Sat, 06 Sep 2003
Michael Meacher's Statement
Michael Meacher, former environment minister in the Blair
government, has created a localized shit-storm by speaking
out on
Iraq, the War on Terror, and 9/11.
Two things make this interesting. The first is that he's
picked up on the PNAC allegations, intelligence failures
in the run-up to 9/11, and the Reichstag Fire theory, and
put them together with the west's increasing dependence
on Middle Eastern oil supplies to connect the dots in a
very ugly (but internally consistent) way. I've suspected something
like this was the real explanation ever since the war on Iraq began to
loom, but it's interesting to have a former senior politician say it in
public -- especially given the vehemence of the denials and denunciations
issuing from Downing Street and the US Embassy.
The second thing is the explosive implication of him raising
it at this point in the Hutton Enquiry. I think it's looking
inevitable that Blair is going to come out of this process
with his credibility badly dented. He may survive politically,
but it almost certainly marks the beginning of the end for
his period in office and the big upcoming question in British
politics is going to be: who will replace him when the time
comes?
Meacher has dumped a steaming turd in the foreign policy punch bowl,
associating his anti-neoconservative explanation for the 9/11/Iraq
mess with Blair's unreliability and spin. He implicitly highlights a
failure in British foreign policy at the highest level. In doing so,
he provides a stick for any alternative leadership contender to use to
beat on Tony Blair -- but if they use it they're going to have to follow
it up by distancing themselves from the Bush administration's
politics, possibly to the extent of ending the trans-Atlantic
relationship that's been a foundation stone of British foreign policy
since 1940.
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posted at: 14:16 | path: /wartime | permanent link to this entry
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