We’ve been treated to several arguments from anti-war sources in the past year or so claiming that Tony Blair is a secret neo-con. The evidence for this, as with most attempts to place the neo-cons in a British context, is fairly weak.
In fact it seems to consist of two main points:
1. Neo-cons are apparently supportive of religion. (They were a Jewish cabal until the US elections when they apparently became Christian fundamentalists). Tony Blair is a Christian.
2. Neo-cons supported the invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair supported the invasion of Iraq.
Now I discover a piece in the American magazine Logosjournal written by Mark Seddon, who you must know by now is a member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee. (If you don’t know this by now you must never have read a Mark Seddon article or a media item quoting Seddon because I have yet to see any example that does not remind the reader of his election success).
According to Seddon: In truth Britain’s most non-ideological and footloose Prime Minister simply did not comprehend or appreciate just how ideological Messrs Cheney, Rove, Rice and others were. In truth, Tony Blair genuinely had no idea what the “neo-cons” were all about.
and
Liberal Britain began to turn its back on Blair, and when the Prime Minister’s impotence (sic) ignorance of the neo cons uncritical support of Israel, led to the Road Map being unofficially abandoned, Blair was left without a fig leaf as cover.
So which one is it? Zealous ideological neo-con or ignorant fool who didn’t know what the neo-cons were all about?
Just an aside In the same article Seddon also says:
Had Blair even managed to call the old protagonists of Cold War containment, such as Henry Kissinger, he might have discovered that the man behind the carpet bombing of Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh trail balked at the idea of pre-emption.
Am I missing something or is Seddon, a member of the Labour Party NEC I might remind you, actually suggesting that the fact that Kissinger was in the anti-war camp added to their case?
