Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

With the tide turning against the occupiers in Iraq and the James Baker led Iraq Study Group pointedly shunning the neocons responsible for the war, Tony Blair narrowly staved off a parliamentary inquiry at home, so he can play-act at courage abroad. The man who had actively campaigned against a ceasefire during Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon is now championing dialogue with Iran and Syria (his former neocon cohorts disapprove heartily by the way).

In a country where courtrooms are graced with images of men who forced China to trade in opium in the 19th century, and streets are named after men who oversaw massacres from Africa to the Subcontinent, such follies are graciously pardoned. Blair’s ”brilliant” speech at the Labour conference, while distinctly impervious to fact or truth, was already treated to a rapturous reception. Contrast that with the opprobrium Hugo Chavez courted when he delivered some home truths at the UN, except that in his case cultural deficiences prevented him from assigning higher value to Oxbridge euphemisms than to substance.