Bliar the 'peace envoy' quits

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Pierre

He's done a crackin' job. all that peace we've enjoyed in the Middle East.

Yup, all Tony's fault ... if it wasn't for Tony, we'd have peace in the Middle East by now. Thank god he's going .. ISIS, Israel, Asad and Hamas have been waiting for this moment. Expect them to give up their arms any day now ..

[Horizon]

The irony is that if Blair and Bush hadn't had their Iraqi adventure, Saddam would've remained and there would be no ISIS/ISIL etc

That's the thing with getting rid of the bad guy because you might get someone/something worse.

MIddle Eastern peace and Tony Blair are two phrases that do not go together.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Yup, all Tony's fault ... if it wasn't for Tony, we'd have peace in the Middle East by now. Thank god he's going .. ISIS, Israel, Asad and Hamas have been waiting for this moment. Expect them to give up their arms any day now ..

You're so right. Illegal wars, ill-judged interventions and kowtowing to Bush are totally irrelevant and have nothing whatsoever to do with the problems in the Middle East. We should all thank Bliar for his legacy and honest leadership...

Originally Posted by ianch99

Yup, all Tony's fault ... if it wasn't for Tony, we'd have peace in the Middle East by now. Thank god he's going .. ISIS, Israel, Asad and Hamas have been waiting for this moment. Expect them to give up their arms any day now ..

The Middle East is full of nasty, powerful men. The wisdom of our fathers was to ensure that each nasty, powerful man was no more or less powerful than the one next door. They still went about doing nasty things, but they were confined, and their nastiness was limited.

When we invaded Iraq, we destroyed that delicate balance. The outcome has been chaos, much more nastiness, and a lot less confinement. We freed the Kurds from Saddam's chemical weapons only so they could get beheaded by nutters from an Islamofascist death cult. Yay us.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Yup, all Tony's fault ... if it wasn't for Tony, we'd have peace in the Middle East by now. Thank god he's going .. ISIS, Israel, Asad and Hamas have been waiting for this moment. Expect them to give up their arms any day now ..

Did I say it was his fault? And I'm referencing Israel and Palaestine here, his track record over the past 8 years in the position has been pretty low on positive results, wouldn't you say.

No doubt you will advise me of one of his great successes?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Did I say it was his fault? And I'm referencing Israel and Palaestine here, his track record over the past 8 years in the position has been pretty low on positive results, wouldn't you say.

No doubt you will advise me of one of his great successes?

There has been no progress because the Palestinians and Israel do not want peace. That's not Tony Blair's fault.

---------- Post added at 13:25 ---------- Previous post was at 13:16 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

The Middle East is full of nasty, powerful men. The wisdom of our fathers was to ensure that each nasty, powerful man was no more or less powerful than the one next door. They still went about doing nasty things, but they were confined, and their nastiness was limited.

When we invaded Iraq, we destroyed that delicate balance. The outcome has been chaos, much more nastiness, and a lot less confinement. We freed the Kurds from Saddam's chemical weapons only so they could get beheaded by nutters from an Islamofascist death cult. Yay us.

I am not sure I agree with you on the limited nastiness. Gassing 1000's of men, women and children is not a minor misdemeanor.

I agree with you about the balance being broken and that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle though.

Maybe in hindsight, the west should have just watched Saddam kill his own people and said "stop or we will say stop again"

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

There has been no progress because the Palestinians and Israel do not want peace. That's not Tony Blair's fault.

You need to take a minute, and think before you post.

Of course they don't won't peace, if they wanted peace then we wouldn't need a bleedin' peace envoy would we?

It was his job to get them to talk to each other, to find a way to promote peace.

And he failed, miserably.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Pierre

You need to take a minute, and think before you post.

Of course they don't won't peace, if they wanted peace then we wouldn't need a bleedin' peace envoy would we?

It was his job to get them to talk to each other, to find a way to promote peace.

And he failed, miserably.

You really don't like people having a different opinion to you, do you?

You have an axe to grind and it doesn't matter what anyone says, you just keep grinding it.

If you really think it is Tony Blair's fault that Hamas and Israel are still fighting then there is not much I can say to change that.

Originally Posted by ianch99

I am not sure I agree with you on the limited nastiness. Gassing 1000's of men, women and children is not a minor misdemeanor.

It was by no means minor, but it was most certainly limited, in comparison to what has occurred inside Iraq since Saddam was deposed.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

If you really think it is Tony Blair's fault that Hamas and Israel are still fighting then there is not much I can say to change that.

Still waiting for you to advise what achievements he managed during his term?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

It was by no means minor, but it was most certainly limited, in comparison to what has occurred inside Iraq since Saddam was deposed.

Very true.

However what does the world do when a despot starts killing off large numbers of his citizens? Does it just say stop and then continue watching or try and intervene? Tricky ..

[MalteseFalcon]

I don't think anyone will get peace in the Middle East, or if they did it wouldn't last for long. Conflict between the likes of Israel and Palestine will continue until the end of time.

The one achievement that could have been Blair's biggest and best one was the Human Rights Act. A brilliant idea in theory, however the application of it has been completely wrong. It is disgusting that an Act meant to protect citizens is now being hijacked by terrorists and illegal immigrants. I believe if they implementation of the Act had been done as the theory intended to do, we would be so much better off.

You cannot count Good Friday agreement in 1998 as his work, as Major put most of the work in before it was finalised in 1998. And even then that lasted until August, with the disgusting bombing of Omagh.

Originally Posted by ianch99

Very true.

However what does the world do when a despot starts killing off large numbers of his citizens? Does it just say stop and then continue watching or try and intervene? Tricky ..

In the case of the Kurds, the no-fly zone pretty much did the trick. Saddam was very effectively contained between 1991 and 2003, until George Bush Jr. decided to round up a posse and carry on Paw Bush's family feud.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Maybe in hindsight, the west should have just watched Saddam kill his own people and said "stop or we will say stop again"

You do realise that's exactly what the west did when he was killing large numbers of his people with weapons we supplied him with don't you, when we decided to act he wasn't killing large numbers of his people or posing a threat to his neighbours. Bush and his cronies tried to use this as one of his rationales for war and it was as thoroughly debunked as the one about his wmd's.

[tweetiepooh]

Most people everywhere want peace but not at any price and there are enough silly so and so's whose hatred is so deep that they will derail any accord, treaty or whatever. And there are those with other motivations who don't want peace either.