WI: Blair sends no troops to Iraq

Consequences in Europe?

I wonder if losing Britain as part of the coalition of the willing would also have an impact on the decision making in other European nations (Spain, Italy, Poland e.a.)?IF Tony Blar comes out against the war in an outspoken way, I can imagine him to be very impressive rhethorics-wise. Preaching in the UN Security Council....
 
IF Tony Blar comes out against the war in an outspoken way, I can imagine him to be very impressive rhethorics-wise. Preaching in the UN Security Council....

No British Prime Minister is going to speak out publicly against the US, especially in the UN Security Council of all places.

First: It won't get to the Security Council, because there will be no resolution on the table - especially if everybody knows that neither a pro-war or anti-war resolution would get a majority.

Second: If it does magically get to the Security Council, the UK will most likely abstain. It's not going to directly oppose the US. It might even vote for war (they might allow the possibility of war while not committing UK troops to take part).

Third: If it does magically get to the Security Council, and the UK abstains or magically votes against - no British PM is going to make a big public stand against the US on a big international stage.
 
You mean....the poodle exists???That's why the "IF" was written in capital letters. I wasn't counting on it, even in an alternate timeline, but I was trying to imagine.Though - the matter got to the UN Security Council IIRC (Feb 5th, 2003) although it was clear that at least two permanent members were opposed to the Iraq war.
 
You mean....the poodle exists???
Poodle is a political characterisation. I don't want to get into politics.

The fact is that there is much closer military, security and intelligence cooperation between the UK and US, than between any other pair of NATO countries. There are disagreements, but they are usually resolved without a huge public row, or an open dispute.

They also usually end up supporting each other's military and intelligence activities, even without a foreign policy decision by government heads - because the cooperation is so close - the Falklands War being a classic example. Even when the US government was still trying to be a neutral arbiter, UK forces were getting all sorts of war supplies from the US, and even getting Vulcan bomber spare parts from US military museums.

On the whole, Britain has benefited from this kind of cooperation much more than the US, since it needs the help more, and senior British politicians have generally historically been aware it - Blair certainly was - some people would say perhaps even too aware, and they would argue it that it was so much so that it blinded him to other considerations.

although it was clear that at least two permanent members were opposed to the Iraq war.
That was because Blair had politically boxed himself in at that point.

He figured that he could swing it (ignoring all the evidence and advice that he couldn't and shouldn't try), and he therefore committed himself to go for the 2nd resolution.

It would have been a lot more politically sensible for him for him to argue from the start that the 1st resolution and the Gulf War ceasefire was enough (which is of course what he subsequently argued), rather than too go for the 2nd resolution.

The US of course took the position that the 2nd resolution was unnecessary, and therefore wasn't prepared to do any real political arm-twisting or horse-trading to get it (which might have swung it for Blair if they had).

If it weren't for Blair, the US would have involved the UN even less. The US certainly wouldn't have bothered with trying to get a 2nd resolution even tabled at the Security Council, if it had not been for Blair wanting it. They would have just gone ahead without involving the UN at all.
 
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For the second time, and to back up what SunnilTanna has said, there is not the slightest chance that Blair would come out against the US. None. Absolutely zero. Zilch.

It would require an extraordinarily strong-willed PM (by today's standards) to even abstain on an issue like this, let alone oppose it. Blair certainly would never have abstained.

The only way you can keep Blair out of Iraq is if he loses the Commons vote, and is forced into a sort of Harold Wilson position of giving the invasion moral support but nothing more.
 
Poodle is a political characterisation. I don't want to get into politics>
Poodle is a cartoon-like simplification which with one word brought around what I meant. :)
As to my former Professor of Military History, "history ceased to happen in '45 - everything since then has just been politics". I wouldn't go that far, but in matters like that which occured just a few years ago and whose legacy still has an influence on elections it is hardly possible to separate history from politics.
The fact is that there is much closer military, security and intelligence cooperation between the UK and US, than between any other pair of NATO countries. There are disagreements, but they are usually resolved without a huge public row, or an open dispute.

Thank you (and V-J) very much for your reasoning - it all makes perfect sense. I agree, the probability is low, but the author of this thread gave a POD. I was not commenting on its probability.
 
I don't mind discussing political issues as they impact history, even recent history.

What I meant, is I don't want to get into yah boo politics, as such discussions are rarely interesting and never enlightening. Discussing whether a person or a country should be called poodle is exactly the sort of thing I prefer to avoid.
 
As I see it, Blair was tied to Bush both through expedience and his own inclination.

To prevent British involvement in terms of boots on the ground requires one of two things: the Commons to vote against the war, or the CGS to somehow persuade Blair that Afghanistan requires all Britain's available military effort, and that not enough troops can be spared to take responsibility for the Basra area.

The problem with number 2 is that the troop presence in Afghan was pretty minimal at the time, pre- the 2006 Helmand deployment, and the CGS is unlikely to so bluntly stand up to the Prime Minister.

The problem with number 1 is that the OTL vote went 412 to 149 in favour, and rejected an amendment by 396 to 217 which would have still permitted military action but considered the case for war incomplete.
Best case I can come up with for pulling it off, is to have a major Labour figure (non-Brown/Blair) stand up against it, resign from the Cabinet, and crucially take others with them. Only then could a big enough Commons revolt emerge to block the vote.
Trouble is, the only one, AFAIK, with enough clout to pull it off was Brown, and he's never been one for a bold stroke. His takeover involved much more sly plotting and briefing behind the scenes, and an open coup bid in 2003 - being essentially what this would develop into - is outside his character.
 
A lot depends on how, why, what, etc.

Blair basically came to power as New Labour – i.e. the modern wing of the Labour Party – and he wasn't a typical labourite by any means. The Atlantic Wing of the Labour Party were pro-US (Clinton was PM at the time) and pro-intervention. There were still old-labour people in power, but Blair held them all together. It helped that the first years of his primership weren't ‘that’ full of serious political crisis, although the fuel crisis of 2000 was a serious problem. Nothing occurred to seriously dent Blair’s balancing act.

9/11 changed all that. While there was strong multi-party support for assisting the US in Afghanistan, there was far less support for helping the US invade Iraq. Blair burned up much of his political capital winning the vote, aided by the French decision to a) dent any hope of a united EU response, and b) the French announcement that they would veto any second vote in the UN. That allowed him to blame the French for the failure of pre-war diplomatic actions and convince the Commons that war was justified.

So, we need a good reason for the war not to be justified in the eyes of the Commons.

-What if the UK was heavily committed in Afghanistan? The UK deployments weren't that numerous at the time, but perhaps if we brought forward deployments from 2005-9 into 2002, we might have a good UK excuse for not committing more than a token force to Iraq.

-What if Tony Blair lost the vote in the Commons? I’d expect that Old Labour would have to throw themselves into total opposition for this to come off, and a lot would depend on which way the Tories jumped. They might vote for Tony and make him the captive of their votes, or they might stick a knife in his back and force a vote of no confidence.

-What if the UN voted against the war? This one could go both ways. The UN is hardly a paragon of moral virtue (the bare bones of the oil-for-food scam were known back then.) Blair might use it as a fig leaf to avoid committing troops, or he might use it as a rally call for everyone who dislikes and distrusts the UN.

But in any case…

I don’t think that anything would actually prevent the US from going to war. 4th ID might be redeployed to Kuwait earlier than OTL if the UK forces aren’t going to be involved. The actual progress of the war won’t change much. Post-war, the US forces would be better equipped and more inclined to take on Iranian-backed militias and other forces that the UK never had the firepower or political will to take on. It might actually lead to a significantly better Iraq.

Just where this leaves the US-UK relationship really depends on what happens. If the UK is involved with Afghanistan, the relationship might not be too badly dented. If the UK flatly refused to take part, there might be more serious consequences down the line.

SB
 
Blairs reputation is less tarnished. He will probably go down in history as someone who got Britain involved in a war on false pretences. However that apart what would have happened.

Sanctions and no fly zones would have contained Saddam and Al Quaida would have been kept out of Iraq. A lot fewer people would have been killed but Saddams reign of terror would have continued.

There may still have been some terrorist outrages in Europe as Iraq was the excuse rather than the reason. It is possible that with Britain and Americas resources less stretched that the Taliban would have been defeated.
 
Consider for a moment another couple of scenarios:

Imagine Blair gets a 2nd resolution at the UN. Britain the US are able to persuade - the US commits itself to some serious arm-twisting and horse-trading - France, Russia and China to abstain, and enough non-permanent countries to vote in favor.

Or... Imagine the war had been postponed for 6 or 12 months. Imagine there had been a second resolution at the UN, explicitly authorising war, after Hans Blix reported the Iraqis were still obstructing the weapons inspectors. Maybe even France sends some troops or aircraft to the war.

BUT

In both of these scenarios:

1. The war is unequivocally legal. There is no doubt, and no dispute that the UN authorised the war.

2. No WMD are found after the war. (a UN resolution makes no difference to that)

3. Foreign Sunni extremists and fighters still flood into the country post-war to fight Western troops (a UN resolution makes no difference to them)

4. The post-war situation is still chaotic, and Kurd, Sunni and Shia factions fight for control of oil, political influence, etc. (a UN resolution makes no difference to that), and because of foreign fighters too (see point 3).


Would the anti-war faction (or history for that matter) judge Blair or Bush any differently post-war? I don't think so.

The real issues post-war are 2/3/4 rather than having or not having a UN resolution.
 
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