Why? Some surmise Carlyle was dangled in front of him on Iraq, but on both Iraq and Europe I see the influence of Rupert Murdoch, whose opinions seem to have directed Blair's policies in these cases pretty closely.
On Iraq, I initially thought he was courageous (to fight for some principles, and to try to have a positive influence on Bushco, against his public opinion), but with all the information that has come out it just appears that he sold his soul to the devil and was bitten in return - and he knew it. It just felt safer to be irrelevant on the side of Americans than irrelevant amongst those strange creatures across the Channel... (of course, if Chirac and Blair had found the courage to speak to each other instead of past each other, they would have found they DID have some influence jointly. And that lesson does not seem to have been leanrt yet, even if on Iran they did a lot better) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
