe's Shona tribe. Still no whiff of Mugabe standing before a UN war crimes tribunal.

Mailman

mitcheltj,

You are rewriting history as Hitler stated he would have been forced to step back had the "West" had the balls to stop him earlier!

Secondly, tell us how many years more you would have given Saddam to comply with the various UN mandates?

Was 10 years just not long enough?

The sad fact is that somewhere along the way the Wests collective spine has been replaced by soft white mushy stuff!

Denis Cooper

I thought at the time, and still think, that the ideal opportunity to overthrow Saddam came and went at the end of the first Gulf war. It would have taken a few days for coalition forces to push on to Baghdad and do it, almost as a matter of hot pursuit. The UN would have been upset that its mandate had been exceeded, and some countries which had joined the coalition would also have been upset; but it would have been done, most of the world would have seen it as just retribution for the invasion of Kuwait, and a great deal of human suffering could have been avoided.

Augustus

The UN has even encouraged and nurtured repressive regimes, and they all have the same things in common: Each has a voice and a vote in the UN, and none would be a threat if they didn't. That's why terrorist states like Libya and Syria are allowed to serve on the UN's Human Rights Commission while Israel is condemned in resolution after resolution. Honest and industrious nations like Taiwan are excluded membership while murderous thugs like Mugabe can have a prominent voice at conferences.
If the UN had the ultimate power it craves there would be no borders, only one standing army, and one body to speak for everyone. Nations might be left intact, but they would be regarded as basic satellites of a global government, with common laws, common currency, and common policies. It even produced a report called 'Our Global Neighborhood' in which the only solution envisaged was
'worldwide political transformation that supported sustainable development'. And the UN is increasingly giving itself the power to impose this global governance scheme. But in point of fact there is no rule of law anywhere that says America, or anyone else, has to be a member of the UN. The real question of sovereignty remains,
as it always has done: Who's in charge?

Neil Craig

I was more impressed with the times he corrected himself:

"I was of the view that a reasonable case could be made -- I'm sorry, there was a reasonable case"

"but that was the precedent that had been used and I went along with it. Not, "I went along with it", I followed the same practice"

and the fact that his entire case derived from experience in Kosovo where Blair got away with a "new legal theory" that it was OK to just put up a case & make it look reasonable. In Kosovo we know not only was the case that Milosevic was engaged in genocide wholly untrue but unlike Iraq we have the smoking gun because the Foreign Secretary told Parliament 2 months before starting bombing that it was our KLA catspaws not the Yugoslavs whe were engaged inn genocide. If he got away with it once the "precedent" was that he would do it again.

Isaac Bickerstaff

The blogs on this subject over the last few days appear to be an attempt to have it both ways.

If we find any subordinate sub-clause that a single legal expert is willing to assert, contrary to all other experts, is evidence that the war was legal,then we say it is legal...

And just in case our expert is not entirely convincing, why, then, it doesn't matter anyway because international law is a rickety fiction that we don't need to bother about.

The upshot, unsurprisingly, is that we can do what we want. Others can't. But we can, because we represent Western values of freedom and democracy.

So, if a thug (our thug) disobeys orders, we can kill as many of his citizens as it takes to bring him back to a sense of his duty. (We know he has a contempt for his citizens, so we know there will be many casualties. We are used to that. It is "a price worth paying", to quote an American Secretary of State.)

I imagine it all looks very different from the perspective of the proposed casualties.

We only pretend this is moral so long as we're sure we don't risk becoming casualties ourselves. So long as we are the aggressors and imperialists, let aggression and imperialism flourish. It's the way the world works.

mitcheltj

Mailman - fighting talk, but it's no substitute for hard thought or analysis.

To take your points in order:

you surely dont believe that the second world war would have been avoided if the French had opposed Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland, never mind what Hitler is reported to have said. Hindsight tells us that the only way to stop Hitler was war, but what would have happened in 1936 had the French stepped in is an unknown. My point is that war created uncertainties that cant be predicted let alone controlled.

As for leaving Saddam in power etc, the simple answer to you question of a time limit is that it would have been foolish to set one. There were lots of ways of applying pressure on him which simply were not considered.

lastly, talking of spine etc is just that - talk. Backing up your fighting talk would not be paid for in your's or my blood - or the politicians who talk in this way, but it would cost a lot of people's lives to be sure. Give me any day a hard-headed, cold-blooded pragmatist, who looks carefully after our blood and treasure, over fine talk of backbone etc - to go your way lies ruin.

Ros

The UN can't organise doling out relief in Haiti or stopping Hezbollah from annexing southern Lebanon. It allowed the genocide of Rwanda and the following genocide in Sudan. What is it for?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

MGR wrote: "The Attorney may have convinced you that the war was not illegal. It was most certainly not moral the specious legality will undermine any future protest we may wish to make about other nations' dubious adventures. We have given up the moral high ground and gained nothing in return."

If Saddam had WMD, you feel it would have been moral to go to war against him. If he did not have WMD but nevertheless had been responsible for a million deaths or so, it is immoral for us to go to war with him.

One wonders what the "moral high ground" we supposedly have given up comprised...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Paul Danon wrote:

"I don't see how language can be both ambiguous and precisely deployed."

Really? try this for size:

"Not a penny orney pay. Not a minny orney day."

:)))))))

John of Canberra

Malanie, your last paragraph succintly sums up the issue. When did the voters in the western democratic nations surrender their sovereignty to the corrupt UN and the tyrannies which make up most of its members? Why should UK cabinet members have to justify their decisions to any inquiry other than the voters in a general election?

Dixon

MGR. "Moral" is absolutely a matter of opinion. As regulars aside me know, I dont accepyt that even the concept of "moral;" has any real meaning.

Dixon

"arnoldo
January 28th, 2010 12:13pm
mitcheltj,
When you perform a cost/benefit analysis on a given action such as the Iraqi invasion, you cannot assume that you are comparing that given action to a vacuum."

Indeed. Whilst the "costs" you refer top may nor be financial, when the peaceniks try to use monetary cost as an indication of the invasions supposed failure it makes me want to cry at the sheer stupidity of mankind. Nearly all the costs incurred in feeding and maintaining an army abroad are the same whether they be fighting in one country or at peace in another. Today, by far the largest overseas deployment of British forces remains Germany. Where they do absolutely nothing of any benefit to anyone and cost nearly as much as they or their mates did when on active duty in Iraq.

JohNW

David Elder: "...Recall too that at the time it was generally accepted that he had WMDs; critics of the war said that Saddam would cause chaos with them..."

Well said David - I do indeed remember this. In fact, there were any number of embedded reporters from CNN, BBC etc waxing lyrical at the prospect of securing lurid footage of US and British troops having to deal with Sadaam's chemical arsenal. There was a genuine fear on this, and no question or even hint that Sadaam's wild claims at having such WMDs could all have been a gigantic con on his part to save face in front of fellow Arabs and - most importantly - Iran.

JohNW

elixelx: "The United Natterers are the absolute masters of exact obfuscation, and obfuscating exactitude!"

Jolly well said, Sir Humphrey!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

I seem to remember the Israelis issuing gas masks etc to its entire civilian population at the time of the Iraq invasion, in the firm belief that Saddam was about to launch WMD at them.

Like poor old Blair et al, Mossad may have had it all wrong, of course (we know how lamentably bad they are at intelligence gathering), but - I guess - even if they had been right -perhaps the "morality" mongers on the Chilcot "impartiality" show and the frothing anti war protestors in Britain and elsewhere, wouldn't have cared less anyway...as long as the launch range was limited to Israel.

Ho, hum. A moral a day keeps the the Hague Court away, I guess..or Judge Goldstone and Mr Lyne.

Philo

Denis Cooper
January 28th, 2010 5:12pm
Bush Senior called a halt because the US decided it wanted a "strong man" to rule Iraq. Not Saddam. Preferably someone from the Ba'ath Party or the army. When no coup materialised, the US decided that Saddam was better than "chaos" (democracy etc.). So the US sought to sustain but contain Saddam. For example, the US allowed his helicopter gunships to fly in airspace the US controlled, to put down the revolt of the marsh Arabs (slaughter them). (Bush Senior had not long before encouraged the marsh Arabs to rise up against Saddam.) As you say, a great deal of suffering could have been averted, had the US made a different calculation of its interests.

Mailman

mitcheltj,

1. Its entirely possible that WWII may have been avoided if the West had shown some backbone instead of trying to appease Adolf. Its also possible that a conflict may have been local just as its possible that WWII would have happened anyway.

Hindsight only tells us that war happened. There are other questions around effective disarmament and enforcement and how this too could have kept Germany from sparking another global conflict within a generation of the last or we could argue how the end of WWI guaranteed WWI etc.

Re your time limit thing. Funny how suddenly 10 years isnt long enough YET when the shoe is on the other foot, 5 years for being in Afghanistan is too long.

Seems you are merely arguing from a point of convenience. It is pointless imposing restrictions on someone that has no time limit nor way of enforcement.

unfortunately for you and Saddam, his time ran out and after 10 years of mismanagement by the UN Saddam took one gamble too much...and lost.

What you want isnt a pragmatist...no, what you really want is someone who merely agrees with your point of view (that the America is an evil capalist oppressor and that TB is a liar). Even pragmatists realise that eventually action has to be taken.

Mailman

Dixon

I would like to repeat what I said on the previous thread. This is all arguing over angels on a pin-head. There is no such thing as international law. Only the reality of power. Indeed, that is all any law ever is. The reality of the power of one group of people imposed upon everyone else. That includes the "law of the land". As there is no democratically elected international government, neither can there even be any suggestion that there is any popular legitimacy to notional "international law".

The invasion of Iraq was necessary because Saddam posed a continual threat to our oil supplies from his neighbours. Thats all there is to it. Blairs committing himself to the invasion was the only legitimate and worthwhile act of his entire tenure.

I celebrate the invasion of Iraq. Its a matter of celebration for me. I rejoice in it. How more strongly can I put it?

mitcheltj

Mailman - please dont put words into my mouth. taking your points in order:

The only thing certain about 1936 is that Hitler occupied the Rhineland without French intervention. You may well be right that French intervention would have prevented war, or delayed it - whatever - but neither you nor I know - nor anybody. My point is that if you start a war, recognise that events will rapidly get out of control.

On timing etc, we have not put time limits on North Korea, a far more dangerous country than Iraq, focusing instead on international consensus and containment - ditto so far on Iraq. Ditto so far on Iran, also more dangerous. Iraq was not a danger to the UK (or the US) when it was invaded, and containment and international co-operation seemed to me to offer a lower risk and effective strategy, but Bush and Blair never considered it. One of the advantages of acting with other countries is that when you have to fight, hopefully all will be on board - not what happened in Iraq. Afghanistan/Pakistan is much more difficult, and at the moment my gut instinct is to trust Obama who has obviously thought hard about what he's doing as I honestly cant think of an easy or risk-free way out. The outcome is very hard to foresee. Pray.

I do not think US is a capitalist warmonger (!) - it has greater claims than most for being a tremendous force for good with the right leadership, left or right wing - and I dont know whether Blair is a liar though he certainly has a slippery way with the truth.. My point is simply that Bush and Blair did their countries a disservice by acting so recklessly and incompetently. Yes pragmatists have to take action - I agree - but they think about what they are doing and weight the risks carefully first. I think that is what Obama is trying to do, and good luck to him.

Dixon

MitchellJ:Yes pragmatists have to take action - I agree - but they think about what they are doing and weight the risks carefully first. I think that is what Obama is trying to do, and good luck to him. "

Is this meant to be a joke? Is it irony? Only I know when I respond to such fatuous twaddle on these threads I usually get lambasted with having missed the intended "irony". Thats the problem with irony...its slippery with the truth...about what you are really saying. So I guess I should give you the benefit of the doubt Mitchell, based on the clarity of your vision, although I think it totally wrong, I must asume your last comment was ironic: that like almost everyone else on the planet you also regard Obama as quite clearly a shallow fool spinning on the precipice of chasms way beyond his depth!

mitcheltj

Dixon - dear me! I did not realise that I would be stirring up such a hornet's nest with my unremarkable views. But in for a penny..

On Obama, I was not being ironic - were you? Two things though: first,I was trying to give credit to President Obama, in contrast to Bush and Blair, for at least thinking long and hard about Afghanistan, though as I said, it is difficult to see how we are going to get out the mess that's been created without a lot of grief and pain - history makes you pessimistic. Second,I dont think Obama is a shallow fool, far from it, but I do wonder about his ability to cope with the truly horrible problems on his plate. I have just finished reading David McCullough's biography of President Truman - a brilliant book by the way - and cant help comparing the two, and the challenges they face or faced. My tentative conclusion is that the problem with most modern politicians is that they have no real experience of life - Truman was brought up in rural Missouri, fought in the first world war, ran a business which went bust, was a banker (!) and a farmer before going into politics, became President by accident almost and yet rose to the task in a way that you cant help admiring; toughness, clear-sightedness, the ability to pick the right lieutenants and integrity - all were part of his make-up. Does Obama have it in him? I hope so, but confess to sharing your doubts.

Anyway, nuff said on this subject by me at any rate.

Derek BLADES

mitcheltj, January 29th, is absolutely right about President Obama. He is the first intelligent person to occupy the White House since Jimmy Carter and this infuriates poor souls like Dixon. They want a "good ol' boy" like Bush in there. President Obama is seen by most of the world, Dixon excepted, as a real chance for America to lead the world to a better future. Good luck to him!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

mitcheltj wrote:"On Obama,......I was trying to give credit to President Obama, in contrast to Bush and Blair, for at least thinking long and hard about Afghanistan, though as I said, it is difficult to see how we are going to get out the mess that's been created without a lot of grief and pain - history makes you pessimistic. "

Can you clarify this point? I assume are serious that neither Bush nor Blair gave any serious thought to amassing an invasion force of 250,000.00 troops. Wow...ok...

..but what is all this "thought long and hard" stuff...? Tell us more, if you can about the strategy of Obama versus that of Blair and Bush..Where is the serious differences for you and how can these differences play in the future - versus Iran etc... Clearly there is a difference in tone with Obama..That's great. What about the substance?

mitcheltj

John Roosevelt - having declared that I've said enough on all this, let me try to answer your questions as best I can.

First, you ask do I think Bush/Blair did not give serious thought to amassing the invasion force of 250,000. One here has to distinguish between the decision to go to war and the execution of the decision. On the first, my answer is that I do not think they did look hard at the alternatives. Going by Mr Blair's evidence today, they seemed to share a world vision post 9/11 about the threats to the West, axis of evil and so on; and against that framework Saddam was deemed an unacceptable risk vis a vis WMD as he had already used them against his own people - I paraphrase the argument but I think that's a fair gist. It is a coherent point of view but it does not admit much leeway on options. Bush almost put it in this way - you either sign up to the vision or you dont: no room for pragmatism. I think this is why they inspire such strong opinions, both for and against. Personally I dont subscribe - the world is a lot more complicated - but a lot of people on this blog clearly do, to a greater or lesser extent. As to execution - in short, pretty good to start with, militarily, but after that things went badly wrong, and it is surely now crystal clear that insufficient thought was given to the post-war situation. For example, the Bush government thought US troops would be welcomed as liberators - well I suppose that fits with their world view but it was laughable then and downright tragic now.

Your second question was why do I think Obama has done it better on Afghanistan. The truth is I dont know, of course, but then neither do you as we were not present at his three (?) month intensive strategic review. But one can surely infer that he has looked at a lot more alternatives that Bush/Blair would have done or actually did. Let's hope he has opted for the right course, though as I said history is against him in Afghanistan. As for Iran, I confess that I dont get the same feel that Obama has a clear grasp of the options - I dont think any country does - but I feel safer with him in the White House than Bush, and I am very glad that Blair is no longer Prime Minister: self-confessed visionaries are too dangerous to be trusted with high political office. True, pragmatists might still get it wrong but that's the way I would bet!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

mitcheltj wrote: "But one can surely infer that he has looked at a lot more alternatives that Bush/Blair would have done or actually did. "

..or, I guess, just as easily infer that he is discovering the extent to which election campaign rhetoric and foreign policy constraints don't always make happy bed fellows..

I seem to remember Clinton saying, when he was interviewed a few years back by David Dimbleby, that there is remarkable continuity in foreign policy from Administration to Administration and that he wouldn't have differed much from Bush in terms of the US Iraq policy etc (though I could have misremembered this..). In fact, we should not forget that we had a very "thoughtful" Govt then (Major, Hurd etc..), who - in their wisdom - fed the Bosnian Moslems up on a plate to the murderous Serbs; and these Moslems were only finally saved from total extermination by, perhaps, a less "thoughtful" Clinton.

"Let's hope he has opted for the right course, though as I said history is against him in Afghanistan."

Are you suggesting Obama would never have gone into Afghanistan after 9/11 and, like, the economy, this is just another inheritance millstone round his neck which he is now forced to accept?? If your point is not to be reduced to the trivial, perhaps best to tell us what you think Obama really feels should happen and should have happened after 9/11. Clearly, he buys into (publicly, at any rate) the Bush idea of making the US safe from "terror" wherever that terror may be based. What is interesting is to understand how such a core notion will inform Obama's f.policy in general...; and to what extent it can afford to differ (and, indeed, not to differ) from that of Bush etc. The fear is palpable that maybe he will fall victim (and make us all do likewise) to his agonising and dithering when it comes to perceived threats - even those he would deem to be so. One also wonders if this is because of the effect of his ideology on policy, or the perceived political imperative merely to seem different to Bush.

" As for Iran, I confess that I dont get the same feel that Obama has a clear grasp of the options - I dont think any country does"

Ah...ok..well..let's hold on to our seat belts, then...and/or pray. I guess you certainly feel Bush and Blair would have - of necessity - got it wrong. is this because neither made you feel warm and fuzzy, like Obama does, or is it something more substantive in terms of relative policy ideas? By implication, does this mean that you are looking at an area which - at least by comparison to the Bush school - would be right, in your view? Or not really looking at all, assured, in this condition of policy-making stasis, by the conviction that you SHOULD place your FAITH in a man you consider NOT to be a VISIONARY? It's then safe to infer from this, is it not, that you feel Obama, by comparison to Bush, is on a more righteous path? ..but you have no idea what this path of righteousness is or should be but that it'll all be ok (or, at worst, better than anythoin Blair or Bush would have done) because you are convinced Obama is giving all this "more" thought?????? You don't think any ohther country knows to do with Iran - presumeably because they know Bush and Blair would have definitely got it wrong, but noone is at hand to tell 'em - in contrast - how to get it right?? So, Chilcot may felicitously find Blair and his cohorts WRONG - perhaps war criminals - and feed their flesh and blood to that righteous, albeiti hysterical, British public and the media - but noone has got any real clue what they would do in similar circumstances i.e re Iran??? As some famous comedian once said: " But is this a way to run a fucking ballroom???"

Look, condemn Bush and Blair for Iraq by all means but, as Blair said yesterday, let's make our bloody minds up re Iran!!! We beleive they have WMD or not?? If we believe they do, is it right to fight - to go to war with them - or not?? If not, what do we reckon will be the imlications in this age of asymetric warfare etc?? When is war just? Is it all down to UN resolutions, now? Is this International law everyone is screaming about what we invariably and always have to predicate any action on? Was our war with Serbia, then, wrong? Is is justice and legality sometiime not consonant etc.etc...Does the Uk public etc have a clue about the ethics of war, anyway? Is the "legal" argument ever anything but pedantry and merely used as a maidservant to politics? WE want to condemn Blair over Iraq and get it right in future? Fine. Then, as Blair hinted at but should have shouted, yesterday, NOW is our opportunity and we have great minds like the venerable Sir Roderick Lyne amongst us ....so, let's use that "privilage" and get them to pontificate re the way forward in the HERE and NOW, boys!!

" - but I feel safer with him in the White House than Bush, and I am very glad that Blair is no longer Prime Minister: self-confessed visionaries are too dangerous to be trusted with high political office. True, pragmatists might still get it wrong but that's the way I would bet"

I suggest you relook at Obama's speeches if you don't think at least he sees himself as a self-confessed "visionary". I think there is alot of confusion re the true nature of Bush and Obama. The public, for sure, seemed very much in need of a good cop politician brand, after so many years of Bush...but can we afford this TV age image nonsense defining policy - in the face of Iran etc?

I would say that those who support Obama for your reasons should very quickly take stock of what they deem a threat in the world and be bloody sure that the dithering - or what you feel more comfortable calling it i.e. "thought/thinking about policy" - serves the policy-making well.

The clock has definitely nearly stopped ticking re Iran. We need leaders who know what they're doing, why they're doing it..and then DO! Blair and Bush got it so wrong? Let's not be shy! No time like the present, therefore, to show that we who condemn them know better.

Anthony

I note that the Preamble to UNSCR1441 states (Foot of p. 2) that the SC reaffirms '...the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, ...'. Does this not, in effect, once and for all assert that invasion of Iraq without a further resolution qualifying that reaffirmation would be contrary to the SC intent?

Anthony

I note that the Preamble to UNSCR1441 states (Foot of p. 2) that the SC reaffirms '...the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, ...'. Does this not, in effect, once and for all assert that invasion of Iraq without a further resolution qualifying that reaffirmation would be contrary to the SC intent?

Holly Cheel

Well said Melanie. It angers me that so many people are simply not listening to what Goldsmith and Blair have been saying during the inquiry. People are too ready to judge based on newspaper headlines than on the actual content of the debate.