by Dan Hodges

In Saturday’s Independent, Robert Fisk, the venerable if jaundiced middle east sage, posted a missing persons bulletin:

“Why we have not heard from Lord Blair of Isfahan recently? Surely he should be up there, clapping his hands with glee at another humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he is just resting between parts. Or maybe, like the dragons in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, he is quietly vomiting forth Catholic tracts with all the enthusiasm of a Gaddafi in full flow”.

Unfortunately, about an hour after this latest condemnation of Western imperialism / inaction / barbarity / pusillanimity (delete as appropriate), up popped the man himself:

“The decision to impose a no-fly zone and authorise all necessary measures to protect threatened civilians comes not a moment too soon. It is a shift to a policy of intervention that I welcome. Such a policy will be difficult and unpredictable. But it is surely better than watching in real time as the Libyan people’s legitimate aspiration for a better form of government and way of life is snuffed out by tanks and planes”.

Fisk may know Libya like the back of Colonel Gaddafi’s hand, but he certainly doesn’t know Tony Blair. The clear implication of his jibe is that military intervention against Gaddafi is a rebuke to our former prime minister and his policy of enticing the Libyan dictator back into the international fold. A further shredding of his already tattered foreign policy legacy.

Robert, you couldn’t be more wrong. Libya isn’t an embarrassment for Tony Blair. It’s his validation. (more…)