Last night, I watched the Charlie Rose interview of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Blair has just published his political memoirs and he talked extensively about them and, in particular, about the Iraq invasion and President Bush.
It was a fascinating 45 minutes.
Tony Blair articulated with precision and clarity the reasons for the invasion and the ideas held by George W. Bush but never clearly explained. The fear of WMD, the concern that Saddam would wait out sanctions and then pursue his terrorist use of nuclear weapons, the need to draw the line somewhere vis-à-vis those terrorists who had attacked the Trade Center. But he was clear that September 11 had little to do with the reasons for the Iraq invasion.
He said that the Iraq war was won, but that we didn't realize how determined the terrorists would be in destabilizing the country. His position is that Iraqis were eager to govern themselves and paid the price in terrorist bloodbaths. He feels the same thing is now happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He turned to the question of Iran and said that, in his view, waiting out Iran with sanctions will probably lead nowhere and that we need to be clear that military action is always on the table. He thinks this is the only stance that might bring Iran around to abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
If Bush had been able to articulate his views as clearly as Blair has, we might be living in a different world today, because he surely would have had more international support.
I think Tony Blair's memoirs are worth reading carefully, certainly for the past, but perhaps even more so for the future.
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