Tony Blair's back: you can't keep a good war criminal down

The Guardian

Blair puts himself in the vanguard of the Arab Spring uprisings. What breathtaking hypocrisy from the man who cosied up to Gaddafi, Mubarak, and the despots in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Switching on the Today programme yesterday, it was like an unwelcome blast from the past. There was Tony Blair, that familiar mixture of evangelical fervour and earnest sincerity, putting the world to rights with his views on the coalition, Europe and events in the Middle East.

Money, of course, lay behind his appearance on the show, since he was promoting the paperback edition of his biography. Just as money lay behind his decision to take free holidays at the expense of the Egyptian people while in power, ignoring complaints from families of those being tortured in the country's notorious jails.

At least he supported his old friend Hosni Mubarak after Egyptians risked their lives by rising up to shake off the shackles of despotism. As blood began to run in the streets during the tense standoff in Tahrir Square, Blair hailed Mubarak as "immensely courageous and a force for good".

But what breathtaking hypocrisy to place himself in the vanguard of the movement for change in the region, diminishing the Arab spring to a struggle between modernisers and reactionaries and saying the Gulf states must change or lose our support. This is the man, after all, who earned a seven-figure sum advising the Kuwaiti royal family, and rakes in a fortune giving speeches in the region.

Just recall, if you can bear to, how he cosied up to the Libyan leader he now wants to see overthrown, going far beyond what was needed to bring the maverick Muammar Gaddafi in from the cold as he brokered oil deals and oversaw prisoner transfer agreements that led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Little wonder the dictator's son saw him as "a personal family friend".

Even worse was Blair's appeasement of the Saudi royal family in perhaps the most disgraceful episode of his time in office, when his pressure led to the halting of the landmark BAE bribery case. This was an incident that demeaned our country, usurping Britain's legal process to avoid upsetting a repressive and – to use his own words – reactionary regime. [...]