Tony Blair refuses any comparison between Iraq and Ukraine
Twenty years ago, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair dragged the United Kingdom into the war in Iraq behind the United States, a decision that sparked massive protests in his country. Today, he rejects any comparison between Iraq, a war waged without a UN mandate, and Ukraine, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin has used it as ” an excuse “.
“There is no reasonable justification for invading an independent and sovereign country, with a democratic president, [qui ne posait] no problem for anyone” and did not violate “no international obligation”explains Mr. Blair in an interview with Agence France-Presse and the European press agencies, ANSA, DPA and EFE. “If he hadn’t used that excuse [de l’Irak]he would have used another one”says the 69-year-old former Labor leader, about Vladimir Putin.
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein provoked two regional wars, defied multiple UN resolutions and launched a chemical attack against his own people, Blair recalls. “At least we can recognize that we have removed a despot from power [en Irak] to try to install a democracy “he defends, from the offices of his Institute for Global Change, in central London. “Of course we can discuss all the consequences” of the war in Iraq, he concedes.
More “We must never forget what Vladimir Putin did in the Middle East, in Syria. (…) His intervention in the Middle East served to keep a despot in power and deny democracy. So we should treat all this propaganda with the little respect it deserves.”adds Mr. Blair.
Mr Putin is now the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crime of “illegal deportation” Ukrainian children after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a decision that according to Moscow has no legal value.