Tony Blair: a final act of leadership needed

This evening Radio 4 will be broadcasting a programme called “What Syria means for Britain”, presented by John Kampfner. In it he will be interviewing, among others, Tony Blair. When asked to reflect on how he now sees the Iraq war of a decade ago, Blair will not, I can exclusively reveal, say this:

“I’m sorry. I let down my friends. I let down the country. I let down our system of government, and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government but will think it is all too corrupt.”

Those words were spoken by Richard Nixon in his interview with David Frost in 1977, and they have been replayed frequently in the days following Frost’s death. Now, I’m not saying Blair is another Nixon. I’m not even saying that Blair necessarily owes the country such an apology. But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if the former PM could give an interview in which he showed something like the humility, candour and contrition that former President Nixon eventually did?

Kampfner speculated in an interesting post for the Guardian as to why Blair seems unable or unwilling to concede that many people in this country remain convinced they were hopelessly misled over the question of WMD in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Is it simply “denial”? Has he perhaps been given legal advice that he must never even acknowledge this point? As Kampfner hinted, maybe we are moving into territory better explored by psychologists than journalists.

But it was striking, in his interview with Kirsty Wark on Newsnight to mark the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war a few months back, how unapologetic Blair remained. His arguments, made strongly, are built around an unflinching acceptance of the need for military intervention at certain times. He came across as someone driven by sincere and intense conviction. In recent days, too, he has repeated his warnings, in both The Times and the Sunday Times. And he has explicitly criticised the Labour leadership for failing to show sufficient determination, as he might put it, on the need to strike at the Assad regime.

But there is a big problem with this. British public opinion is heavily against him. MPs may have gone wobbly on Syria, as Mrs Thatcher might have put it, but they have done so for some quite good and hardly ignoble reasons. Their constituents are worried. They themselves are worried. They do not believe that a limited military strike would be the end of the matter, and they fear Britain being dragged into yet another extended military commitment. Finally, they do not know if they can believe the intelligence that is being presented to them.

It did not help that in his Newsnight interview someone had decided to leave the room in semi darkness, making Blair look like a rather gloomy, isolated figure. But worse than that: as he pounded away describing the terrors that, he argued, potentially lay in store, and why therefore we must always be ready for further and yet further military action, there was a whiff of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove in the air. Worse – this viewer was reminded of the closing scenes of one of the Pink Panther movies, when Herbert Lom has been driven to distraction by the incompetence of Inspector Clouseau. If Blair were to walk up and down Oxford Street telling us that the end is nigh he would not be any more convincing than the people who have tried using the same technique to tell us that in the past.

To be clear: I do not think Blair lied about WMD. Watch his March 2003 speech to the Commons again. That is not the speech of someone who is making things up. He meant it. He was convinced. I agree rather with Lord [Robin] Butler’s observation, made in a recent Panorama programme, that Blair had “misled himself”. He had placed too much faith in intelligence that was, in truth, less substantial or credible than he believed.

One of the main reasons politicians are struggling to make the case for military action now is that the Iraq “business” is unsettled. Maybe the eventual publication of the Chilcot report will help. Robert Fox has reported in the Evening Standard that Chilcot’s work is more or less complete. It is expected to make very difficult reading for Blair in particular. Perhaps this would be the moment, on its publication, for the former PM to give a more candid and humble account of his actions.

Until we get that sort of “Nixon moment” debate in this country will be stuck. Of course it was frustrating for many when the current prime minister suddenly ruled out any British involvement in military action on Syria, declaring: “I get it.” But what did he get? That Britain is now isolationist, turning its back on the world? I don’t believe that. We are stuck because we haven’t “moved on”, and we haven’t moved on because, I fear, Blair has not made it possible for us to do so.

When the Queen visited The Times newspaper in 1985, during the miners’ strike, she observed to Paul Routledge that “It’s all about one man, isn’t it?”, referring (we must assume) to Arthur Scargill, then President of the NUM. I have a similar feeling about the stale and fruitless rows we keep having about Syria (and Iraq) at the moment. It’s all about one man, isn’t it? We know he cares a lot about leadership. It is his duty to show some leadership on this issue, and offer the country catharsis. We’d all be better off for it, Blair included.