Leave it to the
clever Brits to come up with the perfect description of the current state of the Bush-Blair special relationship. The Economist's headline writer may be an unsung genius, but its leader writer isn't so imaginative, for after describing in detail how deep in the mire Bush will be once he loses the support of the rapidly nose-diving Tony, the magazine's only advice is to "stay the course."
Blair went to Baghdad last week to see if he could get one more glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel before he's kicked off the train. While there, he patiently explained to the Iraqis how they should be behaving. He told them that now that he and Bush had shoved a spanking new government down their throats, they no longer had a
"vestige of an excuse" for carrying on with terrorism or bloodshed. He explained that the responsibility for the presence of coalition forces lay with the Iraqis, since "it is the violence that keeps us here; it's peace that will allow us to go."
(Really? So why did we just spend $175 million upgrading three "huge airbases"?)
Blair told the Iraqis that everything would be great if only they "would stop sectarian killing, bomb attacks, suicide bombs, and all the rest of the miserable violence that does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of anybody." Hear that, silly Iraqis? Violence doesn't solve anything. That's why we never use it.
So how did the Iraqis react to Tony's May 22 lecture? Did they see the light?
In the seven days before Blair showed up to dispense his wisdom of the west, at least 252 Iraqi civilians and soldiers were killed in Iraq. Relative to its population size, that's equivalent to a rate of three and a third 9/11 attacks per month. Also, ten U.S. soldiers were killed during that week.
In the week following Blair's remarks, the minimum number of Iraqi deaths (compiled from news reports) was down to 227--the equivalent, again relative to population size, of only three 9/11's a month--but 11 coalition soldiers died: nine from the U.S. and two from the U.K.
So, they're killing fewer Iraqis but more Brits. Maybe they did hear and respond to Blair's message.