How Bush betrayed Blair

[Classical_Liberal]

How Bush betrayed Blair
The British P.M. thought he had a deal: He'd support the war and Bush would stand up to Ariel Sharon. But administration neoconservatives, led by Elliott Abrams, killed the deal.

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By Sidney Blumenthal



Nov. 14, 2003 | Tony Blair, about to welcome George W. Bush to London for a state visit on Nov. 18 with pomp and circumstance, has assumed the mantle of tutor to the unlearned American president -- a pedagogical role that defines the latest phase of the hallowed special relationship.

Bush originally came to Blair determined to go to war in Iraq, but without a strategy. Blair instructed him that the casus belli was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, urged him to make the case before the United Nations, and when the effort to obtain a U.N. resolution failed, persuaded Bush to revive the Middle East peace process between Israel and Palestine that Bush had abandoned. The new "road map" for peace there was the principal concession that Blair wrested from Bush. Blair argued that renewing the negotiations was essential to the long-term credibility of the coalition goals in Iraq and the whole region. But within the councils of the Bush administration that initiative was systematically undermined. Now Blair welcomes a president who has taught him a lesson in statecraft he refuses to acknowledge.

Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst, revealed to me that the text of the road map was ready to be made public before the end of 2002: "We had made high-level commitments to key European and Arab allies. The White House lost its nerve. It took Blair to get Bush to put it out. But even then the administration wasn't really committed to it." Leverett is also a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, one of the authors of the road map, and now a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. "We needed to work this issue hard, but because we didn't want to make life difficult with Ariel Sharon, we undercut our credibility."

In the internal struggle over peace in the Middle East, the neoconservatives within the administration prevailed. Elliott Abrams, chief of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, was their point man. During the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan presidency, Abrams was a player in setting up a rogue foreign policy operation as the assistant secretary of state for Latin America. His solicitation of $10 million from the sultan of Brunei for the illegal enterprise turned farcical when he transposed numbers on a Swiss bank account and lost the money. He wound up pleading guilty to lying to the Congress and was eventually pardoned by former President Bush. He spent his purgatory as the director of a neoconservative think tank, denouncing the Oslo Accords and arguing that "tomorrow's lobby for Israel has got to be conservative Christians, because there aren't going to be enough Jews to do it." Abrams was rehabilitated when George W. Bush appointed him to the NSC in December 2002.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/14/blair_bush/index.html

[bluesoul]

1. How Blair could have let the Labour

go so to the right and become a lackey for Bush and the neocons will be a mistery to me. Being an ally of an illegal and criminal war, now that's something to be fond of...

[Classical_Liberal]

2. Never trust the Texas Repukes

That is why Davis went down. He made deals with Ken Lay, bailed out PG&E then took the rap for doing so.

[meti57b]

4. That is not why Davis lost.

ahnold is an apparently very popular major celebrity who plays superman-type roles that appeal to a lot of people. He lied big-time on a number of issues.

More importantly to your contention, ahnold met with Ken Lay at the height of the CA energy crisis before he was even a candidate, and refuses to disclose what went on in those meetings.

If anyone thinks Davis lost because of the CA budget deficit, consider how those who supported and voted for ahnold appear to not care about the bush national budget deficit.

[Classical_Liberal]

5. I disagree.

I think Davis had a deficite because he bailed the energy companies. Arnold is there man, so are the conservatives in England, but Liberals simply have to learn that repukes should never be helped. They have to learn it never pays. Davis compromised with the repuke then he never pointed out the meeting between Arnold and Enron. Why, becuase Davis bailed PG&E. Davis went down for compromizing with the repukes, and the repukes sold him out and put their guy in. Blair is going down for repukes as well.

[edzontar]

3. Eliott Abrams--a truly vile and appalling swine....

If you can judge people or institutions by their "friends," then the Likud gang comes off pretty poorly.

So her is my thanks to all of them, for everyhting you have dome for us lately.

Thanks for the war in Iraq, for the ensuing "slog," for the erosion of our civil liberties, for earning us the hatred of the entire world, and, of course, the endless non-solution to the I/P conflict.

Good morning everyone!