The war over Iraq which killed 100,000 people was part of a much more significant power struggle for dominant influence - between Europe and the USA.
Blair saw his opportunity and allied with Bush, and was seen as Bush's poodle. Now he commands the moral high ground at the Group of 8 in Edinburgh, which UK government management has ensured is significantly supplemented by delegations from China and India, described by the BBC as nations fast becoming rich. Coordinated with a backdrop of tens of thousands of demonstrators. The moral high ground is about saving Africa, and saving the total environment of the planet. What could be morally higher? Bush has had to start playing to this agenda. This morning, quietly the BBC reports that after a number of enquiries from the BBC about a claim by Bush that the US is spending $5 billion a year on research to alternatives to greenhouse warming, has ended in a climb down. There is no gloating by the BBC. But the point is made. And who might have tipped off the BBC? No finger prints. We are seeing here as the killing still goes on in Iraq, the consolidation of a world global civil society, which no politician of any country, even the messianic George Bush with his neo-con caucus with their links to religious fascists, can ignore. Tony Blair is not just master of all the significant agendas. He has become nothing less that the shining acceptable face of global finance capital. That is ultimately the secret of his power at this moment in human history. Don't look too closely at the pock marks. They are just work in progress. Chris Burford London
