We’ve noted many times here that, for some opponents of the war in Iraq, the issue has become more about settling scores with Blair and Bush than concern about the future of Iraq but I don’t think I have seen a stronger example of such an approach than this brief piece from Richard Ingrams in the Observer.
There is one good reason for being in favour of a Bush victory and it is this: Bush is responsible for going to war in Iraq and for the terrible chaos that has resulted.
Had he lost the election, he could have walked away to write his memoirs, leaving the mess for Senator Kerry to try to clear up. But as things now stand, it is up to Bush, having made his bed, to jolly well lie in it. And exactly the same is true of our own dear Prime Minister who keeps telling us of his urge to move on and talk of something other than the war, when almost every day brings news of fresh atrocities.
Earlier in the year, Blair was said to be thinking of packing it all in and handing over to Gordon Brown. But then Brown would have been in the same boat as Kerry, inheriting a disaster not of his making from which there would be no easy escape.
There is some justice now in the reflection that both Bush and Blair are left to try to sort it all out, with the strong probability that things will go from bad to worse and that, like characters in a tragic play, the two of them will go down in flames, the victims of their own pride and self-righteousness. It may not be much, but I offer this comforting thought to all the many readers who may be sunk in gloom at the re-election of the appalling Mr Bush.
