Phoney Blair? On the contrary, Iraq was his most honest moment.

Tony Blair’s reappearance at the pointless Chilcot Inquiry – pointless because it won’t change anyone’s mind about anything or have any meaningful impact upon future policy – has at least permitted an interesting revision of the historical record. Rod Liddle sums this up in his typical pithy style:

The more you read, the more you discover that it was Blair – entirely alone in the country – who wished to invade Iraq in 2003. The cabinet didn’t want to, even Blair’s cabal didn’t want to. Even Alastair Campbell had grave reservations. Everyone around him thought it wrong, or illegal, or both.

Nevertheless, Rod’s post is useful since it summarises, rather neatly, a revised version of history that has become widely accepted even, perhaps especially because, it is based on a number of falsehoods.

Subsequently Rod suggests that the issue was Blair’s “deceit”, not any tricked-up considerations of international law. But deceit is a hefty term. For it to apply we have to suppose not only that Blair “lied” but that he knowingly did so. As best I can tell – and without wanting to seem unduly pedantic – no evidence has yet emerged that this was the case.

The past eight years have, rightly, been chastening for those of us who supported the war. Knowing what we know now or, rather, as events have turned out, it’s much, much harder to justify the intervention. Good people can still differ in good faith about the cost-benefit analysis of the invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s removal; what’s harder to justify is the notion that the only three people in the world who were ever in favour of the war were George W Bush, Richard Cheney and Anthony Blair. That was not and never was and is still not the case.

In retrospect and on balance I think, just about, that it was a blunder and squaring that thought with my own enthusiastic support for the war is not an especially comforting business. But at the time it looked different and important and even vital. Nor were the alternatives all that attractive, not least since the (Saddam-exacerbated) impact of sanctions was dismal and so was the fact that the so-called “box” Saddam was in was on the point of collapsing. At some point, Blair or no Blair, there would have been some kind of calling to account.

But even if you think the case for war was riddled with mistakes and mistaken judgements and assumptions it requires a great leap to jump from there to supposing that those making it were lying. I’ll go further: at no point in his political life did Tony Blair tell the truth – as he saw it – more often, more strenuously and at greater cost to his name and reputation than when he made the case for the war.

And just because many people who believed him then now think his case was built on sand does not change the fact that Blair thought it built on rock or that they believed him at the time even if they now pretend they did not and always, like “everyone else”, opposed the war all along. This may be inconvenient but it is also true.

Finally and for what little it may be worth, I suspect a Conservative government would also have supported the war.

As always, John Rentoul has more on all of this.