A structural tension

  

As we digest the resulting opprobrium heaped on Tony Blairs head following the Chilcot report on the dodgy prognostications for entering the war against Sadam Hussein, little or no mention is made of Blairs buddy, George W Bush. The American President seems to have emerged without condemnation.

 Perhaps the fact that the American Constitution allows more leeway in committing the nation to war, although I thought at the time of the Iraq war the British PM didn't need Parliaments consent either. It's this business of consent and how he went about producing it that has brought Blair down but surely Jack Straw and Gordon Brown were privilege to the same information and, as one sees then both sitting behind Blair in parliament as he concocts his reasons, the "weapons of mass destruction" speech, there seemed no inclination by them to disagree with what Blair was saying.

I have seen little reported of any backlash in America over the war.  Rumblings against Donald Rumstead and Dick Cheney perhaps but nothing like the bashing Blair has taken.
Perhaps past Presidents are above and beyond but Blair was only Bushes lap dog. It was the sting of the 9/11 attack which had galvanised American public opinion for action against someone, it didn't matter who.
The actual war which was over quickly got rid of a tyrant who was cold bloodily murdering sections of his own people. The problem was that it was not realised how the Middle East is like a taut structural member in a building which supports the building by being under tension, once the tension is removed from the single member the building crashes to the ground. It's one of the reasons that they implode buildings rather than dismember them floor by floor.
Once his tyrannical rule had gone the old enmities rose to the surface and you see conflagration across the region today. I doubt, other than putting another tyrant in place could you temper the deep enmity that seems to exist between Shia and Sunni. Democracy comes a poor second if you have to subjugate half the population and whilst in mature populations like ours, where Sunni and Shia live side by side under the weight of our democracy and the rule of law, left unhindered, who is to say what form of religious oppression might have to be enacted by 2050.