Sunday, May 20, 2007

Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue

Johann Hari: Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue:
Blair knew suprisingly little about American power and its purposes. In a conversation with John Snow, he revealed he had never heard of Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratic leader of Iran who was toppled by the CIA in 1953 because he wanted to control his own country's oil supplies. As recently as 2005, he had never even heard of the Project for a New American Century.


Good god almighty, how can such a downright ignorant, persistently ignorant, man get and hold the highest office, and take his country to war in a critical region of the world?

Previously I had regarded Blair as an actor, a liar, a kind of high-class conman. We all know that Reagan and 'Dubya' Bush are completely ignorant, ignorant by design. Perhaps Blair is in the same category.

One friend of Blair's recently told me she was shocked in 1997 when she saw Blair welcoming Henry Kissinger into Downing Street and lauding him as a great statesman and friend of democracy. She challenged him over it, but discovered "he just doesn't know about this history - how the Americans toppled democratic governments in Latin America and the Middle East. He really didn't know anything about it. It was shocking."


Shocking it is indeed, and virtually unbelievable. Could Blair truly be that ignorant? This is a major story, unless I've been duped. I always regarded Blair as somewhat more intelligent and eloquent than Bush, at least.

If for no other reason than cynical realpolitik, someone should know something about fact, history and reality. Is the Reagan model of democratic government the universal future? An empty headed actor/conman who reads the lines he is fed, and makes decisions concerning things he knows nothing about?

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