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  • same goes for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.. I can't imagine the Tories not having done the same

    This is an odd statement, because the Tories were in power when we last went to war with Iraq. History shows that they waited for a UN resolution, and an invitation from Kuwait to defend it from an invasion, built an international coalition, and then stopped as soon as the terms of that resolution were fulfilled. They did not march on Baghdad, and refused outright to countenance a regime change in Iraq, recognising quite rightly that it would result in massive instability in the region and an intractable war from which we would find it difficult to extricate themselves. (They probably also realised that However bad Saddam was, he was the least worst option.)

    I also think that going to war with Iraq was a particularly New Labour vanity for one particular reason. I think Tony Blair, having modelled himself on Thatcher, really wanted a Falklands. But of course whereas that was a simple matter of defending British territory against an invader, with Iraq Blair made Britain the invader illegally entering a sovereign state and seeking to overthrow its head. I studied international law at university and can say with some certainty that there is no grey area. It is absolutely illegal to invade a sovereign state, and definitely illegal to remove its head of state without a UN mandate.

    It's believable that they would have gone into Afghanistan I suppose, but the legality of that was more clear-cut. And without the distraction of Iraq it's conceivable that that campaign might have gone better.

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