Dirty Politics?: New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq
224
Dirty Politics?: New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq
224Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781842777411 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2006 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.17(w) x 9.13(h) x 0.53(d) |
About the Author
Steven Kettell is a lecturer in British politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the university of Warwick.
Read an Excerpt
Dirty Politics?
New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq
By Steven Kettell
Zed Books Ltd
Copyright © 2006 Steven KettellAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84813-062-3
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: A Sign of the Times
A case of dirty politics?
In March 2003 Britain joined forces with the United States of America to launch an invasion of Iraq. The official aim in so doing was to rid Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to help reduce the prospects of a devastating confluence between rogue states and the forces of international terrorism. The ramifications of this conflict, however, proved to be far wider than anyone could have predicted. Indeed, the events surrounding the war have since not only come to define the era of Tony Blair's premiership, but are now seen to demark one of the most tumultuous periods in Britain's entire political history. Amidst allegations that the country was misled over the reasons for going to war and that senior government figures wilfully misused intelligence in order to drag Britain into the conflict, and with question marks continuing to hang over the legality of the invasion, the government's decision to pursue a policy of regime change in Iraq has produced a corrosive loss of trust and a rising level of disenchantment with both the New Labour government and the domestic political process in general.
The broader effects of the war have also been nothing short of devastating. In financial terms alone, the costs of the invasion have reached extraordinary heights. By the end of August 2005, they had amounted to more than £3 billion for Britain and to more than $190 billion for the United States, enough to have funded anti-global hunger efforts for seven years, or to have immunised every child in the world for over six decades. In more directly human terms, the cost of the war has also been staggering. In the thirty-one months since the invasion was launched, more than 2,000 US soldiers had lost their lives in the conflict, almost 100 British servicemen had been killed, and the civilian death toll had reached anything up to, and had perhaps even exceeded, 100,000. In addition to this, the attempt to introduce a 'Western-style' liberal democracy into Iraq has also proved to be highly problematic. Despite a relatively successful parliamentary election, the process of drawing up a new constitution has posed an array of deeply entrenched political dilemmas for the new Iraqi state. With widespread concerns about the future role of Islamic law, with question marks about the extent of its commitment to upholding human, and especially women's rights, and with disputes raging over the structure of proposed federal arrangements (fiercely opposed by Iraq's Sunni minority on the grounds that this would lead to a loss of revenues to the oil-rich Kurdish and Shi'ite dominated regions), the future integrity, cohesion, and stability of the Iraqi nation itself remains far from certain.
The impact of the war upon the international political economy has been greatly damaging. In opening up a series of fissures within the world system, the invasion of Iraq has not only served to undermine the United Nations, to embitter relations between Europe and the United States, and to heighten antagonisms between the West and the Muslim world, but has also arguably increased the level of global instability and disorder that has characterised the twenty-first century thus far. Indeed, for all the efforts of a war ostensibly designed, at least in part, to deal with the dangers of international terrorism, the threat of terrorist activity itself appears to be undiminished. In July 2005, this was vividly demonstrated in London by a series of al-Qaeda–inspired bombings, the worst terrorist attacks ever to take place on the British mainland.
Yet insofar as Britain itself is concerned, whatever the events surrounding the invasion of Iraq might reveal about the behavioural shortcomings of a particular government, they are also indicative of a more general, and far deeper, malaise within its democratic system. Put simply, the fundamental issue to have emerged from the war is not that senior members of the New Labour establishment have managed to ride roughshod over the general will of the British public and have managed to subjugate the processes of the political system with impunity on a matter of such importance. The real issue, rather, is what this episode reveals about the nature of the political system itself — namely, that the enactment of the public will is not, and has never been, the purpose of the British polity. On the contrary, in many ways the British democratic system represents the very antithesis of such aims. Founded on intractably and deeply entrenched principles of centralisation, hierarchy, and elitism, this is characterised by a deep-seated adherence to a model of government marked by a strong and relatively unfettered executive at the expense of a more responsive and participatory form of decision-making. What the events surrounding Britain's involvement in the Iraq war demonstrate, then, is not so much the failure of British democracy per se, as the enduring success of its elitist underpinnings. While the day-to-day ephemera of political life itself may be a dirty affair, the vitiated state of its foundations is far more deeply ingrained.
Analysing the war
Conventional accounts and explanations of Britain's participation in the Iraq war tend to revolve around two central themes. The first of these is that this was primarily the result of Britain's general subservience to the United States. In its standard format, this view contends that the New Labour government, and Tony Blair in particular, acted in varying degrees as 'poodles' to the neo-conservatives in Washington, fuelled by a post-9/11 desire to enforce regime change in Iraq as part of a broader mission to assert America's global hegemony. In effect, it is argued that senior government figures deliberately misled the country and Parliament about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to demonstrate Britain's commitment to remaining the chief ally of the United States, and to provide the Bush regime with the political fig leaf of a coalition partner in its international misdemeanours. In the second and contrary interpretation, it is argued that senior figures in the New Labour establishment (and, again, especially the Prime Minister) were genuinely and fervently convinced that the path to war with Iraq was the right way of dealing with the new global security threats deriving from the unholy trinity of WMD, rogue states, and international terrorism. While varying degrees of doubt also remain as to the extent to which the main actors involved may or may not have engaged in deceitful activities in order to strengthen the case for war, it is not therefore doubted that the underlying intentions in this regard were sincere, nor that their convictions were real.
Beyond these contrasting interpretations, however, analyses of Britain's participation in the Iraq conflict are broadly convergent on the issue of its domestic political impact. Generically, the various machinations through which the government's Iraq policy was developed and carried out are seen to provide a form of 'barium meal', neatly exposing and illuminating the various flaws, shortcomings, and weaknesses that exist within the British system of democracy. In turn, such an analysis leads to the conclusion that the way to revitalise and reinvigorate democracy in Britain is through a medicinal series of reforms designed to strengthen the powers of Parliament, and to temper the dominance of the executive branch.
While such analyses are undoubtedly both important and insightful, these interpretations of Britain's involvement in the Iraq war are nevertheless problematic. Primarily, this is due to the overly privileged role that is accorded the individual actors who were involved in driving the project forward. This has led to explanatory accounts being constructed on the basis of the assumed intentions, values, beliefs, and personalities of Tony Blair, George W. Bush, and their respective aides. While these accounts acknowledge that such individuals did not have a completely free hand to do as they would like, the formative context within which the decision to go to war was made is nevertheless thought to have been comprised of essentially contingent and subjective factors, including the desires of the Bush administration, the views and the relative flammability of the Labour backbenches, the attitude of ministerial colleagues and special advisors, the worldview of Tony Blair himself, and the more general state of domestic public opinion. Although these are all clearly important to any analysis of the conflict, the main problem with such an actor-based approach is that this ultimately tends to produce a descriptive account of events which has little or no consideration for the broader structural context in which these key actors were themselves situated, nor of the way in which this affected their respective views, proclivities, and political behaviour.
In contrast, the argument of this book is that the development of the Iraq policy was fundamentally conditioned by the underlying structural architecture of the British political system. This is based on a series of deeply entrenched norms and values pertaining to a centralised, hierarchical, and elitist style of government, producing a model of democracy characterised by the apotheosis of strong and decisive leadership, by a limited notion of representation, and by a relative paucity of effective checks and balances on the use of executive power. In turn, these ideational and institutional contours have exerted a key formative impact upon the emergence and development of New Labour. Fuelled by the experience of operating from within the confines of the British political system, and especially by the repeated electoral failures between 1979 and 1992, senior party figures became convinced that success could only be ensured through a process of internal restructuring designed to establish conformity with its elitist principles. Following an intensive process of reform, by May 1997 the Labour party was now fully equipped and willing to capitalise on the centralised and relatively unfettered nature of power within the British state. The stage was set, then, for these behavioural norms and values to be elevated to an entirely new level.
This has been reflected in both the style and the substance of New Labour's governing strategy. In essence, this has sought to enhance Britain's position within the international political economy, to sustain the government in power, and to maintain a sufficient degree of operational freedom for members of the core executive. New Labour's domestic strategy has been based on a neo-liberal economic programme embedded within a support mechanism of 'depoliticisation', accompanied by a strong emphasis on internal party discipline, centralised decision-making, and an ongoing programme of media management designed to regulate the flow of politically sensitive information. In its external dimension, New Labour's strategy has focused on the promotion of international free markets, the provision of diplomatic and military support to key allies, and an attempt to position Britain as a 'transatlantic bridge' between Europe and America. This has been coupled with an interventionist foreign policy designed to align the contours of the world order with those of Britain's geo-strategic interests and to project British power and influence across the international stage.
The analysis of New Labour's Iraq policy thus needs to be considered in relation to the broader aims and objectives of this governing strategy. Doing so opens the way for a somewhat contrasting view of these developments. This shows, first, that senior government figures, and Tony Blair in particular, did not act out of their subservience to the United States, but were in favour of regime change in Iraq prior to the rise of the Bush administration; and, second, that the policy was not simply motivated by a desire to address the issues of rogue states, terrorism, and WMD, but was focused on the broader foreign policy goals of shaping the global political economy with a view to enhancing Britain's international position. Moreover, at each and every stage during the course of events, the underlying principles of centralisation, hierarchy, and elitism were clearly discernible in their impact, both in facilitating the development of the Iraq policy through the structural dynamics of the British state and through their utility for the governing authorities as an effective means of justifying their actions.
Argument and format
That the New Labour government was keen to adopt an assertive foreign policy was evident from the outset. While the prospect of pursuing an increasingly hard line against Iraq (including support for regime change) was forestalled only by a lack of political and legal abutments, the government's interventionist stance was progressively entrenched by a series of military campaigns. This involved four days of air strikes against Iraq in December 1998, an ostensibly humanitarian crusade against Yugoslavia in 1999, and an equally progressive skirmish in Sierra Leone the following year. With the rise of the neo-conservative Bush administration, however, and particularly following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the issue of Iraq was catapulted up the political agenda. This now presented Washington with the opportunity to pursue a 'new-imperialist' strategy designed to enforce the global pre-eminence of the United States, and presented senior figures in the New Labour hierarchy with the political space required to pursue a tougher line against Saddam Hussein. Buttressed by further military action in Afghanistan, a key aim in deposing the Iraqi regime was that this would establish the credibility of core Western powers in the 'war on terror', would deter any potential transgressors from stepping out of line, and, through the associated spread of 'freedom' and 'democracy', would help to establish and maintain an international order more attuned to the interests of the world's main capitalist nations.
Having apparently agreed to support this policy of regime change during discussions with George W. Bush in the spring of 2002, Tony Blair and a small band of officials readily set about devising a strategy to create the political and legal conditions required to justify military action. This involved a focus on the issue of WMD, the use of the United Nations (UN) as both a cover and a trap for the ensuing manoeuvres, and a sustained propaganda campaign based around a deliberate hyping of the threat posed by Iraq in order to convince domestic and international opinion of the need for firmer measures. Central to this was the production of the now-infamous 'September dossier', which revealed a pattern of unduly close relations between the intelligence services and New Labour officials, and which provided the main source for the controversy surrounding the government's use of intelligence material. Throughout this time, neither the Cabinet, Parliament, nor the general public had any knowledge of, or influence over, the underlying developments that were now driving the policy forward.
Indeed, while international support was now mobilised behind a UN resolution authorising a renewed programme of weapons inspections, domestic opinion remained largely reticent about the government's motives. In response, Downing Street's inner circle began to place a growing emphasis on the humanitarian imperatives for military action, highlighting the apparent benefits of strong and decisive leadership in a concerted attempt to make a virtue out of what was now the Prime Minister's increasingly well-worn vice. With tensions rising inside the UN Security Council, New Labour officials also turned their hand to misrepresenting the position of the French government in order to establish a reliable scapegoat for the impending failure to secure explicit UN approval for the use of military power. This was also accompanied by a controversial strengthening of the Attorney-General's legal advice on the use of force and by an intensive deployment of internal party discipline in order to persuade Parliament to endorse the decision to go to war in spite of large-scale public opposition.
Although the immediate conflict was over relatively quickly, political difficulties over the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq led to the adoption of an equally intensive postwar management strategy. At the centre of this was a concerted attempt to frame the political debate by misrepresenting allegations being reported by the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan concerning unease within the intelligence community about the government's use of classified material in the run-up to the Iraq war. This was accompanied by a strong desire to ensure that the identity of the source for the BBC's story, Dr David Kelly, made its way into the public domain. Since it was felt in official circles that Gilligan had Dr Kelly's views, this disclosure would enable the government to effectively discredit the BBC's allegations, and would thus exonerate the government from having deliberately misused intelligence in order to strengthen the case for military action.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dirty Politics? by Steven Kettell. Copyright © 2006 Steven Kettell. Excerpted by permission of Zed Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: A Sign of the Times 2. The Democratic Consequences of New Labour 3. Iraqnaphobia 4. The March to War 5. Engulfed 6. Whiter than White 7. Business as Usual 8. Conclusion: The Reform Agenda Notes Bibliography Index