The cracks are starting to show in the mask that Tony Blair has presented to the world for the past eight years.
As Representative of the Middle East Quartet, he claimed not only to care about the region, and the Palestinian issue in particular, but also to have the means to do something about it. In the course of my research for Blair: the Man behind the Mask, a book I have co-written, I found governments in Washington and Brussels turning against Mr Blair.
The great powers that set up the Quartet – the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union – are dissatisfied with Mr Blair on three counts.
First, he is seen as too close to Israel. Second, he had so many business interests that he did not put the time in to help get investment into the Palestinian territories. Third, he lacked credibility because of his conflicts of interest.
Mr Blair has been perceived to be unhealthily close to Israel. Dr Toby Greene, an English academic, has said that Mr Blair “showed much greater sympathy for Israel as a democratic state at threat from extremism, than many of his European counterparts”. This perception was enhanced by the feeling that he was the stooge of former American president George W Bush, who put him in the Quartet position. It grew more pronounced with every passing year.
We spoke to Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi for our book and she said:“He always tries to accommodate Netanyahu.” Palestinians expressed their contempt for Mr Blair on a visit he made to Hebron in 2009, when shoes were thrown at him. Ms Ashrawi said that Mr Blair was “useless, useless, useless”.
The next strand of the case against Mr Blair is that he was simply ineffective.
People have watched his growing number of business interests around the world, and asked whether he has the time or the will to devote to the Middle East problem. He is now leading a consultancy called Tony Blair Associates, with commercial contracts in countries as far afield as Kazakhstan and Myanmar. His Africa Governance Initiative has pro bono involvement in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is spread around the globe.
This catalogue of commitments means that the Representative of the Quartet – on whom Palestinians rely to funnel investment into their financially-starved region – rarely gets a look in.
Mr Blair is thought to visit the region two days a month, and he has scarcely ever visited Gaza, he has said, on the grounds of security.
The case for the defence is that Mr Blair has funnelled some investment into the region, in particular the financing of a second mobile phone network and a $350 million (Dh1.28bn) gas extraction plant by BG Group.
The Wataniya project for the second phone network was subsequently part of a refinancing deal whereby the Qatari company Q-Tel took out a $2 billion loan from the US investment bank JP Morgan. The Palestinian economy benefited to the tune of $250m, but the deal was clouded by the fact that Mr Blair is a consultant to JP Morgan.
Mr Blair’s enthusiasm for the mobile phone project shone through in a private letter disclosed in the book.
The letter, written to Hillary Clinton on Middle East Quartet notepaper, described the Wataniya project as part of his “transformative change agenda” for the Palestinian territories.
He said that Wataniya would produce “the largest investment in the Palestinian economy to date. Conversely its failure would send the wrong signal about the prospects for the transformative change agenda, and would deter sustained foreign investment in the Palestinian territories.”
You can argue whether Mr Blair’s conflicts of interest are real or imagined, but they have dogged his involvement in the region.
James Wolfensohn, Mr Blair’s predecessor as Quartet Representative and a former President of the World Bank, said that the Quartet job was a very convenient calling card for someone looking to promote their business interests: “For Tony Blair to say, ‘I would like to talk to you about the [Middle East] peace process’ is a very different entry point to saying ‘I would like to become an adviser to your country’.” Wolfensohn is referring to the plethora of interests Mr Blair maintains around the region.
This pattern has started to register in the corridors of power. Some will ask whether Mr Blair was the right man for the job in the first place. People will ask whether the Quartet itself needs a new direction.
It is clear Mr Blair was never expected to bring peace to the Middle East. Many greater men have failed at achieving that. But he has brought a level of disappointment which has done no good for Britain’s prospects in the region, let alone for the Palestinian economy’s desperately needed rebirth.
Nick Kochan is a political and financial journalist. His book, Blair Inc: the Man behind the Mask, co-written with Francis Beckett and David Hencke, is available now
