YP Letters: Blair's bond with US began with striving for peace in Ireland

PEOPLE seem to forget that Tony Blair presided over the achievement of peace in Northern Ireland after 30 years of bloodshed. One of his most significant initiatives was to persuade Bill Clinton to cut off the funding for IRA weapons and explosives from Irish Americans and to visit Northern Ireland to pledge US support for the peace process. How could Blair not pledge our support to the US after such a gesture?

The Chilcot inquiry’s terms were to examine the UK involvement in the Iraq conflict in complete isolation from that of the US, this is a pretty one- sided assessment. A CBS poll in the US prior to the war concluded that 64 per cent of the US public supported military action in Iraq.

One gets the impression that this war was going to happen regardless of what the UK felt about it and arguably regardless of weapons inspections and intelligence reports on WMD.

The reaction to the report seems as if people think the UK was entirely responsible.

The correspondence from Blair to Bush which Chilcot presented in his summary revealed that Blair was encouraging Bush to pursue UN agreements and also warning of the consequences of insurgency and instability in the region and the need for planning for the aftermath. Whether the world is a better or worse place without Saddam is a difficult question. Aid agencies concluded that at least one million civilians died at the hands of Saddam. Who could argue that getting rid of him was not a noble objective?

The troubles now engulfing the Middle East began with the Arab Spring in Tunisia. It was a peaceful civilian protest which was successful and initially so was Egypt. In Syria however Assad refused to go, insurgency resulted and this gave rise to Daesh and the current disaster.

What of the alternative? Look at Syria, public opinion and Parliament were overwhelming against intervening after Assad used chemical weapons against his own people and on this occasion we influenced the US likewise. And the result? 300,000 civilians barrel-bombed to death in four years and four million refugees. Arguably much worse than Iraq.

Tony Blair had to choose between one hell or another. He chose to support the country who committed 60,000 troops to help us defeat the Nazis, trillions of dollars into Nato and made a major contribution to peace in Northern Ireland.

Mistakes were made, but let’s put aside this lynch-mob mentality. There’s a much bigger picture here than Chilcot was asked to consider.