WI: Tony Blair Opposes the Invasion of Iraq
- Thread starter Amadeus
- Start date
Perhaps because Saddam's WMDs could destroy Britain in 45 minutes, which Blair claimed in a speech, so it would be dangerous to attack Iraq.
Could they even reach Britain? Would Saddam be that insane considering Britain's nuclear triad?
Saddam did not have any WMDs, but Bush and Blair claimed that he had, and Blair said that they could reach Britain. (But that is from memory, so I might be wrong.)
They were indeed, and so was Poland, but Britain being in lockstep with France and Germany on the issue would probably be enough to change that I think.
What if the lack of british participation, leads to the unthinkable? Iran offers to assist in dismembering its old enemy, and offers its own version of What Barhain and the UAE are doing now? Recognition of Israel.
New Labour win a third landslide in 2005. If he remains relatively popular, Blair might just decide he isnt giving way to Brown, and stay on as PM after 2007. It would cause a civil war in the party, and he would need to find himself a new Chancellor, but I'd still argue Blair could still do well enough in the 2010 Election to stay in office with Lib Dem support. The Tories would finally get back in the election after that, but Blair's reputation in Labour, although still contested, would still remain broadly high, and the party would most likely stay more towards the centre.
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Considering the impact on both Iraq and the USA, it would have been better if Tony Blair did oppose the War in Iraq. While I do not know if this would have happened, maybe if the Bush Administration had realized that it was really just them, they would have slowed down. If they had slowed down, then maybe an agreement could have been reached where Saddam, his family, and key supporters move to Saudi Arabia to live. A new government takes over that is acceptable to the USA, Saudi Arabia, and may be Egypt.
Then Iraq is not devastated by the war and is a better place today. The USA does not have the loss of life and the many wounded veterans that will need care for the rest of their lives. Also our debt would not be as high.
Then Iraq is not devastated by the war and is a better place today. The USA does not have the loss of life and the many wounded veterans that will need care for the rest of their lives. Also our debt would not be as high.
Bearing in mind you are quoting from memory and admit this might be wrong, it is more or less the way I remember OTL too.
But in fact, as you note, there weren't any WMDs. (Technically there were--decayed, decrepit old mustard gas shells. Which the western powers, led by the USA under Reagan, and thus a lot of guys who were the same Bush Jr admin people testifying falsely as to nukes, made sure he did have to use against Iran. But talking up nukes and then pointing to these gas shells is yet another layer of mendacity, obviously).
Therefore there was no way British intelligence could have positive information that Hussein surely did have nukes or anything else anyone could reasonably speak of as WMD in a 21st century context--they didn't exist, so no way to positively verify they did.
It might have been reasonable for British intelligence to believe there was a certain chance he might have some undetected, but that is a different narrative. The sale of the invasion of Iraq was purported to be on grounds of Hussein having nuclear weapons, verified. Which was a falsehood.
The question then becomes, did Tony Blair believe an American falsehood? Did he piece together British intelligence confirming it was not impossible Hussein had some nukes, and make a leap of faith in the good faith of the Bush administration, for whatever reason?
Did Blair personally doubt Iraq had them, but choose to roll with American claims for other reasons?
Or did he know it was almost certainly a mendacious American lie?
The obvious POD is, Blair believes British intelligence, and maybe goes further to order his own people verify specific American claims and they come back with the proof the Yankees are lying on important points, and therefore communicates (presumably through quiet back channels, not to pointlessly slap the President in the face publicly) that he will not be urging Parliament to approve British participation until and unless the Americans produce real evidence.
In short, Blair grows a brain, principles or a backbone, whichever combination he was lacking OTL, and refuses to take a nation to war based on lies.
It seems pretty straightforward to me. Don't be fooled by people with a long reputation of playing fast and loose with facts, particularly when they've been telegraphing for a decade they are bound and determined to go to war with Iraq for quite different reasons and demonstrating they will not rest until they find a pretext.
marktaha
Banned
CIA getting inefficient in their old age - shouldn't they have taken some WMDs along to "find " at the right moment?
Blair seems to have cooperated in giving the Americans the "evidence" they were waving IIRC (so did Italian intelligence, but I am not positive that Berlusconi was on it. He did not participate directly in the invasion in the end, he was busier with a bolder project: making Russia join NATO, and no, I am not joking).
That's what many expected at the time. The fact they did not bother to fabricate evidence may suggest they genuinely believed their own lies.
Consequences:
I can't speak for the European scene, I was over here in the USA at the time.
Over here, Bush was pushing hard for the war. He was promising it would be a "lightning war," easy peasy in and out. The rhetoric it would be an easy pushover related directly to why the USA ultimately did invade with forces inadequate to post-conquest peace keeping; there were other motives as well. For one thing the administration was pushing a privatization agenda and part of this was arguing that the military should be stripped of all uniformed, sworn auxiliary jobs and private contractors embedded with them to do the cooking and so forth. As a general thing the occupation of Iraq was set up to be a windfall to private contractors across the board--including such security matters as capturing suspects and interrogating them.
Some people I have met, at the time and in years since, were so piratical as to think the plan was to seize Iraq and make oil available cheaply to US consumers. Of course the plans were never as populist as that! Oil, at any rate Iraqi oil, was not the central concern. The real focus was on seizing Iraq as a strategic centrally located US controlled base in the Gulf region--insofar as it was about oil at all, it was about oil in the region as a whole, not just Iraq's. The whole thing was a strategic land grab. No one should have illusions the GW Bush administration had any noble purposes in mind, except insofar as they subscribe to the idea "Unilateral power for the USA=Noble."
I do not know how to prove one way or the other that Bush was unstoppable in the USA and would accomplish mobilizing the US to war, alone if need be (or alone, with some very minor power sidekicks). I do think it should be clear he was gung ho for it by any pretext or means necessary and so was his whole handpicked administration.
If Bush were going to be stopped, it would have to be in Congress. The Republican party controlled the House so this comes down to the Senate.
Whether or not the USA goes to war, the fact that Blair and Labour would benefit by staying out of it seems plain to me.
Focusing on whether the war happens or not, depends on how the ATL fact that Her Majesty's Government will not stand with Bush and solemnly vouch for Bush's falsehoods.
I was a California resident at the time, and wrote both my Senators urging them to be skeptical and refuse to be buffaloed. Both sent me responses. Barbara Boxer was standing firm against it--but Diane Feinstein claimed to be privy to convincing information verifying the Administration's alleged concerns. Since we know there were no WMDs to speak of, either the White House lied to her, or she was lying to us her constituents.
My guess is that the fix was in and sufficient numbers of US politicos were on board, whether they believed in WMD or not. I figure many were skeptical and voted for war for other reasons than they pretended to their constituencies much like Feinstein.
But Blair could certainly have done the USA the service of making these mendacious politicians stand in a less flattering light, which might have had good consequences in the longer run, when the general rottenness of the Bush war and occupation plan became obvious.
I'm pretty sure not only the world at large including particularly the UK, but the USA, would be measurably better off than we are today had Blair not rolled with it.
I can't speak for the European scene, I was over here in the USA at the time.
Over here, Bush was pushing hard for the war. He was promising it would be a "lightning war," easy peasy in and out. The rhetoric it would be an easy pushover related directly to why the USA ultimately did invade with forces inadequate to post-conquest peace keeping; there were other motives as well. For one thing the administration was pushing a privatization agenda and part of this was arguing that the military should be stripped of all uniformed, sworn auxiliary jobs and private contractors embedded with them to do the cooking and so forth. As a general thing the occupation of Iraq was set up to be a windfall to private contractors across the board--including such security matters as capturing suspects and interrogating them.
Some people I have met, at the time and in years since, were so piratical as to think the plan was to seize Iraq and make oil available cheaply to US consumers. Of course the plans were never as populist as that! Oil, at any rate Iraqi oil, was not the central concern. The real focus was on seizing Iraq as a strategic centrally located US controlled base in the Gulf region--insofar as it was about oil at all, it was about oil in the region as a whole, not just Iraq's. The whole thing was a strategic land grab. No one should have illusions the GW Bush administration had any noble purposes in mind, except insofar as they subscribe to the idea "Unilateral power for the USA=Noble."
I do not know how to prove one way or the other that Bush was unstoppable in the USA and would accomplish mobilizing the US to war, alone if need be (or alone, with some very minor power sidekicks). I do think it should be clear he was gung ho for it by any pretext or means necessary and so was his whole handpicked administration.
If Bush were going to be stopped, it would have to be in Congress. The Republican party controlled the House so this comes down to the Senate.
Whether or not the USA goes to war, the fact that Blair and Labour would benefit by staying out of it seems plain to me.
Focusing on whether the war happens or not, depends on how the ATL fact that Her Majesty's Government will not stand with Bush and solemnly vouch for Bush's falsehoods.
I was a California resident at the time, and wrote both my Senators urging them to be skeptical and refuse to be buffaloed. Both sent me responses. Barbara Boxer was standing firm against it--but Diane Feinstein claimed to be privy to convincing information verifying the Administration's alleged concerns. Since we know there were no WMDs to speak of, either the White House lied to her, or she was lying to us her constituents.
My guess is that the fix was in and sufficient numbers of US politicos were on board, whether they believed in WMD or not. I figure many were skeptical and voted for war for other reasons than they pretended to their constituencies much like Feinstein.
But Blair could certainly have done the USA the service of making these mendacious politicians stand in a less flattering light, which might have had good consequences in the longer run, when the general rottenness of the Bush war and occupation plan became obvious.
I'm pretty sure not only the world at large including particularly the UK, but the USA, would be measurably better off than we are today had Blair not rolled with it.
I might be persuaded that the US intel establishment, particularly since the White House was not so much telegraphing as sending marching bands into the streets parading its wishes, fooled itself, drawing worst case inferences from confusing evidence and presenting as confirmation, and thus fooled themselves into the expectation they'd be vindicated in fact.
Your other post though points to a darker picture, in which Blair quite cynically expected some kind of benefit to Britain from launching a venture on premises he knew were false.
In that case I guess wishing for Blair to have done otherwise is wishing Blair were a quite different person.
We might do better to make the premise that Tony Blair encounters a Boojum early on and vanishes softly and silently away, and some other Labour politician occupies 10 Downing instead.