Progressive
self-delusion

Tony Blair has sent me a letter.  Every E-enrolled Labour Party member has received a copy of the full text of Blair’s Sedgefield speech putting forward his new defence of military intervention in Iraq.  And it comes with a rambling covering letter of great length, repeating much of the Speech. 

“The notion of intervening on humanitarian grounds has been gaining currency.  I set this out, following the Kosovo war, in a speech in Chicago in 1999, where I called for a doctrine of international community, where in certain clear circumstances, we do intervene, even though we are not directly threatened.  I said this was not just to correct injustice, but also because in an increasingly inter-dependent world, our self-interest was allied to the interests of others… I was already reaching for a different philosophy in international relations, different from the traditional one that has held sway since the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, namely that a country's internal affairs are for it alone - and that you don't interfere unless it threatens you, or breaches a treaty, or triggers an obligation of alliance.” 

Now - leave aside for a moment the obvious dislocation here, for the two themes are quite unrelated.  But the "imperviousness" of the nation-state is a perfectly serious political issue, and Blair is to be credited with confronting it.  We political activists and policy-wonks have addressed it - been there, done that, explored those political byways.  But there is no quick fix, no easy solution, and we have broadly concluded that prevailing conventions are well-founded and should be respected.   

The doctrine of retaining “closed state jurisdictions” is troublesome, and difficult, and it does on occasion constrain international action.  But most of us have reached the conclusion, upon mature political consideration, that the “territorial state” with sovereignty and territorial integrity, remains the best foundation for international order.  Its territorial integrity should not be breached by force other than by UN agreement.  The world order needs the security of a clear doctrine of territorial sovereignty, under which the conduct of life in each territory is entrusted to a sovereign government. 

Blair’s conclusion is clearly different - namely that powerful individual states are entitled to act as “good sheriffs”, riding the globe with six-guns at the ready.  And that the US and the UK were entitled to attack Iraq, even though the mature UN conclusion was that such action was not justified.  Blair castigates the UN for being “paralysed” – merely because the majority did not agree with George Bush and himself.   

I share Blair’s keen interest with finding new forms of conflict resolution without resorting to “war”.  If that were truly his focus, he would have my unqualified backing.  The Quakers are among the most active in exploring those alternatives, and there is much more that can be done on this front. 

But Blair has clearly become a man “at war”.  His psychology is clearly that of an embattled war leader, with the result that the terrorist threat is being grossly exaggerated.  And in that process, he has lost perspective, lost any sense of objective judgment.   All that became evident, in the course of his Sedgefield speech last Friday – and was reinforced by the chilling observations of Hans Blix, in his Memoirs, also published this week.  And Denis Healey was, I suspect, getting at the same thing. 

In the past, in dealing with terrorism, we have studiously avoided the language and psychology of war, and that was wise.  The language of “policing” and the maintenance of civic order helps to keep leaders in touch with reality.  Faced with long-standing terrorism in Northern Ireland, we consistently denied to the IRA the satisfaction of “going to war” with the United Kingdom, and consistently adhered to the administration of public order within “our” territorial state.  French and Spanish Governments have adopted the same strategy, in contesting separatist terrorism.