An Inconsistency
Many on the left and others opposed to Bliar's foreign adventureism poodleism whinge that the ongoing slaughter in Iraq - more deaths in a month than in all 30 years of the "troubles" in Northern Ireland - is proof that we should never have gone there in the first place. Many of the same people argue that the slaughter by Israel of so many Lebanese (not quite as many in a month as in Iraq, but still an awful lot) is proof that we should intervene.
So what's it to be? Killing people == we shouldn't be there, or killing people == we should be there?
The correct answer, of course, is that we shouldn't have gone to Iraq because the reasons presented for so doing at the time were all lies, and because there was no idea as to what to do once there. The caualties since then are not the issue. If Bliar had said that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who needed to be removed, and if there had been any kind of plan for reconstruction and reconciliation afterwards - a de-Baathisation and a Marshall Plan for Iraq if you like - then I would probably have supported that. I'd still criticise him for not going on to overthrow the dictators in Zimbabwe, Burma and a million other places, but at least it would be a good start.