Tony Blair gets a new job
June 27th, 2007 by ashish
So, the day finally arrived when Tony Blair finally got pushed out of the Prime Minister’s job by Gordon Brown, his closest associate for quite some time. In the jostling over this position for the past 1-2 years, Brown finally managed to make his way to the coveted 10, Downing Street Home, and Blair got a new job. He quit his old Prime Minister’s place and refused to become a backbencher by quitting from Parliament as well.
Blair did a lot of good for the United Kingdom, making sure that Britain grew economically, and maintained its somewhat independent line in the European line in the face of much closer integration being pushed by France and Germany. He is also responsible for the capital of Britain being called ‘Londonistan‘ such that London became the relaxing place for Muslim radicals kicked out of other places. It was only the 2001 WTC attack, and then the attack on the London Tube that showed how London was becoming another center of radical extremists.
Now he is moving onto a new assignment, something that is very challenging and where he is setup to fail. Blair has been assigned to be the envoy of the quartet (Russia, EU, US and United Nations) in the Middle East. That is an extra-ordinarily difficult position. Blair has not covered himself with glory in the region due to his support for the Iraq war and has also developed a reputation as being somewhat of a Bush poodle.
The Middle East is an extremely difficult place to resolve, some of the fundamental questions don’t have answers. For example, the question of Jerusalem promises to be a killer, what with Israel unwilling to let go and the Palestinians unwilling to give up on Jerusalem (in fact, the entire region except for Israel will find it difficult to accept it). Then there is the question of the settlement of the original Palestinian refugees whom Israel will not accept because of fears of the Jewish community becoming a minority. Blair does carry a lot of diplomatic push, but until the US and Israel and the Palestinians are willing to compromise, it will not be easy.
