If we are to go to war with Iraq, Mr Blair must tell us why
SIMON HEFFER
This is the time of year when wars break out. President Bush could not have made it clearer that he wishes, in the seasonal spirit, to remove Saddam Hussein. His energy secretary warns the world to stockpile oil. Invitations from Baghdad to send in weapons inspectors are peremptorily dismissed. The Ark Royal is steaming (if that is what Her Majesty's ships still do) towards the Middle East. Many believe an attack is inevitable, and that Britain will be part of it. The Labour party is disquieted. The usual suspects — Mr Tam Dalyell, Mr George Galloway — oppose any offensive against Iraq. Also, though, senior military men warn that our army is overstretched, its kit is not suitable for a desert war, and that any fight in Iraq could be long, messy and inconclusive. King Abdullah of Jordan tells Mr Bush that Mr Blair has reservations about an American strike. So where do we go from here?
Mr Blair seems terribly confused. His commitment to help our American allies after 11 September was noble and right. However, each step of the war against terrorism — just as in the second world war, when we were allies — needs to be considered, jointly, before action is taken. The consideration about an attack on Iraq must be extremely complex, akin to that of calls to open a second front in 1943. There was a time when the issue would have been, first and foremost, the safety of the Queen's realm. If Saddam had the capacity, or our intelligence told us that he was manufacturing the capacity, to launch a chemical, biological or nuclear strike against us, then there would be no question. We would attack him and seek to destroy his offensive capability. Questions about what happens in Iraq after Saddam are pompous, blithering and pointless in this context. If he can kill us, we must get him first, and the governance of Iraq can be dealt with in due course. Would we, for God's sake, have held off defeating Hitler because we were worried about how we would rule Germany afterwards?
However, in a world of alliances, this is not just about us. It is not even about what power Saddam has to attack America. His favoured local target, already well within striking range, is Israel, We could say, Oh, you know, Saddam can't get at us, and even if he could he wouldn't want to, and he certainly wouldn't take on America.' But what would Britain do if we woke up one morning and found that Saddam had wiped out hundreds of thousands of Israelis in a strike on Tel Aviv? Where would that leave us? We can imagine, if it had not gone after him already, what America's response would be. Where would we stand?
If what one hears dribbling out from intelligence sources is correct, the government has every right to consider seriously joining in an attack on Saddam. However, Mr Blair has failed badly in communicating this point. Some of the anti-war people are right: you cannot go around the world bumping off people just because you don't like them. However, not liking Saddam is not the point. The government can only properly consider fighting him if he poses a mortal threat to the West, directly or indirectly. It is time we heard what that mortal threat is, so that the government might earn the moral authority to enable our armed forces to participate in what could be an unpleasant and protracted conflict.
Sadly, the way Mr Blair is used to doing business is at odds with the necessity of the present situation. First, a prime minister who has disregarded Parliament throughout his term of office (forgetting his stunt of appearing before committee chairmen recently) had better start using it now. If there is an early prospect of our men going into battle — and Ark Royal's movements very strongly suggest that there is — then he must recall Parliament, and without further delay. So what if his French holiday gets fouled up, and lobby correspondents have to abandon their pools and gites and come back to watch it?
He cannot possibly take us into a war of any description without our elected representatives having the chance to debate the issue, and to ask the salient questions. If he refuses, it would not just be typical arrogance. It would suggest that he was about to commit British blood and treasure to an enterprise so fraught with the potential to go horribly wrong that he was scared to commit it to public analysis. If that is so, then he had better not give the enterprise another thought.
It is not, of course, just the opinion of Members of Parliament that matters. The public need to be with him too. No attempt has been made to tell us why it is important for our future security that Saddam Hussein be removed. Mr Blair must now do this. The British people are not by nature appeasers or pacifists. If he can make a clear case to us why we have to assist the Americans against Iraq, he will have won the most difficult battle of all. If he cannot, then there are serious questions to be asked about why we have come this far.
What is so worrying about Mr Blair is that he is a man at war with his instincts. It is peculiar that he should be so at one with America — a land, a culture and an ideology he can barely comprehend. The way in which Mr Bush has a concept of nationhood, is prepared to defend to the death his national identity and way of life, and will take decisive action without regard to the sensibilities of others, is all anathema to the Blair way. The appeasers, conciliators and cowards in Europe, who are Mr Blair's natural bedfellows, would much rather someone else fought their battles for them, while they fanny about introvertedly, regarding only themselves and their increasingly absurd. corrupt and irrelevant 'project'.
Showing solidarity after 11 September was easy; now the game gets more difficult. Has Mr Blair got the bottle to stay in? Can he present to his party, to Parliament, and to the country the reasons for doing so? Or, if those reasons do not stand up, can he find the bottle to get out? At the moment, we are just drifting, and that is unforgivable. Let us have a war against this savage by all means, but only if our Prime Minister takes us into it for reasons we all understand, and with a sense of conviction we can support.
Simon Heifer is a Daily Mail columnist.
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