The Truth Is It Did

John Prescott is getting there:

What a pity there has been so much bad feeling towards Tony Blair since he said the horrors in Iraq were not caused by our 2003 invasion.

At the time of the second Gulf War he was undoubtedly one of Britain’s most popular Prime Ministers.

His achievements on the economy, social investment, education and health reversed a massive decline under Thatcher and Major.

And who can forget his role in getting peace in Northern Ireland?

But the invasion of Iraq and – more importantly – the aftermath have become a major cause of ­disenchantment for many.

As Tony’s Deputy Prime Minister at the time, I know I must carry my share of responsibility.

His recent statements on Iraq have clearly increased the demand for the early publication of the ­Chilcot Report into the war.

That’s something I totally support.

At the Iraq Inquiry I made clear Tony always told us the invasion was not about regime change and he was determined to push US President George W Bush down the UN route, rather than rush to war.

To his credit, that’s what he tried to do.

But it’s clear now, from his recent statements, it was all about regime change.

He advocated Western troops going into Syria and was ­critical when our parliament voted against it.

He now argues military action is ­legitimate against a regime if it appears not to advocate what he calls “open society”.

What he means is Western Christian democracy – the same Western democracy that stopped us invading Syria.

It is more than clear now that regime change and the use of political force is entirely ­justified in Tony’s eyes, even without UN support.

This is totally ­unacceptable and provokes people in our ­communities angry about the West’s actions.

I challenged Tony about the danger of becoming involved with what Bush ­acknowledged was a crusade.

The crusades during the Middle Ages were about imposing Western religious values over Muslim beliefs [I don’t necessarily disagree with that description, although my reasons are different]. 

Today it is about imposing Western ­“democratic” values over Muslims.

Surely it’s time to rethink how cultures, religions and politics ­worldwide can live together in ­prosperity and tolerance.

It is often claimed by governments that we conduct these modern-day crusades to prevent terrorism at home.

But 400 British people have already gone to fight with the ISIS Islamic terrorists.

Our involvement will not make Britain safer – it will put us at mortal risk. The final irony is we now turn to Iran – the “Evil Empire” – to join us.

So who are the good guys now? It used to be Saddam’s Iraq because of the fundamentalists in Iran.

Then we made Saddam the bad guy because he invaded oil-rich Kuwait. But we still hated Iran so we kept Saddam in place, even though he gassed to death 5,000 of his own people.

Then we invaded Iraq after 9/11, seized his oil and created a power vacuum which led to ­instability. Now we need Iran to help us out of the mess we caused.

And where will the ­Americans be? Safely back home sending drones to kill the “enemy”.

War has now become a “shoot ‘em up” video game.

But as we’ve seen in ­Pakistan, drone attacks can kill hundreds of innocent people.

The Middle East will end up hating the West even more.

Tony, I’ve always respected you and what you did for this country. You did great things and I’m proud to have served with you.

But I cannot agree our invasion of Iraq did not contribute to the chaos and violence we see in the Middle East today.

The truth is it did.

So let’s learn from the past and leave Iraq and its neighbours to sort out this mess.