Tony Blair: ‘We didn’t cause Iraq crisis’
The 2003 invasion of Iraq is not to blame for the violent insurgency now gripping the country, former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said.
He told the BBC there would still be a “major problem” in Iraq even without the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
He insisted the current crisis was an issue that “affects us all” and urged more western intervention in the area.
Critics have rejected the comments as “bizarre” with one accusing Mr Blair of “washing his hands of responsibility”.
Mr Blair said the idea that Iraq today would be stable if Saddam had been left in place was “simply not credible”.
“Even if you’d left Saddam in place in 2003, then when 2011 happened – and you had the Arab revolutions going through Tunisia and Libya and Yemen and Bahrain and Egypt and Syria – you would have still had a major problem in Iraq,” he said.
“Indeed, you can see what happens when you leave the dictator in place, as has happened with Assad now. The problems don’t go away.”
He also called for some form of intervention in neighbouring Syria, warning that inaction would result in a threat to UK soil.
Mr Blair was prime minister when UK and US forces controversially invaded Iraq in 2003 – on the basis that it had weapons of mass destruction – with the last of Britain’s troops withdrawing in 2011.
Now, uprisings by the al-Qaeda breakaway group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have led to a surge of violence and sectarian killings in recent days.
The Sunni insurgents have advanced north of Baghdad.
And as Iraqi government forces attempt to hold them back, a US aircraft carrier has been deployed to the Gulf in response to the escalating violence.
‘Unending violence’
Mr Blair said the idea that Iraq would be stable if the UK and US had not intervened “just isn’t true” and that the current crisis involved the wider region as a whole.In an essay on his website, he said the violence in Iraq was the “predictable and malign effect” of inaction in Syria.
But Michael Stephens, from the Royal United Services Institute, insisted the Iraq War had a part to play in the recent upsurge in violence.
“I think Mr Blair is washing his hands of responsibility,” he said. “But at the same time, I do agree with him that we can’t just ignore this.
“We do have some kind of role to play in terms of trying to make sure that both Iraq and Syria do not fragment and just move on into sort of unending violence.”
Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003, said the handling of the campaign against Saddam Hussein was “perhaps the most significant reason” for the current sectarian violence.
“We are reaping what we sowed in 2003. This is not hindsight. We knew in the run-up to war that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would seriously destabilise Iraq after 24 years of his iron rule,” he said in the Mail on Sunday.
Syria is three years into a civil war in which tens of thousands of people have died and millions more have been displaced.
In August last year, a chemical attack near the capital Damascus killed hundreds of people.
In the same month, UK MPs rejected the idea of air strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to deter the use of chemical weapons.
“You do not need to engage as we did in Iraq or Afghanistan, but you need to recognise that we have interests in this,” Mr Blair told the BBC.
‘Bizarre views’
Clare Short, a former Labour minister who resigned over the Iraq War, said Mr Blair was “absolutely, consistently wrong, wrong, wrong”.“He has become a complete American neo-con, who thinks military action, bombing, attacking will solve the problems and it’s actually making more and more tension, anger, division and bitterness in the Middle East,” she told Sky News.
Security analyst Professor Eric Grove said he found Mr Blair’s position to be “bizarre”.
“So saying this is a result of our non-intervention, if Mr Blair really thinks that going into Syria and basically fighting everyone was going to lead to a better situation, I think his views are somewhat bizarre actually. I can see very little logic in this.”
But former Middle East minister Alistair Burt said there was a “great danger” of trying to understand the situation by going back to “one root cause” and “blaming what was done in the past”.
The Iraqi ambassador in Washington, Lukman Faily, meanwhile, said that, without international help, the effects of the crisis would be felt in the UK.
“What will [be] the impact on the streets of London and Bradford and others?” he said in an interview for BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.
He added: “These jihadists are coming from all over the world, so do you want these jihadists to go back to their country, in Bradford and elsewhere, to learn [sic] what they have practised in Iraq?”
The Iraq War has been the subject of several inquiries, including the Chilcot inquiry – which began in 2009 and whose report has not yet been published – into the UK’s participation in military action against Saddam Hussein and its aftermath.
If Saddam had been left in place would Iraq be a stable country?
If you mean by stable an isolated, disassociated country, abandoned by all other nations then yes – Iraq would have been stable. But that doesn’t mean that after all this time some sort of arrangement couldn’t have been made.
Even if we hadn’t invaded there would have been a (relatively) strong army for the area in place, a leader with the kind of intelligence superstructure in place to spy on most of his people and the will to eradicate not only the opposition, but the oppositions friends, family and even associates too. When you have that sort of power then it becomes very difficult for an opposition to form; you might trust your (very) closest friends but how do you find like-minded others with whom you might join when the secret police could be anyone, anywhere?
Saddam was an evil tyrant; evil tyrants have a knack for knowing the best ways of finding out secrets, and when one of your revolutionary cell is taken it would only be a short while until his specialists are knocking on your door wanting to invite you down to the station to answer a few questions… Breaking bones, pulling finger nails, torture in general got Saddam the results he needed to stay in power for the 24 years he did – it wasn’t a national revolution that deposed him.
Was it right to topple him, or would it have been better to leave him in place?
Blair says it was right – even though the reason the west invaded was spurious and our leaders knew it: Hans Blix had told them so, in his report made just before the invasion, in no uncertain terms, to the point that the CIA was ordered to find ammunition on him to undermine his position (and Bush and co were apparently very upset when – just like the WMD search – nothing could be found).
Saddam was brought to justice and replaced; subsequently the Iraqi’s have been lead by apparently toothless old men commanding an army trained and supplied by the west, seemingly full of spy’s and turncoats ready to kill their instructors and defect to the opposition – the remainder must have surprised nobody by running away almost fast enough for an Olympic 100m final position.
But Blair, not content with being no longer in power, still wants the west to go in to Syria on his say-so. The current events in Iraq are lead from Syria, he believes – we are responsible for them because we didn’t intervene, apparently. But surely going into Syria would have lead to us fighting everybody and, were we to win, we would have had to entrench ourselves, appoint a ruler, supply his army and throw money into his back pocket against the time he gets overthrown. The whole area would be against us, ironically uniting them all against the common enemy.
It might be interesting to think that Blair is saying what he is saying so that one day, in the near future, he can use these latest missives – trying to justify his old position – to prove his plea of insanity at his war crimes trial and save his skin…;o)
And also interesting to notice that one moment Iran is regarded as a bad guy, next it is an ally.
By: snafu - 24th June 2014 at 12:27
Blair ‘plans to increase influence in Middle East’, as calls grow for him to be sacked
TONY Blair is looking to open an office in Abu Dhabi in an apparent attempt to expand his influence in the Middle East – as three former British ambassadors have called for him to be sacked.
Blair is said be be close to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the Crown Prince of the country.
A friend told the Financial Times that the pair had “chemistry”, and he is believed to be looking for a base in the UAE from to help him act as an intermediary between the Middle East and other parts of the world.
The former Prime Minister’s reputation remains controversial in the region, but he has worked with the Kuwaiti prime minister and is advising one of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds.
The news comes as three former British ambassadors have called for him to be sacked as international envoy to the Middle East after his attempts to “absolve himself” of responsibility for the crisis in Iraq.
It has been reported that the three had signed a letter, organised by the makers of Respect MP George Galloway’s film The Killing Of Tony Blair, which says the invasion of 2003 led to the rise of “fundamentalist terrorism in a land where none existed previously”.
The retired diplomats were led by Sir Richard Dalton, who was ambassador to Iran when Mr Blair was prime minister.
He was said to have been joined by Oliver Miles, who was ambassador to Libya when diplomatic relations were severed in 1984 following the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, and Christopher Long, a former ambassador to Egypt.
The letter, addressed to the international Quartet on the Middle East – the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union – describes Mr Blair’s achievements as international envoy as “negligible”.
It adds: “We are also dismayed, however, at Tony Blair’s recent attempts to absolve himself of any responsibility for the current crisis by isolating it from the legacy of the Iraq war.
“In order to justify the invasion, Tony Blair misled the British people by claiming that Saddam had links to al Qaeda.
“In the wake of recent events it is a cruel irony for the people of Iraq that perhaps the invasion’s most enduring legacy has been the rise of fundamentalist terrorism in a land where none existed previously.
“We believe that Mr Blair, as a vociferous advocate of the invasion, must accept a degree of responsibility for its consequences.”
A spokesman for Mr Blair told the Guardian: “These are all people viscerally opposed to Tony Blair with absolutely no credibility in relation to him whatsoever.
“Their attack is neither surprising nor newsworthy. They include the alliance of hard right and hard left views which he has fought against all his political life.”
So those ambassadors are all either hard right or left, politically? Makes you wonder how they got their posts…
Still, it must be hitting home if he lets out news that he is looking for an office in Abu Dhabi.
By: charliehunt - 22nd June 2014 at 20:30
An impossible question with all the hindsight we have. But at the time with the prospect of the tyrants death and the end of the repression probably the NATO bomb.
Until the arrival of ISIS you could argue that a degree of stability was developing in some areas and overseas investment in big infrastructure projects was also developing.
By: hampden98 - 22nd June 2014 at 19:10
Might help to add the words brutal torture and genocide to repression to get the balance right. And the average civilian being one who did exactly as they were told. As long as you didn’t cross Saddam life wasn’t too bad as long as you were not a Kurd or a Marsh Arab or overtly Shia. Yes not a bad life really!!
Yes, totally agree. But would you rather be killed by a Saddam hit squad of a Nato bomb? We have killed so many civilians and yet still no democracy or stability.
Now it appears the west are pulling out and saying “well you’ll just have to sort it out yourself”. All those that backed the west fear retribution.
By: charliehunt - 22nd June 2014 at 17:29
Might help to add the words brutal torture and genocide to repression to get the balance right. And the average civilian being one who did exactly as they were told. As long as you didn’t cross Saddam life wasn’t too bad as long as you were not a Kurd or a Marsh Arab or overtly Shia. Yes not a bad life really!!
By: hampden98 - 22nd June 2014 at 16:24
To understand Iraq you have to look from the perspective of the civilian. Not the politician or the war lord.
Take Somalia as an example. The reason the Americans lost in Somalia is because they thought that the civilian populace would embrace them as the saviours of democracy.
When in fact the Somalians saw them as the invader, the common enemy.
This is the same as Iraq. We looked at Iraq and saw Saddam brutalizing the population. Where in reality the average civilian was relatively safe.
Tony storms in and now we have anarchy.
What’s better repression or anarchy?
By: Orion - 22nd June 2014 at 10:33
You sure about that? Really sure?
…
Um, no they didn’t. Really. They didn’t.
…
With respect it was a little more complex than that. There was a UN resolution that provided the justification for the war. But … the presence of the UN inspection team in Iraq provided a reason for the countries that had doubts but hadn’t voiced them publically to give voice to their doubts.
These countries would be better placed morally if they had voted against in the first place, but very few of them doubted that Iraq had WMD including China and Russia.
Regards
By: charliehunt - 22nd June 2014 at 08:19
Indeed I fear I do not spend hours sourcing news and searching Wiki for extensive quotes to post here, so I am happy to concede my comments were inaccurate but had little to do with my heart more with my brain.
I am also happy to reiterate my last comment, slightly amended:
I suppose Blair is there as a scapegoat to salve the consciouses of many of those who supported the action at the time. A reaction I find both ludicrous and hysterical.
By: snafu - 22nd June 2014 at 00:47
No, it wouldn’t and most of the reason it wouldn’t was that almost every government and the UN thought that Saddam had WMD.
You sure about that? Really sure?
My belief, even after all this time, is that Bush strong-armed the UN into believing that Hans Blix was not playing for the team despite Saddam – eventually! – giving in to every search request, which came up negative.
I make no apology for quoting Wiki:
In March 2003 the United States government announced that “diplomacy has failed” and that it would proceed with a “coalition of the willing” to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US insisted it possessed…
…Prior to 2002, the Security Council had passed 16 resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441.
In 2003, the governments of the US, Britain, and Spain proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the “eighteenth resolution” and others called the “second resolution.” This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast ‘no’ votes on any new resolution, thereby vetoing it. Had that occurred, it would have become even more difficult for those wishing to invade Iraq to argue that the Council had authorized the subsequent invasion. Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the US, Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.
On September 16, 2004 Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”…
…Report of Hans Blix on February 14
UN Chief Inspector Hans Blix, on 14 February 2003, presented a report to the Security Council. Blix gave an update of the situation in Iraq, and he stated that the Iraqis were now more proactive in their cooperation. He also rebutted some of the arguments proposed by Powell. Blix questioned the interpretations of the satellite images put forward by Powell, and stated that alternate interpretations of the satellite images were credible. He also stated that the Iraqis have in fact never received early warning of the inspectors visiting any sites (an allegation made by Powell during his presentation). International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei also said that he did not believe the Iraqis have a nuclear weapons program, unlike what Powell had claimed.This report of February 14 and the protests of February 16 appear to have created reluctance in some of the members of the Security Council over the proposed war on Iraq. A second resolution was being drafted with the intention that it would find Iraq in “material breach” and the “serious consequences” of Resolution 1441 should be implemented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_War
More a coalition of the coerced, not of the willing, thanks to the US’s arm twisting tactics.
This, of course, is why the UN voted for the invasion.
Um, no they didn’t. Really. They didn’t.
Look at the UN members sitting on the Security Council at the time:
I make that four from fifteen, with the rest either totally against but happy to continue the inspections or happy to invade with UN backing and continued inspections or had not yet made up their minds but still wanted inspections.
That is nowhere near the majority of nine required by UN requirements.
Remember Colin Powell? (The one who pronounced his name differently to every other Colin in the world! Thats Coh-lyn Powell, a bit like bowling with a strong ‘n’ and no ‘g’, the pretentious git)
In 2004 and 2005 he admitted he had given inaccurate information to the UN in the run up to the invasion:
I feel terrible … [giving the speech] … It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now. Sep 8, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_War
(As an aside, in 1968 he was charged with investigating claims about the My Lai massacre before it became widely publicised; apparently the Vietnamese people and the US Army had an excellent relationship which was a fact and refuted those terrible rumours. Then the letters got noticed, and when the pictures were published the backlash started against the military…)
And then there was the memo leak from GCHQ about the NSA hacking phones and emails of UN diplomats opposing the invasion which became a court case under the Official Secrets Act that, when Katherine Gun announced she would plead not guilty on the grounds that she was trying to prevent an illegal war, the prosecution pulled out without giving any evidence…
I, a Labour voter, was against the invasion and was pretty p!ssed off that a foot injury prevented me from going on the march. I thought it was wrong and I still think it was wrong.
Yeah, thought I didn’t see you there…;o)
Thank you for reminding us that a large majority here and at the UN and in many other countries too, were in favour. I suppose Blair is there as a scapegoat to salve the consciouses of some of that majority. A reaction I find both ludicrous and hysterical.
But they didn’t, Charlie. If only you did some research instead of going with your heart you wouldn’t be making such, ahem, ludicrous and hysterical claims.
By: charliehunt - 21st June 2014 at 14:37
Thank you for reminding us that a large majority here and at the UN and in many other countries too, were in favour. I suppose Blair is there as a scapegoat to salve the consciouses of some of that majority. A reaction I find both ludicrous and hysterical.
By: Orion - 21st June 2014 at 14:00
And you really think that would have made a difference?
No, it wouldn’t and most of the reason it wouldn’t was that almost every government and the UN thought that Saddam had WMD. This, of course, is why the UN voted for the invasion. Please note also that the only UK political party that was against was the LibDems: Tory MPs voted en-bloc for the war the few dissenters were a handful of Labour MPs and all the LibDems.
I, a Labour voter, was against the invasion and was pretty p!ssed off that a foot injury prevented me from going on the march. I thought it was wrong and I still think it was wrong.
Regards
By: snafu - 21st June 2014 at 10:05
Have you ever voted Labour?
And you really think that would have made a difference?
By: Orion - 21st June 2014 at 09:42
Don’t you mean ‘his intervention in 2003’? I can’t recall voting in favour of it.
Moggy
Have you ever voted Labour?
By: snafu - 20th June 2014 at 09:00
…let Kurds, Sunnis and Shias live at peace in separate nation states…
You going to tell ISIS to take their foot off the accelerator now, just when they’ve got going?
Let Blair do it. In person. Under the glare of his brightly false, artificial grin and fake tan maybe they’ll know they are beaten and throw in the towel.
By: charliehunt - 20th June 2014 at 07:29
Surely there is the inevitability of partition. Iraq was artificially created so now after decades of insurrection, autocracy and dictatorship – all of which brutally suppressed sectional interest – let Kurds, Sunnis and Shias live at peace in separate nation states. The problem would be Baghdad but no more so than Jerusalem.
By: Creaking Door - 19th June 2014 at 23:31
Isn’t a Muslim terror campaign is more of a direct threat to the UK than Argentina taking over several very, very remote semi-worthless islands?
A Muslim terror campaign that targets only Iraqi Muslims from the other side of the sectarian divide in Iraq? No, because it is not a threat to any British lives or any British interests. However if Britain intervenes in Iraq (again) some misguided individual will probably think it is the will of (his) god that he blows-up himself and a London bus full of innocent civilians.
When the ISIS ‘technicals’ (pick-up trucks with twin 23mm cannon) reach the Alps I’ll start to worry…
…right up to the moment the RAF vaporises them with a LGB strike…..blitzkrieg it ain’t!!!
What worries me is when a British Prime-Minister starts talking about the ‘direct threat’ to Britain…
…remember Saddam Hussein and the chemical-weapon drones that were only forty-five minutes away?
By: snafu - 19th June 2014 at 22:56
…I’ve yet to notice any groundswell of appreciation or thanks from the Islamic world…
No appreciation? They spent money on buying from our arms companies, didn’t they?
By: J Boyle - 19th June 2014 at 22:50
To my mind the only danger is if Britain starts to take military action, or supports military action against ISIS.
Britain should leave well alone. Let Muslim carry on killing Muslim in the centuries-old feud; I’m sure that in some quarters that the West will get the blame but there should be no military intervention whatsoever.
Mr. Chamberlain couldn’t have said it any better.
But is the “head in the sand” strategy really sound?
Isn’t a Muslim terror campaign is more of a direct threat to the UK than Argentina taking over several very, very remote semi-worthless islands?
If ‘the World’ thinks that something should be done about it then let another Muslim country intervene; Saudi Arabia surely can afford to do something, even if it is only to take in the millions of refugees that this latest conflict will produce.
That I agree with. The “west” helps out the Islamic world and I’ve yet to notice any groundswell of appreciation or thanks from the Islamic world. In fact, during the Tsunami relief efforts, some in the Islamic world were blaming Israel and the US for the disaster…and who knows how many peasants believed such nonsense. And the US’s well intentioned efforts to get rid of warlords blocking relief supplies led to the “Backhawk Down” battle.
Let the fools fight each other.
By: snafu - 19th June 2014 at 11:18
Nobody will ever surrender again? Maybe, but at the moment the problem is that nobody wants to fight ISIS either; the equivalent of three, fully-equipped, Coalition-trained Iraqi divisions just stripped-off their uniforms and ran for their lives leaving every piece of equipment and all their ammunition for ISIS.
Yep, just like South Vietnam. Notice the similarity – both countries supported and supplied by the US, who upped and left, then stuff happens and (just like a row of dominoes) the whole lots starts toppling over one after another.
Did we leave too early, or was there just not the interest in their own future for the military to defend their regime? Is the military up to the task – I mean does it have the support structure in place, not just to keep the front line supplied but to support the troops: the offensive capability (to me, anyway) appears to be some what lacking, some light attack/training aircraft (which may or may not have an attack capability) and some attack helicopters (Mil-24 variants, doubling as transports, and apparently Mil-28’s, although these may not have been ordered due to corruption in the process). Aircraft with offensive capability are on order or being delivered (F16s, for example) but that is about it. Take a look through the inventory for the army and you can see that the arms manufacturers must have been offering personal incentives to the buyers because there is all sorts of different armoured fighting vehicles from nine different nationalities (including Brazil, Pakistan, and South Africa, as well as the expected suspects!) and a vast range of small arms (from 16 different nations, although most are Eastern European). Can you imagine trying to maintain spares and ammunition for all those various weapons?
The ISIS campaign is one of pure terror. It would be possible to bomb their supply-lines, if they had any, but ISIS fighters can just take whatever water, food, fuel and ammunition they need from local sources and they would ‘execute’ anybody who stands in the way; as it is the will of (their) god!
…And pick up a new weapon from the site of a battle that never took place…?
Anyway, how do you stop crates of ammunition being moved in a school-bus full of orphans with a drone-strike? You can’t; not unless you accept killing lots of innocent civilians too. The result would be international condemnation and the risk of ‘retaliation’ with suicide-bombings on British streets.
Wimp! Think of all those wedding celebrations that were hit by drone strikes… The fear of hitting innocents never deterred the US from going for it, and ignoring any condemnation!
The only way to stop ISIS is, up-close and personal, with ground-troops and I don’t see anybody wanting that job except the untrained volunteer militia from the other side of the sectarian divide.
Then they win.
Maybe ‘saint’ Tony will have a word with them, put them right, give them a third way.
For what reason would Saudi Arabia back ISIS?
I suppose, if I were cynical, I would say it had something to do with the supply and therefore, the price, of oil. I do not know if there is any ideological connection between ISIS and any backers that they may have in Saudi Arabia but can this much suffering just be about money!
Iraq’s mainly Shia-led government suspects Saudi’s Sunni rulers of involvement in ISIS operations. In a statement Iraq’s leaders said: “We hold them responsible for supporting these groups financially and morally, and for the outcome of that – which includes crimes that may qualify as genocide: the spilling of Iraqi blood, the destruction of Iraqi state institutions and historic and religious sites.” Riyadh has denied the accusations.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-attacks-iraq-accuses-saudi-arabia-supporting-genocide-1453101
The Saudis were heavily involved with backing the Syrian opposition (as I said above), and since the Syrians now appear to be giving them a spanking might they be trying for a different homeland? I don’t know, but the Iraqis believe that the Saudis are involved and we all know how many Saudis took part in the 11/9 airliner attacks (ok, not figuratively, but I looked it up: 15 out of 19)
By: Creaking Door - 19th June 2014 at 10:53
Sure, the Saudis would be happy to get more involved if they weren’t (most probably, since they are the main backers of the Syrian opposition) one of the ‘silent’ ISIS backers…
For what reason would Saudi Arabia back ISIS?
I suppose, if I were cynical, I would say it had something to do with the supply and therefore, the price, of oil. I do not know if there is any ideological connection between ISIS and any backers that they may have in Saudi Arabia but can this much suffering just be about money!
By: Creaking Door - 19th June 2014 at 09:28
Nobody will ever surrender again? Maybe, but at the moment the problem is that nobody wants to fight ISIS either; the equivalent of three, fully-equipped, Coalition-trained Iraqi divisions just stripped-off their uniforms and ran for their lives leaving every piece of equipment and all their ammunition for ISIS.
The ISIS campaign is one of pure terror. It would be possible to bomb their supply-lines, if they had any, but ISIS fighters can just take whatever water, food, fuel and ammunition they need from local sources and they would ‘execute’ anybody who stands in the way; as it is the will of (their) god!
Anyway, how do you stop crates of ammunition being moved in a school-bus full of orphans with a drone-strike? You can’t; not unless you accept killing lots of innocent civilians too. The result would be international condemnation and the risk of ‘retaliation’ with suicide-bombings on British streets.
The only way to stop ISIS is, up-close and personal, with ground-troops and I don’t see anybody wanting that job except the untrained volunteer militia from the other side of the sectarian divide.
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June 15, 2014 at 8:38 pm