President Donald Trump‘s suggestion that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will lead reconstruction efforts in Gaza has unleashed a flood of criticism among the red-green alliance of liberals and Islamists. Press reports suggest Blair will lead the Gaza International Transitional Authority, which will oversee Gaza for five years under a United Nations mandate. The Gaza plan will build on the precedents that led to both East Timor and Kosovo’s independence.
As word of Blair’s proposed role leaked, his detractors argued his tenure during the 2003 Iraq War should disqualify him.
As word of Blair’s proposed role leaked, his detractors argued his tenure during the 2003 Iraq War should disqualify him. He is “regarded by many in the Arab world and in the United Kingdom as a ‘war criminal,’” Al Jazeera wrote. George Galloway, a former British parliamentarian and an Iraq War critic, posted, “Once it was clear that Satan was fully occupied elsewhere Tony Blair was the obvious choice to govern Gaza ….” “War criminals are proposing a war criminal a head (sic) of … Gaza. It would be precious comedy if it were not so tragic,” former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis quipped. “War criminals are proposing a war criminal a head [sic] of … Gaza.” The belief that former President George W. Bush and Blair’s lies caused a million Iraqi deaths is received wisdom on Ivy League campuses.
The death toll activists cite is a fabrication legitimized through repetition. That is not the main problem; rather, the critics engage in moral inversion. If Iraqis died during the war, who killed them? With few exceptions, it was not the United States or the United Kingdom; rather, it was Sunni insurgents and Shi’i militiamen. The Islamic Republic of Iran cynically supported both insurgencies. So did former Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began supporting and supplying groups such as the Islamic State for sectarian and financial reasons.
Insurgents sought to maximize bloodshed. While journalists often use the passive voice to obfuscate responsibility, bombs do not simply go off; they are placed. Insurgents would scope out markets and schools to determine where and when they could cause maximum damage. U.S. and British forces fought the insurgency to protect Iraqi lives against those who would wantonly slaughter civilians for ethnic or sectarian reasons. To suggest that Bush or Blair bears responsibility for this is to imply that they should have allowed groups such as al Qaeda or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to triumph.
Many liberals self-identify as “antiracist,” but their repeated suggestion that the ouster of Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq reflects their inner racism. They assume war destroyed Iraq, but they care so little for Iraqis that they have not discovered that Iraq has not only recovered but is thriving. Iraq is the only country in the Arab world and, alongside Israel, the only country in the Middle East where election outcomes are not foreordained. More importantly, the culture of politics has changed. Iraqis once cowered for fear of disappearing into mass graves, but now they debate openly in coffee houses, universities, and Parliament. Iraqis embrace religious freedom.
Iraqis have their share of problems, but to condemn Iraq as a disaster is to ignore the reality and voices of Iraqis and use them instead as pawns in a Western political game.
Iraq’s population has almost doubled since the 2003 war; more than two-thirds of the country’s population was born or came of age after Saddam’s ouster. Per capita income has grown eightfold. New high rises dot Baghdad’s skyline. Ramadi and Fallujah are centers of commerce, not insurgency.
Iraqis have their share of problems, but to condemn Iraq as a disaster is to ignore the reality and voices of Iraqis and use them instead as pawns in a Western political game. The Left disrespects Iraqis by ignoring their reality and treating their right to democracy and freedom from sectarian violence with disdain.
Blair, like Bush, deserves praise for his foresight. He invested in a new Middle East, much like former President Harry S. Truman invested in a new vision for east Asia. Like South Korea, Iraq’s trajectory was rocky for a few decades, but Iraqis, like the South Koreans before them, overcame adversity and rose from the ashes of war to build a thriving country that neither Bush nor Truman’s partisan critics thought possible.
If Gaza could become the new Iraq under Blair’s guidance, the Palestinians would be very lucky indeed.
