Churchillian? Not A Chance! at The ThunderDragon

“Tony Blair’s backing for the Iraq war will be honoured by history in the same way as Churchill’s decision to fight Hitler, Iraq’s former prime minister has told The Sunday Telegraph.In remarks that will be a welcome fillip to Mr Blair, Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that getting rid of Saddam Hussein would be a legacy that future generations of Britons would be “proud of”.” (The Telegraph)

Not. A. Chance. Fighting the Second World war against an aggressive attacker such as Hitler is entirely different to invading Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Hitler was the aggressor in World War Two, in order to unify the self-defined “Aryan race” inside a Greater Germany. Saddam appeared to be quite happy being a dictator within his own borders, and appeared to have no intention of expanding them by military force. although Saddam was a brutal tyrant, he was hardly on a par with Hitler (who only actually started exterminating Jews after the war had begun - when there was no ‘world opinion’ that could work against them, and after the number of Jews within his territory had expanded from a few hundred thousand to over two and a half million).

Mr Jaafari said that:

“What Tony Blair has done in Iraq is something that is very important, and history will remind us of that… He has helped the Iraqi people to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Unfortunately, I see the situation in the West and how they deal with the Iraqi crisis now. But future generations, I think, will see Tony Blair’s decision to get rid of Saddam Hussein in the same way as Winston Churchill got rid of Hitler.”

Erm, no. Ain’t gonna happen. As mentioned above, there is a huge difference in the reasons for the Second World War and the Second Gulf War. Despite the aim of spreading ‘democracy and light’ into the region, even though this emerged primarily after the “45 minutes” dodgy dossier had been exposed, it was Bush and Blair who were the aggressors, not Saddam.

To describe Tony Blair as “Churchillian” is a travesty of language and history. His famous quote “we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender” could hardly ever be attributed to Blair, or describe his actions (unless, of course, you are referring to his fight to remain in office long after his power has gone). So much more appropraie a desciprion of Blair would be Churchills quote about Clement Attlee: “A modest man, but then he has so much to be modest about.”

Source: The Telegraph, Wikipedia