I was living in N Ireland when Blair was elected in 1997. It had the same effect there and Obama's election did here - a huge outpouring of hope and the belief that a lot of bad stuff would get sorted out.

He did a very good job on the Northern Ireland peace process, although a few of the things he did to get the deal done (April 1998) have had considerable blow-back.

That said, his performance on Iraq was abominable and dishonest. His toadying to Bush and lying to his own cabinet - an accusation reiterated yesterday by Claire Short, one of his ministers who resigned in protest of the war in 2003 - not to say the British public might have caused a leadership fight and possible removal except there weren't any obvious successors beyond Brown who supported Blair at the time.

Blair has been a huge disappointment. There is a body of opinion that he let the power and glory get to him and that narcissistic component that is present in post pols personalities blew away many of the "angels of his nature" to paraphrase Lincoln.

Another opinion is that, like most Brit PMs, he was frantic not to be the guy to be accused of losing the "special relationship" with the US - extremely important to the British ruling class, not so important in Washington DC.

Given the fact that Harold Wilson strongly rejected LBJ's requests for British troops in Vietnam without losing the "special relationship" it's beggars belief that Blair would have believed that rejecting Bush's need for cover with the UN would have killed the relationship permanently.

It's a sad story - a lot of unnecessary deaths and - and this may happen to Obama too - the sacrifice of a lot of important agenda items on the alter of preemptive and unnecessary (and probably illegal under UK law) war.

shunning is just as effective as the use of the Tower.

Blair is now a member of the Roman Catholic Church and the stay in the Tower might make him a saint along with the likes of Sir Thomas Moore.

Hows about it Tom? Recent entry on Tony Blair, too.

Amazingly, I haven't blogged on Afghanistan since President Obama got done dithering. Here's the oeuvre, in case anybody cares.