A “frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussauds”
Et tu, FT?
I said the mandarins would turn against him and they have, with gusto – this from today’s issue:
Mr Blair should recognise his errors and go
By Rodric Braithwaite
Published: August 2 2006 19:27A spectre is stalking British television, a frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussaud?s. This one, unusually, seems to live and breathe. Perhaps it comes from the Central Intelligence Agency?s box of technical tricks, programmed to spout the language of the White House in an artificial English accent.
[…]
But whatever our sympathy for Israel?s dilemma, Mr Blair?s prime responsibility is to defend the interests of his own country. This he has signally failed to do. Stiff in opinions, but often in the wrong, he has manipulated public opinion, sent our soldiers into distant lands for ill-conceived purposes, misused the intelligence agencies to serve his ends and reduced the Foreign Office to a demoralised cipher because it keeps reminding him of inconvenient facts. He keeps the dog, but he barely notices if it barks or not. He prefers to construct his ?foreign policy? out of self-righteous soundbites and expensive foreign travel.
Mr Blair has done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led the UK to disaster in Suez 50 years ago. In the past 100 years ? to take the highlights ? we have bombed and occupied Egypt and Iraq, put down an Arab uprising in Palestine and overthrown governments in Iran, Iraq and the Gulf. We can no longer do these things on our own, so we do them with the Americans. Mr Blair?s total identification with the White House has destroyed his influence in Washington, Europe and the Middle East itself: who bothers with the monkey if he can go straight to the organ-grinder?
Mr Blair has seriously damaged UK domestic politics, too. His prevarication over a ceasefire confirms to many of our Muslim fellow citizens that Britain is engaged in a secular war against the Arab world and by extension, against the Muslim world. He has thus made it harder to achieve what should be a goal of policy for any British government ? to build a tolerant multi-ethnic society within our own islands. And though he chooses not to admit it, he has made us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. These are not achievements of which a British prime minister should be proud.
[..]
Sir Rodric Braithwaite, UK ambassador to Moscow 1988-92 and then foreign policy adviser to John Major and chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, is author of Moscow 1941 (Profile, 2006)
