 Why is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair traveling around the United States at just this moment? As Blair was lacing up his brogans to begin a lecture tour that will vacuum six-figure fees from universities and trade associations, all hell was breaking out on the Israel-Palestine border. Daily Hamas rocket barrages prompted Israel to launch deadly air strikes on Gaza City. The death toll rose to its highest point in seven years. Urgent consultations were scheduled at the United Nations and Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the region to try to get the massacre stopped and peace talks started.
What does all of this have to do with Tony Blair? Well, Mr. Blair has a job, allegedly. When he left office last year, Blair became special envoy for the Middle East Quartet (the U.S., U.N., Russia and the European Union), promising finally to put an end to the Arab-Israeli mess. The reason we need a special envoy is that America really has no Middle East policy. We have only the promise of President Bush that there will be a peace accord before he leaves office. So, George needs you, Tony. If you could help get peace, there might be more to the Bush legacy than Iraq, eroded civil liberties, a raging deficit and a tanking economy.
 Blair was forced from office early for one reason: Iraq. When he sent British troops to Iraq in 2003, he quoted Winston Churchill's adage that Britain has "a special relationship with America." With Blair's support, President Bush got exactly the stamp of international approval he needed to make it seem the U.S. wasn't going it alone.
Blair quickly became Bush and Cheney's chief wingman. He told Parliament that the intelligence was "extensive, detailed and authoritative," which proved untrue. And it was Blair, remember, who invoked the threats of yellowcake uranium and fears of chemical weapons ready in 45 minutes to rain down on Europe.
As Stefan Halper puts it, "He was seduced by the prospect of standing upon the global stage, making the case that civilization itself had been assaulted by barbarism." Halper is director of the Atlantic Studies Program at the University of Cambridge. He adds, "Blair sacrificed good policy, common sense and sound advice on the altar of his own ambition. He wanted the American relationship on any terms he could get it."
 Blair's commitment of troops to Iraq precipitated the largest anti-war demonstration in British history, 1 million in Trafalgar Square. As casualties mounted, Blair's popularity sank. He took Churchill's special relationship notion a step further, saying it was a British prime minister's "duty" to get along with his American counterpart. In so doing, he became known as "Bush's poodle." At the G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bush was heard summoning the pooch by calling, "Yo! Blair!"
One must wonder if Cheney and Bush ever took him seriously. For example, did Blair agree with the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi Army? Was he even asked? Or, once he surrendered Britain's national security strategy to Washington, was he kept in the dark and taken for granted?
One is also left to wonder what Blair really thinks of the Iraq debacle now. All he has said is, "Hand on heart, thought I was doing the right thing." He does admit, however, that the blowback was more serious than expected.
By the time Blair left Downing Street, only 22 percent of Britons still thought he could be trusted. He left his fellow countrymen with their civil liberties eroded by draconian new anti-terrorism laws, yet feeling more at risk from terror than before Iraq was invaded.
Blair wanted the job of special envoy to the Middle East so that it would help save the legacy he tarnished so badly with his Iraq policies. Perhaps, when he finishes his buck-raking American lecture tour, Blair finally will report for duty.
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