Bliar, Bliar, Pants on Fire

Well there was only really one news story to talk about last week and that was the inquisition of Tony Blair at the hottest show in Whitehall, the Chilcot Inquiry.

After sneaking in early before the geering, if slightly undermanned, protestors emerged for the cameras with their "Bliar" placards and a the usual theatrics of rubber masked Tony Blair heads complete with bloodied hands, the former PM was clearly taking no chances. And this cautious paranoia of the morning's surruptitious early entry to the Queen Elizabeth Centre seemed to be reflected on his face as he emerged to take his seat in front of the panel. Blair looked white, ghoulish and his hand visibly shook as he poured his water. What was this? Had the great persuader really started to doubt his own ability to convince and cajole? Had years of self reflection and unanimous bad press caused Tony Blair to lose his mojo? It certainly looked like it in those opening exchanges.

But then something happened. Perhaps it was the sudden realisation that he could still do this, he would always be able to do this, this was what he was good at: pulling of masterly displays of self belief and inner conviction that would make any neo-con proud. Perhaps the great orator had suddenly found his footing. Or perhaps he just realised that nothing that Chilcot et al could, or indeed would, throw at him would prove insurmountable or be followed up with the kind of legalistic scrutiny that his profession has taught him to expect when being cross examined. But this was no court dock he was sat in and whatever it was, the colour had begun to return to Tony Blair's face and back were those hypnotic hand gesticulations, pulling you in like a hypnotists pocket watch swinging from its chain.

Suddenly we were transported back to the apex of Blairite Britain. In an instant I realised all that was lacking from our incumbant PM and how vacuous these qualities have turned out to be in his predecessor; oratory exuberance, political guile, telegenic vivaciousness. It was a sharp reminder of what could happen again if we allow ourselves to be courted by such superficial qualities in a Prime Minister that buys into their own hype. But this wasn't about the past for old Tony. This was about the future. This was about the big one, the legacy maker... standing shoulder to shoulder with the neo-cons in Iraq.

There are many issues and outrageous fallacies thrown up by Blair's robust and unshakable defence of the war in Iraq (too many to discuss here and now) but after six hours of questioning Chilcot deemed it fit to conclude by asking TB if he had any regrets. It was here that the former Prime Minister made perhaps his biggest blunder of the day. Instead of using this opportnity to offer condolences to the dead British Soldiers (some of whose parents were sitting in the room) or hundred thousand or so dead Iraqi's he restated his conviction that Saddam was a monster who had to be removed and that he did the right thing. There was no shred of sorrow for the horror and sufferings caused by the war, a notion that could easily have been articulated by someone like Blair without the need to undermine his own arguements regarding its necessity. But there was none of it. Just bullish self belief. Here was the man, here was his legacy and if this ship was going down he was prepared to go down with it. This was his war and he believed in it. He was never going to show any contrition.

Boo's were heard in the room and Chilcot called for silence. TB momentarily looked shaken for the second time that day but quickly regained his composure.

After six hours of defending his corner in the mountain face of contrarian evidence that seems to tower over both the legal and moral case for war, TB was like a boxer going into the twelth round of a big title fight knowing he was going to win, head held high, skipping round the ring in the knowledge of putting on a stellar performance. His intransigence towards the end may turn out to have been a fatal PR blow landed on the chin.

Blair left the Inquiry's ring to jeers and tears, followed by his bodyguards (probably as alert to imminent trouble now, than any British security contingent would have been during his ten year premiership.)

But it can't be denied that he put on a convincing and vitriolic show of idealism over populism. Over six hours he had managed to dodge and weave his way past question after question, often finding room for didactic rebuttals often bordering on speech making. We got it all; the legality of war, Goldsmith's volte face over resolution 1441, being Bush's poodle, signing up in blood at Crawford, WMD's or lack of them, the list goes on. Even when they brought up the Fern Britton interview, Blair just seemed to shrug it off as a silly slip up and evidence that even he (yes even he) could be less than clear of portraying his meaning in an interview. Oh please!

Again and again Blair kept on referring to 9/11 and how it had changed everything, even the nature of intelligence. He saw it as an attack on us too, you see (given this spurious line of thinking, wouldn't drawing a clear line between British Foreign Policy and the US Foreign Policy have been a more apt approach; because if 9/11 wasn't an attack aimed on us then 7/7 certainly was.) He seemed to give the impression that WMD's or no WMD's the assesment of intelligence after 9/11 had changed and so too had the existential threat from Saddam's regime, which he openly admitted had no links whatsoever to Al Qaeda. Interpretting intelligence effectively has nothing to do with zeitgeists or perceived threats; it has everything to do with well... interpretting intelligence acurately, as it always will do. Only Sir Roderick Lyne really seemed to get the bit between his teeth at any point in the proceedings but Blair was on a role by now and brushed all and sundry aside, reitterating his convictions over and over again. The threat of inaction over Iraq portrayed as frankly inconceivable in his assesment.

Blair then did something that to me seemed quite extordinary and so far unprecedented in this Inquiry: his testimony actually began turning into polemic. Suddenly he was posing hypothetical questions back to the Inquiry. Where would we be if we hadn't invaded? Shouldn't we be looking at this from the 2010 perspective and not 2003? The world's a safer place without Saddam the monster in it. The Iraqi's are happier now he's gone. Incredible. Truly incredible. Even Campbell didn't dare show this kind of obstinancy. But then it was always going to be all or nothing for Tony Blair.

By the afternoon he was well in his comfort zone and rambling on with that old Blair flair, even managing to berrate Iran for trying to destabilise the country as if it weren't playing by the rules. How could we have forseen this kind of behavior from the Shiite Pariah state? Surely they would be thankful for us deposing Saddam and his Sunni minority failed state. Weren't we doing them a favour? Obviously they didn't quite see it like that.

Tony Blair really surpassed himself on Friday. Not only did he manage to defend the war he had taken us into. He even hinted at the danger of avoiding another one. Saints preserve us, did the neo-cons get to him that bad?