Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Non sara' solo Dio a giudicare Tony Blair.

Quoto l'articolo parola per parola.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2078846,00.html
Tony Blair's opposition to an immediate ceasefire in the Lebanon war
last
summer precipitated his downfall. Now that he has announced the date
of his
departure from Downing Street, his entire Middle East record needs to
be
placed under an uncompromising lens.
Blair came to office with no experience of, and virtually no interest
in,
foreign affairs, and ended by taking this country to war five times.
Blair
boasts that his foreign policy was guided by the doctrine of liberal
interventionism. But the war in Iraq is the antithesis of liberal
intervention. It is an illegal, immoral and unnecessary war, a war
undertaken on a false prospectus and without sanction from the UN.
Blair's entire record in the Middle East is one of catastrophic
failure. He
used to portray Britain as a bridge between the two sides of the
Atlantic.
By siding with America against Europe on Iraq, however, he helped to
destroy
the bridge. Preserving the special relationship with America was the
be all
and end all of Blair's foreign policy. He presumably supported the
Bush
administration over Iraq in the hope of exercising influence on its
policy.
Yet there is no evidence that he exercised influence on any
significant
policy issue. His support for the neoconservative agenda on Iraq was
uncritical and unconditional.
Blair failed to understand that America's really special relationship
is
with Israel, not Britain. Every time that George Bush had to choose
between
Blair and Ariel Sharon, he chose the latter. Blair's special
relationship
with Bush was a one-way street: Blair made all the concessions and got
nothing tangible in return.
American policy towards the Middle East was doomed to failure from the
start, and the end result has been to saddle Britain with a share of
the
responsibility for this failure. The premise behind American policy
was that
Iraq was the main issue in Middle East politics and that regime change
in
Baghdad would weaken the Palestinians and force them to accept a
settlement
on Israel's terms. The road to Jerusalem, it was argued, went through
Baghdad. This premise was wrong. Iraq was a non-issue; it did not pose
a
threat to any of its neighbours, and certainly not to America or
Britain.
The real issue was Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories
and
America's support for Israel in its savage colonial war against the
Palestinian people.
When seeking the approval of the Commons for the war, Blair pledged
that
after Iraq was disarmed, he and his American friends would seek a
solution
to the Palestine problem. He has utterly failed to deliver on this
promise.
True, Blair was the driving force behind the "road map" that envisaged
the
emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the
end of
2005. But Sharon wrecked the road map. In return for the unilateral
withdrawal from Gaza, Sharon exacted a written American agreement to
Israel's retention of the major settlement blocs on the West Bank.
Blair
publicly endorsed the nefarious Sharon-Bush pact. This was the most
egregious British betrayal of the Palestinians since the Balfour
declaration
of 1917.
Blair and Bush have also betrayed the Iraqi people. To begin with,
there was
much brave rhetoric about bringing democracy to Iraq and turning it
into a
model for the rest of the Arab world. But the rhetoric was empty. The
neoconservatives who drove American policy were interested in
overthrowing
Saddam Hussein and in nothing else.
The allied invasion of Iraq was not an isolated episode but part of
the
so-called global war on terror. But the overthrow of the Ba'ath regime
in
Iraq only exacerbated the problem of terrorism. The invasion of Iraq
has
given a powerful boost to al-Qaida and its confederates by damaging
Britain's reputation and radicalising its young Muslims. The London
bombs
may not have been a direct result of the Iraq war - but they are
indisputably a part of the blowback.
What we have in Iraq today is chronic instability, an incipient civil
war,
endemic violence and anarchy, an upsurge of terrorist activity of
every
kind, and a national insurgency to which the allies have no answer.
The
neocons did not bother to plan for postwar reconstruction. Occupation
was
accompanied by devastation and destruction on a massive scale and a
civilian
death toll estimated by one source at 655,000.
The allies pride themselves on having brought democracy to the Iraqi
people,
but they have failed in the primary duty of any government: to provide
security for the civilian population. The upshot is that America and
its
pillion passenger in the "war against terror" are now embroiled in a
vicious, protracted and unwinnable conflict.
Blair has the audacity to say that God will be his judge over the Iraq
war.
This is a curious attitude for a democratic politician to adopt.
History
will surely pass a harsh judgment on Blair. He has the worst record on
the
Middle East of any British prime minister in the past century,
infinitely
worse than that of Anthony Eden, who at least had the decency to
accept
responsibility for the Suez debacle.
     *· *Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at St
Antony's
College, Oxford, and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab
World.

      *· *Avi Shlaim 
Ovvero il cocco dell' "antisionismo" britannico.
Il prototipo dell'ebreo buono.
Nonché uno storico piuttosto pomposo e sloppy.
Cose si perdonano, quando si è molto buoni.
Tb
-- 
רפוה שלמה לחולה פרנץ בן יוסף וחנה

Quoto l'articolo parola per parola.
Niente di cui meravigliarsi.  Le ca***te del Guardian sono ben
conosciute.  E tu nelle ca***te e nella merda ci sei sempre sguazzato
allegramente, vero Torrieri? :)
-Stefano