I never understood the political calculus that must have been taking place inside Blair's head when he chose to be Bush's poodle. I used to live in the U.K. but that was when Labour was still Labour and the conservatives were old-fashioned conservatives. Now that Blair is teetering on the rightmost edge of the political spectrum the Conservative Party has no identity. What could they say or do that would distinguish them from Blairism? Be pals with the American wingnuts? Go the extreme cleric route? I doubt that would go down well in Britain, and in any case Blair has marked Christianity for his own self, too.
Tony Blair took his country to a war that its citizens did not want, and it seems that he knew very well how shaky the grounds were:
ony Blair was told by the government's most senior law officer in a confidential minute less than two weeks before the war that British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq could be declared illegal.
Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, spelt out to Mr Blair the dangers of Britain going to war without a second resolution. It is understood that he then went on to warn that British soldiers could be hauled before the International Criminal Court.
He warned that while he could be able to argue a "reasonable case" in favour of military action, he was far from confident a court would agree. Indeed, he added, a court "might well conclude" that war would be found unlawful without a further UN resolution.
In a legal opinion which Mr Blair has repeatedly sought to conceal, the attorney warned the prime minister that Britain might be able argue it could go to war on the basis of past UN resolutions, but only if there were "strong factual grounds" that Iraq was still in breach of its disarmament obligations.
Does Blair stay up at night wondering if he got his money's worth? Well, we all will know the answer after the oncoming elections.