At Least Tony's Relaxed And Comfy

by Matt Price - The Australian

Having written a sketch in praise of Tony Blair's eloquent speech to parliament, I arrived at work the next day to be greeted by a splendidly succinct email dispatched from Britain.

"Paying homage to the Aussie that got away!" wrote Pete Day, who hails from Yorkshire. (I'd referred to Blair's fondness for Australia and years spent living here as a child.) Pete continued: "I wish you would repatriate the bastard."

This is an extreme manifestation of a common view. Blair received grand treatment during his lightning trip to Australia, but he is horribly on the nose back home. The British press leapt on Blair's admission he'd made a mistake announcing his intention to exit the top job - John Howard could have told him that - and the British PM returns home to a burgeoning scandal over the auctioning off of peerages to government mates. By broad consensus the British hospital and education systems are in crisis, the welfare bill is ballooning out of control and the Government is considering tax hikes. Speculation about the exact date of Blair's impending retirement pervades everything else in British politics.

Little wonder, then, he appeared so comfortable and relaxed in Australia, and so bemused by the lavish - make that slavish - praise from Howard and Kim Beazley. "It's quite a long time since anyone's been that kind about me," Blair joked to the joint sitting after hearing the welcome speeches.

Most of the British PM's address focused on Iraq. This, more than anything else, is the issue that has undercut public confidence in Blair at home. Unlike Howard or George W. Bush, the British PM has never been able to rely on partisan support for the shambolic misadventure. Many Labour MPs were furiously opposed to joining the coalition of the willing.

Which helps explain why Blair is comfortably the most persuasive advocate for Iraq; he has had to be. Howard was able to rely on an absurdly disciplined partyroom in which critics were cowed and not a single MP voiced dissent on the war. The US President is not regularly accountable to parliament and, besides, struggles to string together two sensible sentences. Before and after the war, Blair has been best able to sow optimism amid the gloom.

He performed beautifully last Monday, predictably depicting the military campaign in Iraq as a "battle of values" but presenting it in a wider context than fighting extremists. "Beyond them are many more who don't hate us but question our motives, our good faith, our even-handedness, who could support our values but believe we support them selectively," Blair said. "These are the people we have to persuade. They have to know this is about justice and fairness as well as security and prosperity."

Fine words, for sure. Except a cock-up is still a cock-up, no matter how intelligently or articulately you elect to describe it.

Bush, Blair and Howard all insist they have no regrets about invading Iraq and, even knowing what they now know, would do it all again. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein, we're told, justifies everything else.

Howard may mean this; the war has done his Government no discernible damage and, since no Australian troops have died, has arguably helped the PM. But Blair and Bush can't possibly be serious. The corrosion of public trust in the US and Britain has crippled their leadership. The expense - in dollars, lives and political capital - has been hideous.

Three years on, the 10km road from Baghdad airport to the city remains the most dangerous thoroughfare on earth. Having championed democracy, the White House is now trying to cajole elected Iraqi PM Ibrahim al-Jaafari, close friend of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, to step down.

Blair is right to agitate for continued Western engagement. He told parliament: "If the going is tough, we tough it out. This is not a time to walk away." But I couldn't help laugh listening to the furious "hear hear-ing" from the government benches. Until recently, Australia had one soldier in Afghanistan. Most of our troops were withdrawn from Iraq before Saddam's statue hit the deck in Baghdad. This has been politically astute and, you suspect, has saved many Australian lives. But Howard has had no stomach for any sustained commitment to repairing what has been broken.

Among the worst speech-makers in parliament is Simon Crean. The war killed Crean's leadership; he was never able to coherently articulate Labor's line in admittedly complex circumstances where the Government kept feigning interest in a UN resolution. During debate on the eve of the war, Crean stretched a short prepared speech into an excruciating 53-minute tirade. After hostilities began, the former leader fumbled when asked who he supported, Saddam or the Australian troops? Despite holding out against joining the conflict, Crean somehow contrived to be booed at an anti-war rally.

Three years on, that excruciating speech remains over-long and repetitive but its substance is sound and improving with age. Crean sought more evidence of weapons of mass destruction and wanted a UN solution to dealing with Iraq. Plainly, the only hope for any lasting peace in Iraq - and Iran, for that matter - rests with the UN which, while imperfect, never deserved the trashing it received from Bush and his coalition partners.

For all Crean's myriad flaws, there have been few braver political acts than his farewell address to troops on the HMAS Kanimbla in January 2003. "I don't want to mince my words because I don't believe you should be going," he told the men and women preparing to leave for Iraq. "You've been trained in circumstances in which you hope the politicians of the day can avoid, circumstances in which you are called on to exercise those skills, particularly the combat skills. I also believe that it's fundamentally important in this complex world that more and more we've got to resolve these issues through the United Nations."

Typically mangled language, nowhere near as eloquent as silver-tongued Tony. But as the spin and gloss fade and time unveils the consequences of political and military decisions, Crean's laboured words get better and better.