Tony Blair AWOL

Tony Blair remains undoubtedly one of the smartest politicians in the United Kingdom. Most of his socio-economic programs were innovative. His Northern Ireland peace deal was a diplomatic coup. Unfortunately, he mortgaged his agenda by entering the Iraq quagmire, becoming George W. Bush’s handyman, alienating his natural allies in Europe and jeopardizing the little equilibrium there remained in the Middle East. It is too late to revise history. The damage has been done. Since Arthur Balfour and the Suez crisis in 1956, the Middle East has been the UK’s nightmare. Traditions stick.

It is sad that Blair and his spouse might be remembered as today’s Macbeths. The Middle East remains in turmoil. The announced Arab Spring might turn out to be a poisonous autumn. The choice of Tony Blair as Quartet Representative was surprising. The region expected a personality who would come up with a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians which would address analysis, diagnosis and prescription with regard to borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees. ince having been invested with those responsibilities we have not heard any innovative proposal. Worse, the deterioration of the geopolitical situation is engulfing the whole region. e might also have to deal with a vote of the UN General Assembly in favor of a full-fledged Palestinian state now.

The unpredictable future with regard to Yemen, Libya, Egypt and Syria, and the downward spiral of the bilateral relationship between Israel and Turkey further create a dangerous imbalance. Israel has come up with new housing decisions in Ariel and East Jerusalem. The recent attacks in southern Israel naturally provoke counter-attacks against Gaza, as could be expected. And the list will get longer.

Where is Tony Blair in all this? Shouldn't he be talking to all parties (including Hamas), rather than discussing religion in New Haven with Lisa Miller? Is he the victim of some aneurysm after his founding of the Faith Foundation in 2008? He must be haunted by the sordid outcome of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie tragedy, when the Scottish government set free one of the supposed main perpetrators, Abdelasset al-Megrahi (for "humanitarian" reasons since he was officially considered close to death), who got a hero’s reception from Gadhafi himself upon his return to Tripoli. This scandalous decision might well come back to haunt the British government in the future. The choice of Tony Blair as special envoy is in many aspects surreal. His intellect is not under discussion but his political and moral flair are dubious. He lacks credibility with the Arabs (remember his “cosiness” with Gadhafi over lucrative deals?) and the Europeans alike. His American Svengali has “retired”. Now he looks like a man who stands alone, in pursuit of personal interests rather than in the fulfillment of his mandate. Aspiring to be seen as "faith-literate" he reads the Quran every day. He is supposed to push toward restarting the Middle East peace talks but until now the push doesn’t seem to have created major tremors, other than home-grown leaderless revolutions from Yemen to Libya.

The Arab Spring is one thing (nobody knows the potential outcome, and the Libyan intervention raises questions of international law, precedent and legitimacy), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict belongs to a different category. It will not be solved by religious loquacious nonsense. Both parties seem to be engaged in doing everything to aggravate, while the world is globally distracted by financial and economical considerations. With Turkey enraged, Syria unpredictable and Egypt adrift, Israel stands alone. It needs support to deter neighbors, who are generally hostile, but it needs also to listen to its friends and stop alienating them by pursuing a policy in the occupied territories which is often illegal. We all know how a peace deal will look in a two-state solution. Tony Blair should now run against time, talk to the devil if it can bring progress, rather than letting the situation deteriorate even further. He should be able to count on the Quartet, which has been silent for too long, and on the EU and the USA in the first place. There is no such thing as an Arab solution here, while it should nevertheless be recognized that the proposal of an Arab peace plan by the Saudi Prince Abdullah in 2002 created a modest opening. When there is such an opportunity one should dig, force doors and unlock closed minds. The Arab initiative stands unattended and the West lost an opportunity to engage.

Nothing moves and both sides refuse to replace code with clarity. Future necromancers might rule over a battlefield of lost opportunities. An arrangement requires a continuous involvement, not lofty sermons. Tony Blair has the brains but does he have the trust? After the Iraq blunder he carries too much sand under his shoes to be credible. In the end he must feel alone but his self-imposed extrapolation is of his own making and while the house is burning he seems reduced to watching CNN to come somewhat closer to a reality he seems to want to avoid.

The time has come for an alternative player to step in. The American Secretary of State should move in, quickly. She is uniquely gifted to put pressure on all parties. The current Israeli government will not like it but will know better than to accuse her of taking sides. The Palestinians will be frustrated but they hardly show signs of being able to create a Palestinian consensus by themselves. The latter is a condition sine qua non, because without such a precondition Hamas remains ”off-limits”. Mrs. Clinton has the authority and the patience to hammer out a deal. She knows, too, how to oblige stubborn parties to swallow the bitter pill. Meanwhile, Tony Blair could take a backseat and save his recognized major talents for follow-up.