Tony Blair Hungry for more Iraq Intervention

[Futility Personified]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/tony-blair-west-intervene-iraq-isis-military-options

Dismissing someone as insane should never really be a valid political analysis, seeing as it tends to disregard material gains from the imperialism that they'll inevitably advocate, but i'd like to hear what posters here think about this.

Surely all the lucrative financial contracts have been squeezed out of Iraq as oily blood from a battered stone at this point? The only gains that could be made at this point would be from further destabilisation of the middle east, and let's be honest, the public opinion of the "successes" of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have not been averse to considering it a failure.

What more can be gained from western intervention for the bourgeoisie?

Boris Johnson made this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27864603 saying that Tony Blair had "finally gone insane" and whilst that it funny, he does not seem to be ruling out intervention either. Thoughts?

EDIT: The Daily Mash is also chiming in on this today. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/blair-unhinged-say-lots-of-people-who-agreed-with-him-at-the-time-2014061687653

[bricolage]

It's nuts. The liberal interventionists calling for intervention here against ISIS are the same who wanted intervention in Syria on the side that ISIS were a part of. They want intervention on both sides of the same conflict!

[bricolage]

I'm also hearing a lot about Saudi funding being behind ISIS, how true is this?

[Red Economist]

On a purely human level, I can't really imagine the mixture of pain, guilt and denial mixed up with humanitarian interventionism and seeing yourself as a historical figure being tarnessed by one horrific decision that must go through Blair's head to get to this point of saying another intervention is a good idea. Irrespective of the case for intervention, he is the last person who should make that case, but the fact he's lined up to be the first probably implies a sign of guilt of "oh cr*p, it's even worse than before we got rid of Saddam. Is this what we really did?".
You'd hope reality will kick in and he'll admit he was wrong for his sake (especially if ISIS go further) as it's just sad to see someone get that twisted, but only because it's safe as he doesn't have the power to act on this. I think this is the point where Blair's going to have to accept "that all political lives end in failure" and give the public apology that everyone, British and Iraqi, deserve.

it's kind of like putting a dog down as it's just sad to watch it suffer any more.

[TC]

Maybe Tony Blair can suit up and head for his crusade on his own? I wouldn't mind that so much.

[PhoenixAsh]

Imperialists will use whatever excuse they can find in order to gain popular support for their initiatives. Last time it was WMD's, funding international terrorism and human rights violations. Before that it was invasion of Kuwait and human rights violations etc. Rinse repeat.

Of course the other parties will attack Blair to gain some political coin from it...and yes, they too are simply another face of global imperialism and have direct interests in furthering political and economic influence in Iraq. Appearances matter for the home vote.


The question is more when is the public going to realize that the current situation is a direct result from the previous intervention?

[Left Voice]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/tony-blair-iraq-essay

There he goes again, suggesting that British people have some kind of collective responsibility for the Iraq disasterpiece, despite the fact that the entire thing was the work of Blair and his cronies (along with Bush, or course).

No Blair, nobody is suggesting that "we caused this". Everybody is suggesting that you caused this, however.

[KurtFF8]

He is just delusional at this point to believe that US/UK intervention isn't to blame for the current situation in Iraq.

Even if we are to completely ignore the fact that the US/UK attack on Iraq completely destroyed that country, and that they weren't even that good at rebuilding it within the context of an imperial adventure, we don't need to look any further than the Western (and its' allies in the MidEast) role in the conflict in Syria to see that even this particular mess is at the very best an indirect result of the West's imperial ambitions.

On a nit picky note about our rhetoric though: I've seen some on the Left say that ISIS is simply a sort of proxy for US imperial interests, but that doesn't make much sense to me however. The US and West helped to create the atmosphere where ISIS has grown like it has, but I'm not sure it makes sense to go as far as to say that these are the folks that the US was supporting in the war against Assad.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/tony-blair-west-intervene-iraq-isis-military-options

Dismissing someone as insane should never really be a valid political analysis, seeing as it tends to disregard material gains from the imperialism that they'll inevitably advocate, but i'd like to hear what posters here think about this.

Surely all the lucrative financial contracts have been squeezed out of Iraq as oily blood from a battered stone at this point? The only gains that could be made at this point would be from further destabilisation of the middle east, and let's be honest, the public opinion of the "successes" of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have not been averse to considering it a failure.

What more can be gained from western intervention for the bourgeoisie?

Boris Johnson made this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27864603 saying that Tony Blair had "finally gone insane" and whilst that it funny, he does not seem to be ruling out intervention either. Thoughts?

EDIT: The Daily Mash is also chiming in on this today. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/blair-unhinged-say-lots-of-people-who-agreed-with-him-at-the-time-2014061687653

a key factor in exploiting the material gains desired in an invasion - the initial reason for the invasion in question - is keeping control of the region. the fact is that they created a basket-case and are losing control over their "influence" in the area and, as such, want to get back in and re-establish order. this isn't "insane" at all in the context of geopolitics and imperialism. its about control, if you want someone to hand over their possessions amicably, you have to have control over that person. if they are having an internal conflict, it will be difficult for you to be able to extract their possessions and, as such, you will need to use force in order to make them complicit. this is the case with iraq - the invasion didn't go as smoothly as planned and none of the imperialists were prepared for this situation. as such, they have to get back in and establish the order necessary for them to be able to take the resources they desire (this being the fundamental platform for their conquest in the first place). blair is a ceasar-esque figure. a war-monger, and he knows exactly what he's doing. this is imperialism and imperialism is always rational, to the imperialist

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Going back in may be rational and probably very lucrative from an imperialist viewpoint, but it's hard to miss the sheer incompetence at work in the whole situation. The US really does seem to be incapable of winning a ground war, or any war, despite all it's fancy toys. The whole thing is stunningly comical, too bad all those dead people are ruining the joke.

[bricolage]

On a nit picky note about our rhetoric though: I've seen some on the Left say that ISIS is simply a sort of proxy for US imperial interests, but that doesn't make much sense to me however. The US and West helped to create the atmosphere where ISIS has grown like it has, but I'm not sure it makes sense to go as far as to say that these are the folks that the US was supporting in the war against Assad.
I agree that it's crazy to talk of ISIS as somehow working for the US or being a group they necessarily fund or support. However, I think it's hard to argue that the blanket support given to the Syrian rebels (with now real thought about who that involves) hasn't in someway aided the growth of ISIS.

[ckaihatsu]

Going back in may be rational and probably very lucrative from an imperialist viewpoint, but it's hard to miss the sheer incompetence at work in the whole situation. The US really does seem to be incapable of winning a ground war, or any war, despite all it's fancy toys. The whole thing is stunningly comical, too bad all those dead people are ruining the joke.


I'd argue that it's the tail end of a steep (decade-plus) downslope for the empire -- setting the ongoing body count and carnage to the side for a moment, we may be seeing the U.S. administration's war footing with the least amount of traction ever.

[The Intransigent Faction]

It's nuts. The liberal interventionists calling for intervention here against ISIS are the same who wanted intervention in Syria on the side that ISIS were a part of. They want intervention on both sides of the same conflict!

The claim seems to be that they only armed "moderate" Syrian rebels who "disowned" ISIS...:rolleyes:

[KurtFF8]

I agree that it's crazy to talk of ISIS as somehow working for the US or being a group they necessarily fund or support. However, I think it's hard to argue that the blanket support given to the Syrian rebels (with now real thought about who that involves) hasn't in someway aided the growth of ISIS.

Absolutely, there's no question that the West helped to create this situation (both in the original invasion of Iraq and the aid to rebels in Syria). I was just ranting about how I've seen some say that ISIS is a US backed proxy which is just silly to me.

[Црвена]

Blair's egotism and the way he acts like he's still Prime Minister and that we'll lap up whatever he says is almost laughable, until you realise how much money he's making from being hated by pretty much the whole country. Stupid poser.

[khad]

He is just delusional at this point to believe that US/UK intervention isn't to blame for the current situation in Iraq.

Even if we are to completely ignore the fact that the US/UK attack on Iraq completely destroyed that country, and that they weren't even that good at rebuilding it within the context of an imperial adventure, we don't need to look any further than the Western (and its' allies in the MidEast) role in the conflict in Syria to see that even this particular mess is at the very best an indirect result of the West's imperial ambitions.

On a nit picky note about our rhetoric though: I've seen some on the Left say that ISIS is simply a sort of proxy for US imperial interests, but that doesn't make much sense to me however. The US and West helped to create the atmosphere where ISIS has grown like it has, but I'm not sure it makes sense to go as far as to say that these are the folks that the US was supporting in the war against Assad.
I guess more than a little indirectly, since what you see with ISIS today is the result of the USA killing so many incompetent jihadi leaders that eventually someone supremely competent took the reins.

Without the US thinning out the jihadi herd, you would still have largely ineffectual Al-Qaeda holed up in some caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sometimes, what doesn't kill you does indeed make you stronger.

[victorcast]

He just loves bombing people.
I think it might be some form of addiction.
Labour delendus est.

[adipocere]

It seems to me that Blair is poking his repugnant little head up to help set a narrative that will push popular opinion into believing that Obama is somehow moderate, into believing that the western lack of intervention is related to being "war weary" and to distract from the inconvenient truth that ISIS is a proxy tool to furthering western imperialism which has longterm strategic designs on the entire region.

So what Blair is saying makes perfect sense - whether or not he's entirely aware of the role he serves is not clear - sort of how Dennis Rodman doesn't seem to be fully cognizant of why he was chosen as a "diplomat" to N. Korea.