Blair's bravado

Last week Tony Blair addressed the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war, expressing again his convictions that invading Iraq in March 2003 was the right thing to do.  “I had to take this decision as Prime Minister. It was a huge responsibility and there is not a single day that passes by that I don’t reflect and think about that responsibility, and so I should,” Mr Blair said. “But I genuinely believe that if we had left Saddam in power, even with what we know now, we would still have had to have dealt with him, possibly in circumstances where the threat was worse.”  His critics don’t question Blair’s sincerity so much as his judgement - going to war ill-prepared, and failing to plan or even anticipate that a country where all dissent was ruthlessly suppressed could not fail to erupt once Saddam was removed. Blair's style of government left him vulnerable, as he turned the cabinet into more of a briefing room than a place to wrestle with issues and take differing opinions seriously – as his former cabinet colleague Clare Short made clear this week at the Chilcot Inquiry.
 
These events illustrate the value of leaders being able to bring tentative decisions to trusted advisors, before embarking on a course of action with huge and perhaps unpredictable consequences.  It also highlights the necessity of applying the same moral and relational criteria to the strategy for how to implement what is deemed a moral decision, as to the decision itself.