Following his Chicago and Warsaw speeches justifying military intervention to protect human rights and overthrow tyrants, it was always likely that Blair would back US President George W Bush in his invasion of Iraq aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein. And following the Kosovo war in 1999, which he regarded as a big success, Blair had developed an impatience with diplomacy to resolve humanitarian crises.
Blair’s default position was to favour military force over diplomacy. But Blair did not claim that Saddam was in cahoots with Bin Laden and AQ, in contrast to the hawks in the US administration. Nor did Blair claim that the war was for oil. Additionally, while Bush enjoyed overwhelming public support, this was definitely not the case in Britain.
Did Blair seek to create public backing for war by exaggerating the threat Saddam posed? Does this explain the ‘dodgy dossier’ which predicted (falsely) that Saddam had WMD and could use them against British troops at the sovereign base in Cyprus on a 45-minute timeframe?
This talk evaluates all these and other relevant issues leading up to and beyond the Iraq War.
This lecture is part of the 'Controversies in UK Foreign Policy: Diplomacy or Military Force?' lecture series, taking place on Fridays from 20 October to 24 November 2023. You may either register for individual lectures or you may choose to register for the entire lecture series at a reduced price.
Please note: this lecture will close to enrolments at 23:59 UTC on 14 November 2023.