A Very Modest Dose of Reality

Now that the nominee for US defence secretary has said it, Tony can say it too: the war in Iraq is not being won. Nevertheless, life in the bunker continues much as always. It is important that we go on doing exactly what we have been doing (or "go on to succeed in the mission that we have set ourselves"). Asked to confirm that future Iraq policy might be determined "by the British government and in the British national interest" for a change, Tony said that it was in the British interest to remove Saddam Hussein, who was not a threat to Britain. He also said that it was in the British interest to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the US after 9/11, an event in which Iraq played no part whatever.

The problem in Iraq, you see, is that "outside extremists are linking up with internal extremists in order to thwart the will of the Iraqi people", much as the British and US governments linked up with Saddam Hussein for a considerable period before August 1990. The will of the Iraqi people, as we all know, was "expressed in their election", and in the presence of a hundred thousand foreign fighters sent by a couple of external extremists; hence "in Iraq and Afghanistan it is important that we build the capability of those governments and those countries to withstand the terrorists and make sure democracy succeeds" in placing the correct people in charge.

A "process of reconciliation" is also important, since it is becoming plain even to the nominee for US defence secretary, and hence to Tony himself, that the number of Iraqis who have reconciled themselves to our plans for their country is something less than adequate. Tony also indicated his wish to "pursue what I call a policy for the whole of the Middle East ... starting with finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" by helping to arm the Righteous State, meanwhile renewing Britain's share in the US nuclear arsenal while threatening Iran over its own small and possibly nonexistent deterrent. All this is what Tony considers to be an attempt "to put that region on a more stable footing".