The unforgivable legacy: Why Tony Blair's knighthood stings as the "Butcher of Baghdad"

History, it seems, has a cruel sense of humor. Banks that once braced for masked robbers now tremble at mask-free customers. But does history also delight in outright mockery? For many, Tony Blair's knighthood is a resounding "yes."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered 1984 Nobel Peace laureate, passed away on December 26, 2021, in Cape Town. Years before his death, in 2012, Tutu famously refused to share a stage with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Johannesburg. His reason was stark and unambiguous: Blair, Tutu asserted, belonged in the dock at The Hague, answering for war crimes.

Tutu sharply questioned why African leaders faced judgment before the International Criminal Court while Blair, the architect of immense suffering, luxuriated on the international speakers’ circuit. Recalling the “immorality” of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he wrote in The Observer:

'In a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague.’

Within a mere week of Tutu’s passing, a move that only amplified the outrage, Blair brazenly appeared on the New Year’s Honors list as a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition, expressed the widespread disbelief, calling the news “incredible” and utterly “amazing.”

‘I think it’s a slap in the face for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and a kick in the teeth for all the people who protested against the war in Iraq and who have been proved right,’ she declared.

Andrew Pierce, writing in The Daily Mail, minced no words, decrying “the greed, vanity, and folly that taints his true legacy.” Royal appointments to this exclusive order bypass any need for approval from the prime minister or parliament. By January 4, a furious public had mobilized, with a petition demanding the Queen rescind the knighthood garnering over 650,000 signatures.

Iraq will forever be etched as Blair’s political epitaph, a damning metaphor for his official deception and the ruthless manipulation of evidence and public opinion that plunged a nation into an illegal war of aggression. In The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman illuminated how historical figures often make catastrophic decisions against their own countries’ best interests, decisions widely recognized as damaging by their contemporaries, even when clear alternatives exist. Blair’s actions fit this tragic pattern perfectly.

The Iraq War stands as one of the most devastating foreign policy blunders of all time. There was a chasm, gaping and unforgivable, between the noble vision Blair touted, the elusive goals he pursued, the ruthless means he employed, the horrific price paid in blood, treasure, and reputation, and the utterly catastrophic results obtained. More than two decades since 2003, criticism has only hardened, its validity and depth tragically affirmed by unfolding events.

Blair’s war set in motion a horrific sequence of events that transformed the entire region, from Afghanistan to Libya, into an anarchic wasteland of ravaged countries, broken societies, and utterly dysfunctional political systems.

The invaders, led by Blair’s fervent conviction, left behind a nation radically different—and far more shattered—than the one they attacked. Occupation proved a far more brutal and complex nightmare than the initial invasion, and the elusive dream of nation-building became an even more challenging and protracted horror.

The definitive Chilcot Report, which meticulously detailed the reasons for and management of the U.K.’s role in the Iraq War, further seared the conventional wisdom of Blair's betrayal deep into the public consciousness. The report's damning conclusions included:

The U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort …

The judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—WMD—were presented with a certainty that was not justified.

Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.

Predictably, and with characteristic arrogance, Blair summarily rejected Chilcot’s meticulously reasoned judgment

While U.S. President George W. Bush was the principal architect, Blair was his indispensable enabler, the eager co-conspirator. Without Blair’s visible and robust international backing, Bush might never have garnered the necessary domestic support to unleash the war.

In the foreword to the infamous "dubious dossier" of September 2002, Blair chillingly wrote that Saddam’s “military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.”

This was a blatant fabrication, fake news, but absolutely vital for Blair to rally his party, Parliament, and the entire nation behind his catastrophic decision to go to war.

British intelligence agencies had already informed Blair in April 2002—a full year before the war—that Saddam possessed no nuclear weapons and any other WMD would be “very, very small.” The Chilcot inquiry revealed that Blair accepted this intelligence but then inexplicably converted to Bush’s aggressive mindset after a visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

This shocking capitulation is corroborated by the infamous Downing Street Memo, penned by British foreign policy aide Matthew Rycroft on July 23, 2002. Summarizing a briefing by MI6 head Richard Dearlove, the memo starkly confirmed that Bush was determined to go to war, and military action was considered inevitable. Crucially, British officials knew it wasn't legally justified, leading to the damning conclusion that “the intelligence and facts were being manipulated to fit the policy.” This was Blair’s policy.

Blair’s ruthless “spin doctor,” Alastair Campbell, orchestrated a brutal campaign to denigrate anyone who dared question the manufactured evidence. Those who dared to challenge the glaring lack of proof for invading Iraq were demonized as apologists for the "Butcher of Baghdad" – an irony that now, devastatingly, falls on Blair himself.

Nor should Blair be absolved of partial responsibility for the tragic death by suicide of British scientist David Kelly, hounded to his grave for daring to speak the truth.

As David Hencke wrote in The Guardian in October 2010, the Blair government engaged in “appalling behavior” to divert attention from its web of lies and deceit about Iraq’s WMDs and the fabricated threat they posed to Britain. They deliberately highlighted Kelly’s “crime” of speaking to a BBC journalist, ruthlessly sacrificing an honorable man to shield their own deceptions.

Blair also shares an indelible culpability with Bush for plunging into war without any semblance of a clear exit strategy. Instead of the promised quick victory in Iraq, followed by stable democratic regimes and an orderly withdrawal, the U.S. and its allies found themselves mired in an intractable quagmire. The U.S. eventually limped home an exhausted and vanquished conqueror, its will to intervene abroad severely sapped.

Tony Blair calls to mind a character in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House: “Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent mood. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so inexhaustible a subject.”

Perhaps, in his unwavering self-regard despite the devastation he wrought, Blair isn't just an ironic footnote; perhaps he is actively mocking history itself.