The Accidental American [Audio Download]

James Naughtie tackles the vexing question of the process by which the only substantial international friend of George W Bush and ally of his neoconservative government turned out to be the Prime Minster of a UK Labour Party government whose links with the previous and, The US' Right's bete noir, incumbent Bill Clinton had been workman-like and friendly.
Mr Naughtie carries this out in an informative, brisk and well-researched manner. Naturally the bulk of the work deals with the tragedy of the latest Iraq war, however the earlier chapters throw light upon fascinating aspects Mr Blair's character, which serve to explain how this unlikely pairing came about. We learn that Mr Blair often works by instinct, that his early political experiences of the ineptitude of British government action in the Balkan wars of John Major's era affected his views on when and how international political pressure should translate into military action and that his arguably successful marshalling of forces to intervene in Kosovo strengthened his conviction that his instincts served him best.
The narrative then moves smoothly to the time when 9/11 cast its shadow across the world stage and a confident and purposeful Tony Blair was quick to offer support to the untested President Bush; subsequent meetings confirmed a general shared view on terrorism and states that support them. From there Tony Blair effectively linked British international fortunes to those of the USA, and to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The author's account of this time is filled with absorbing details of the relationships and antagonisms between the two governments and their intelligence services; the struggles with the UN and short but incisive historical information from previous decades, and the influence these had certain stances and opinions, by Blair. There is also the remarkable notion that Blair's support could well have proven vital to Bush at home, in a country more ill-at ease with Iraq war than the last presidential election' electoral college suggested.
Of course we do not know where these events are leading the nations involved or their leaders, we know that Mr Blair's popularity has suffered, we know he is somewhat isolated, and yet it would seem this does not concern him, it would appear he is something of a loner, convinced of his own judgment based on his reading of events.
James Naughtie is to be congratulated for this book, which does much to challenge the lazy and dangerously inaccurate twin popular views of George W Bush as a bumbling ignoramus and Tony Blair as his willing poodle. If this were the case they would have drowned in their own joint ineptitude and would not have been re-elected to power.
This book serves to show how strong and self-assured people might not necessarily work to the best interests of their countries or the world.

James Naughtie, the Today presenter, has written a useful account of Blair's links with the USA, particularly with Bush and his colleagues. Naughtie recalls that when he asked Pentagon insider Richard Perle what came next after Afghanistan, Perle replied, "The really important thing is that there is a next."

So, in January 2002, Bush set the timetable for invading Iraq and told Blair. Blair then promised to join Bush's war, secretly changing government policy from peace to war, without telling anybody.

Naughtie writes that the 'bloodstream' of the US-British special relationship is the intelligence linkage. Indeed, the USA's intelligence services are the world's biggest and most expensive. Yet all the US intelligence claims about Iraq's WMD - the uranium oxide bought from Niger, the mobile chemical laboratories - have been proven false. US intelligence was so bad that the CIA's head resigned, and his deputy left too.

The Labour government had all these intelligence resources behind them. Yet their notorious government dossier on WMD was largely pilfered from a ten-year-old PhD thesis! So what, exactly, did Britain gain from this so-special relationship and its precious 'bloodstream'?

As a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq, there is now an illegal occupation of Iraq. Naughtie quotes a senior Foreign Office man who described the US's occupation policy as 'a catastrophe from beginning to end'.

When Naughtie asked Blair if he agreed with the White House lawyer who said that the Geneva Conventions were 'quaint', Blair replied, "Of course not. Neither do the Americans." Typically, Blair was denying the evidence just put in front of him.

Labour's war (for the Labour Party could have stopped it, but didn't even try) has weakened all that it holds dear. The link with the USA is in danger, the EU split, NATO divided, the Labour Party eviscerated, and Parliament, the Foreign Office and the intelligence services all discredited. But worse, Labour's war has made Israel increase its killings, thrown the Middle East into chaos, worsened the risks of terrorism to Britain and elsewhere, and added the danger of endless wars in a 'clash of civilisations'.

Although I have not yet finished reading this book, I have come to realise that it is a stylistic nightmare. The author constantly switches between the use of British and American English; whether this is the fault of the author or the publisher I don't know. For someone less pedantic than me this will obviously be no problem, but for me this reeks incompetence. On one page a word is spelt "favorite" and then further down the page "favour", neither of these words seem to be direct quotes from speeches or other authors. I'm sure this book will have been influenced from people from both the United Kingdom and the United States and I would not like to point blame at the author but more the publisher.

On a more positive note the book is insightful into Blair and Bush's strange relationship, although there are I believe better books out there such as Peter Riddell's "Hug Them Close".