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Defiant Tony Blair Insists Ousting Saddam Hussein Was ‘Important Thing to Do’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.07.2023

This past March marked the 20th anniversary of the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq. The war, launched on the false pretext of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s alleged cooperation with al-Qaeda, claimed up to a million lives, and brought Iraq to the precipice of failed state status.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has returned to the limelight to defend his decision to join the US’s Iraq invasion of 2003, and to offer his opinions on the crises facing the world today.

“It’s always difficult to go back with hindsight. But I always say to people there are many things we would have done different. But I still think that ultimately, in the Middle East, the removal of Saddam Hussein was an important thing to do,” Blair said, speaking to Japanese media in an interview published Saturday.

The politician, who now heads the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a Gulf sheikdom, US State Department, World Economic Forum and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded non-profit, did not elaborate on why removing the Iraqi leader – which destroyed Iraq and destabilized the Middle East – was so important.

In hindsight, his comments are reminiscent of former Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s infamous 1997 60 Minutes Interview, in which Albright said that the “price” of half a million Iraqi children dying as a result of Western sanctions against Baghdad was “worth it.”

‘Important Opinions’

Blair, 70, also offered his opinion on world affairs, including the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, and China’s significance in a shifting world order.

Blair, apparently unfamiliar with Russia’s nuclear doctrine, claimed that Beijing’s close relationship with Moscow played a key role in preventing Russia from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“Although there are many problems connected with China’s support of Russia, the one benefit of that close relationship, which you can see in China’s insistence that Russia does not use nuclear weapons, is I think China does not believe it is in its interest at all for this to slide towards a global conflict,” he said.

The terms of Russia’s 2020 nuclear doctrine actually strictly prohibit the use of nuclear weapons – tactical or strategic, unless the country is attacked using weapons of mass destruction, or faces a conventional attack so severe that its very existence is deemed to be at risk.

Blair, who met with Putin in the 2000s during his tenure as PM, suggested that while the Russian president was once more open to cooperation with the West, “the Putin of today only understands the language of strength.” He “and any future Russian leader knows Ukraine is entitled to protect its sovereignty, and so is the rest of Eastern Europe,” Blair said.

The politician also dismissed China’s 12-point Ukraine peace plan, saying it was “obviously not going to be acceptable to the Ukrainians,” but added that China could play an “important” role if a “sensible, negotiated solution” could be hammered out. Blair did not elaborate on which specific points in China’s peace plan, such as ‘respecting the sovereignty of all countries’, ‘ceasing hostilities’, or ‘not pursuing security at the expense of others’, would be unacceptable to Kiev.

Blair believes the “big geopolitical questions of the 21st century” will revolve around China and its relationship with the West, and urged Western countries to “stay engaged” with the Asian giant, while also taking a ‘peace through strength’ approach toward Beijing. “They’ve got to be under no doubt at all that we’re strong enough to deal with whatever comes because that will be the deterrent for anything rash,” he said.

He also pointed to the West’s failure to engage the countries of the Global South, saying that the lethargic and bureaucratic negotiations process on infrastructure development projects has allowed China to “get an enormous position in these countries.”

Tony Blair became US President George W. Bush’s closest ally during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and before that sent British troops to assist in the 2001 US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Blair has faced accusations of war crimes, with activists and prominent figures including Desmond Tutu, British playwright Harold Pinter, Indian Author Arundhati Roy, British human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad calling for him and Bush to be dragged before the International Criminal Court.

In 2017, former Iraqi general Abdulwaheed Shannan Al Rabbat filed a case against Blair in a London court charging him with the “crime of aggression” against Iraq. The court ruled that “although there was a crime of aggression under customary international law, there was no such crime as a crime of aggression under the law of England and Wales.”

July 1, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Iraq, UK