A Much-belated Apology

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, tendered an apology in an interview on Sunday that has come much too late to be of any good to anyone. But then that is the ture of almost all apologies in any case. He apologized for “mistakes” in the planning of the Iraq War, admitting that “the intelligence we received was wrong”. During an interview, Tony Blair conceded that there were “elements of truth” in the view that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the “principal cause” of the rise of the Islamic State (IS). “I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong,” Blair said, adding, “I also apologize for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime... I find it hard to apologize for removing Saddam. I think, even from today in 2015, it is better that he is not there than that he is there.”

The reference, of course, is to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which led to the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein. It was an invasion in which Britain was a major ally of the United States as it has always been in any major military activity of the United States ever since the end of World War II. And that is how Britain keeps getting involved in military actions of the US that do not bring glory to mankind. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was one such misadventure that constituted a total violation of the sovereignty of another country. If Saddam Hussein was a bad ruler for Iraq, it was for the Iraqis to find ways of getting rid of him and choosing another leader, regardless of the aberrations of the political system that might have made this an extremely difficult task. The only justification for the US invasion of Iraq was that the US is the sole superpower in the world and is in a position to violate the sovereignty of any country without that country being in a position to do anything about it. One of the major reasons for the United States invading Iraq in 2003 and earlier was that having dispensed with the bullion backing of the US dollar, the United States had been using the crude oil of the entire world as a surrogate of the bullion backing. The United States had stipulated that all intertiol trading in crude oil would have to be in US dollars, regardless of the countries involved in the trade. Saddam Hussein was contemplating trading in Euros instead of US dollars. And that was the principal crime for which he had to pay with his death at the hands of the United States.

It is significant that Tony Blair should have acknowledged the link between the Iraq War of 2003 and the rise of the Islamic State (IS) which the United States and Britain are now desperately seeking to control without much success. It is also unfortute that it should have taken Britain more than a decade to realize what happens when the honour and sovereignty of any country are trifled with. And considering the strong bond that exists among Islamic countries, the fallout of jihadi elements seeking to wreak vengeance for the invasion of any Islamic country should have been expected. It is surprising that the inquiry into the British involvement in the Iraq War, led by counsellor John Chilcot, and established by another former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, seems to have been relegated to cold storage. The fil conclusions of the inquiry have not yet been published. Scotland’s First Minister Nicole Sturgeon regards the delay in the Chilcot report as a scandal. It would be interesting to find out how far the inquiry supported the involvement of Britain in the Iraq War of 2003.

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