It’s probably best not to have too many heroes in life because eventually, one way or another, they let you down. And so it has come to pass that my political hero, Tony Blair, who I have stood alongside through increasingly thin and even thinner times has finally, unforgivably and massively shit the bed. And how? By attacking our current government, led by Keir Starmer, for not blindly following Donald Trump into war against Iran.
Blair’s attack appears on the front page of – and yes, you guessed it – The Mail on Sunday, an oily right-wing rag, which is increasingly desperate for the UK to join in Dementia Donny’s war. Here’s today’s front page:
This is the same Mail that has previously stated that the world is heading for the biblical End Of Days whereupon the supposed Jesus of Nazareth will return to sort everything out. Or something.
Amplifying Blair’s pro war support of Trump is apparently the Mail’s editorial position today. Back in 2016, this hate-filled organ had a very different view of the disastrous invasion of Iraq. (I should state at this point that I supported the Iraq war and have done ever since, albeit less enthusiastically than I did at the time. Several decades on, having taken into account of the new war in the Middle East, my doubts are greater than ever.) Here’s the Mail a decade ago:
The comparison, certainly militarily, with the US-led invasion of Iraq back in 2003 is certainly relevant. Trump has employed significantly more firepower in the opening days of this war than the George W. Bush government did in Iraq. There’s another significant difference, too. In 2003, the security services, especially Britain’s MI6 warned of Iraq’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). That defined much of Britain’s involvement, until it turned out that Iraqi supremo Saddam Hussein had no WMD at all. Ah well, at least a bloodthirsty genocidal maniac was removed from office. That appears to have happened this time with the execution of Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. But there’s something else that bears similarities to 2003: the lack of a plan beyond toppling a vicious dictator and certainly no exit strategy. I think things are far worse today than they were in 2003.
I’ve written before about my fears that Trump’s reckless attacks on Iran, alongside – and I am sorry to refer to him as such, but here goes – war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. I am not joking when I call Trump dementia Donny because it is becoming clear to experts in the field that as well as being a malignant narcissist, Trump is exhibiting many of the symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia. Possibly not the ideal situation when he is also the de facto leader of the Western World.
As Sky News points out, Trump’s war has already spread, so far it appears as Sri Lanka where a US submarine sank an Iranian warship. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus,Turkey, Azerbaijan and various Middle Eastern states have all found themselves under attack. Now we learn that Russia is already involved in the war and not on the side of the US. It would be a good time to have calm minds in charge. Messrs Trump, Netanyahu and Putin do not in any way come under the title of calm minds.
The world economy has already taken a hit, certainly in terms of petrol and gas prices, and that will affect all of us. Anyone travelling to, or even through, the Middle East is going to face enormous problems. My own concerns of an impending World War Three may be out of kilter with the reality – I have precious few contacts with the security services – but I can’t help thinking it only takes a second for some unhinged world leader, and we are currently spoiled for choice with those at the moment, and our lives will be changed forever, if not brutally ended.
Perhaps Trump will get bored of his war in Iran and move onto something else – there must be plenty more world leaders he can have arrested in their own countries are brought to the US – and the world will stop short of an apocalyptic conflict. Maybe nothing much will happen beyond localised incidences of terrorism, sharp price rises in well everything, civil unrest, cancellation of major events such as the World Cup, cancelled holidays and all the rest of it, but we don’t know. I’m thinking of burying my head in the sand for a few months and hoping it will all go away.
I am not going to pretend to be some kind of barometer of public opinion; plainly I am not. But despite the ranting of the right-wing British media, as well as the political right including of course Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch which has become virtually hysterical in urging the government to throw its weight wholeheartedly behind Trump and Netanyahu’s reckless war against Iran, I sense that Starmer’s reluctance to repeat the mistakes of the Iraqi invasion and to employ British resources in a defensive capacity in order to protect British citizens is shared by the majority of the people. I could be wrong, I know, but that’s just how I feel.
I well remember the gung ho days of the war in Iraq, as the media fell over itself to ‘get behind our boys’ as we joined the US efforts to remove Saddam. Later, and not much later, when things started to go tits up Iraq was declared to be a disastrous failure. Yet here we are again, with a feral media demanding that we go down the same, potentially disastrous road.
Maybe there’s no room, nor any need, for heroes anymore? Maybe all we need is for good people to do good things in order to make the world a better, kinder, gentler more peaceful place? The macho dictatorial world of Trump, Netanyahu and Putin is taking us in the opposite direction and today I genuinely fear for the future. I do not see how this ends well. I just hope the voices of moderation, of which Britain is currently one, prevail. We’re going to find out soon enough where this ends.
