History isn't absolving Tony just yet...

I was saddened by Tony Blair's fall from grace, because I believed in his politics.  I still believe that he did a lot of good whilst British prime minister, and it is a tragedy that the epitaph of a once great leader looks to be overshadowed by the one serious blot on his record and good name.  I am currently watching "Hard Talk", the BBC's investigative journalism "show".  In the hot seat today is Hans Blix; the head of the UN's weapons inspection programme during the run up to the Iraq invasion.  Now, clearly the BBC has an axe to grind after their public spat with the administration over Iraq.  However, I am not cynical about the BBCs journalism in this regard today.  Besides, Hard Talk covers numerous topics, many of which are not in any real contention with the UK government.  By and large, they promote journalism which seeks the truth and to scrutinise and expose bias.  Hard Talk does it well, but is mostly on around 4AM, so I'm very grateful that i have media centre!
Hans comes across as a strong intellect and an experienced diplomat.  He offers up some very important pieces of information, against the backdrop of the Iraq war enquiry which is ongoing at present.  They are:

1)  Iraq were put in a position where nothing less than saying "ok, here is the WMD, come and watch us destroy them" would prevent increasing US aggression.
2)  Hans had begun to have serious doubts about the evidence presented by the CIA, just as the US were applying more pressure for Iraq to comply with it's requests in early 2003.  They were secretive about sources, and it turns out that those sources wouldn't have stood up to scrutiny.
3)  He felt that Iraq was vulnerable to local hostility (for example, from Iran) if it appeared too weak.  So, it had a motive not to be too quick to say "yes, that's right, we have absolutely nothing to defend ourselves with."  So, it had a strong interest in not making the weapons inspector's looking too effective, making it a skilled balancing act between co-operation and muddying the water a little.

There was only ever one outcome for Iraq.  If Hussain had WMD, then the Americans "assumed" that he would not be co-operative, so they could invade because of non-cooperation.  If he didn't, then proving that you don't have something is almost impossible to prove in these circumstances.
What is saddest about the whole thing, is that the UN imposed strict sanctions against Iraq throughout the 90's and the noughties, locking it's people into a miserable struggle for life's basics.  Then, despite Iraq seemingly taking it's medicine, they change tac as soon as they feel they have a reason for the US public to to sympathetic to a much more aggressive policy.

My own personal view in light of this is that, whilst there are no doubt lots of countries who need "reigning in" around the world, none has shown a more aggressive, unaccountable, far-reaching, deceptive foreign policy consistently over the last 60 odd years than the US.  No wonder everyone is so scared of them.  Obama will do what he can i'm sure, but he has much more than democratically elected officials to battle against.  I'd much rather have Blair's epitaph than that of Mr. GW Bush, any day.