A 'truth' worse than lying

In drawing a comparison with the war in Kosovo and previous bombing raids on Iraq, Lord Goldsmiths' memo also draws attention to the dubious basis of legality of those conflicts: “[O]n a number of previous occasions, including in relation to Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 and Kosovo in 1999, UK forces have participated in military action on the basis of advice from my predecessors that the legality of the action under international law was no more than reasonably arguable. But a “reasonable case” does not mean that if the matter ever came before a court I would be confident that the court would agree with the view.”

Why has New Labour repeatedly rushed into such conflicts on such a dubious basis? The answer lies in a mix of moral certitude and political constraints. To start with, Blair and his cohorts seem to have take an extraordinarily benign view of Britain's role in the world as a 'force for good'. Blair thinks that 'The spread of our values makes us safer' - a doctrine of international community which he outlined during the Kosovo war, incidentally. In practice, British foreign policy has rarely lived up to such ideals, as Mark Curtis has amply documented.

With the decline of Britain's empire, these illusions have been held together by the myth of a 'special relationship' with Washington. Political commentators have often given credence to this view, although it is worth noting that Blair's powers to influence George Bush seem to extend little beyond the power to agree with him. In the case of Iraq, there is little reason to doubt that Blair wanted a second UN resolution – since the case for a 'moral' intervention requires at least the veneer of legality. But in acting as if this would be possible, and sending troops to the Iraqi border, there was only ever going to be one outcome once Blair realised (some time after the rest of us) that the intellectual basis of his position – which rested on the classic 3^rd way fudge of Britain as a 'bridge' between the US and Europe – was untenable. This strikes me as a spectacular and ideologically-driven misjudgement, rather than an out and out lie – albeit one that quickly necessitated the most dubious of retrospective justifications. But it is no better for that. If there's one thing worse than a Prime Minister lying, its one who is resolutely convinced that he was acting in the name of a discredited 'truth'. OR

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