On March 12, 2003, US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld told a press conference about Britain involvement in an invasion of Iraq:
To the extent that they are able to participate — in the event that the President decides to use force – that would obviously be welcomed. To the extent they are not, they are “work arounds” and they would not be involved, at least in that phase of it.
Although Rumsfeld later walked back his “go it alone” comments, he had put across his message to London — and specifically British Prime Minister Tony Blair: if you want to be important, man up and make sure that you are in this attack on Saddam Hussein.
Blair understood. Facing a divided Parliament and a military worried that its troops would be exposed to war crimes charges if the invasion did not have legal backing, the Prime Minister ordered the Attorney General to re-write the guiding opinion, claiming that the US and Britain could go to war even without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. On DATE, Blair narrowly got the consent of the House of Commons; the war started four nights later.
More than a decade later, the course of history — and the US-UK relationship — ran differently. The British Parliament rebuffed Prime Minister David Cameron and blocked the Government’s motion for humanitarian intervention in Syria by a 285-272 vote.
It did so even though Cameron had promised that there would be no military action before the United Nations Security Council — the Security Council by-passed by Washington and London in 2003 — had the chance to consider the findings of UN inspectors about last week’s chemical weapons attacks by the Assad regime.
In large part, the rejection is the legacy of the Iraq War that Tony Blair, pushed by the Bush Administration, pursued so vigorously. Stung by the apparent folly of its acquiescence, amid the Government’s deception over “weapons of mass destruction” and the years of bloodshed and destruction after the invasion, MPs hit back last night — even though there was no deception about the Assad regime’s responsibility for the hundreds of deaths by chemical warfare.
But, beyond Syria, this was also an evaporation of the “Special Relationship”.
That notion has long been a myth: for most in power in Washington, Britain’s “specialness” consisted of its acceptance of a place in US strategy and operations. However, it was a myth that could be exploited, as Blair did in 2003 when he put out the idea that the US-UK bond would lead the world in “liberal intervention”.
After a decade of weariness of Iraq and also Afghanistan, and despite operations such as Libya 2011, the myth was undone on Thursday. No one put the charge of Britain being a US “poodle” in the Syrian intervention — but few MPs claimed the necessity of acting because of partnership with America.
Some will see this as a welcome, if belated, detaching of the harness to the wishes of a US President. Others will note that the real casualties of the past week’s events — the more than 1300 slain by the attacks near Damascus — will receive no benefit and fear that many more may die as the consequence of last night’s decision.
These matters will be up for discussion as the Syrian conflict moves into its next, likely bloody phase.
Meanwhile, myth gives way to exposure: the US-UK axis, held up for so long by so many as the pivot of the world, is not at the center of this crisis.
And that recognition is not just for Syria but for the Middle East, and indeed for much of the rest of the world.