2-8-07, 8:54 am
Tony Blair's claim that 'nobody's talking about military intervention in respect of Iran' is reminiscent of his duplicity in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
In late 2002 and early 2003, Mr Blair claimed that the final decision to invade Iraq had not yet been taken, even though the whole world could see the build-up of US and British military forces in the region.
He also played political games with the United Nations, both then and now.
Before the assault on Iraq, he accepted at first that a second security council resolution was needed to legitimise the use of force and then decided to follow US President George W Bush's line that a resolution passed in 1991 would suffice.
Now, this credibility-expired Prime Minister affects to believe that plans to bomb Iran would be a last resort even though military sources have revealed that the US air force has been stepping up long-distance bombing exercises to prepare for hitting Iran's nuclear installations.
Business as normal is not, in the Prime Minister's mouth, simply an acknowledgement of the prime beneficiary of his government's policies.
It is a vain attempt to pretend that, despite everything that has gone on around him, he is still on top of his job, with a list of important policies to carry out and guidelines to lay down for his successor.
Take Mr Blair's call for a 'huge debate' on Britain's foreign policy.
He seems oblivious to the reality that this country's foreign policy, which is totally subservient to Washington, has been an utter shambles, dragging Britain's reputation in the mud and revealing the Prime Minister as a bewildered and deluded war criminal.
What kind of huge debate can be engendered by someone who rules out any change to the central plank of foreign policy - servility to the White House - in his first breath?
There still remain some people in the labour movement who doubt that Mr Blair's prime political objective was the destruction of the Labour Party and the collectivist welfare state that the post-war Labour government set up.
Symbols of the Attlee government, such as publicly owned industries, the NHS, democratically accountable public transport and local authority housing, have been steadily eroded.
The compehensive education system, which was brought in by Harold Wilson's Labour government to end the division of children into sheep and goats at age 11, is in rags and tatters, with community schools handed over to businesses, charities and religious cranks.
Yet most Labour MPs and party members seem bemused by the spectacle and remain wedded to the idea of not rocking the boat.
Unless it is speedily rocked, with the aim of scuttling the increasingly demented captain, there will be no boat left to speak of.
If Mr Blair is left to his own devices indefinitely, his successor is likely to find that the first matter to deal with will be the horrific aftermath of US or Israeli state-terrorist air strikes on Iran and the mayhem that such piratical action, backed by an outgoing British Prime Minister, would engender.
From Morning Star
