Now, here’s an interesting thing:

Tony Blair, in a BBC interview, says he would have gone ahead to invade Iraq to effect a regime change, even if he knew that it had no weapons of mass destruction. Here are his words: I would still have thought it right to remove him.

And yet, who can forget that infamous dossier published to parliament and country, in which Saddam’s chemical and biological WMDs that could have been unleashed on the world within 45 minutes were trotted out as the main reason for the invasion. The threat of those ghostly WMDs descending on London were probably responsible for the scrappy support wrung from parliament for the war.

Yet, back in 2003, had Tony Blair looked objectively around the world for countries whose heads of government

• had caused the deaths of thousands of their citizens and foreigners by their actions and inactions,
• were in possession and control of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’,

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq would have been spared on the second count, but Mr. Blair would still have had enough regime-change wars to keep the British army busy until 2050. Even if Mr. Blair tagged on a third condition:

• premiers who tell fibs

There would still be many non-Iraq regime-change wars to fight. – Although in one case at least, after a heroic Battle with his Conscience, he could have effected a regime change simply by writing a letter of resignation.

Of course the world is better off without Saddam Hussein (and many others); but these dictators and their ilk were – and are – nurtured and armed by the cynical realpolitik of the world’s power-brokers. The world is also better off without these post-retirement confessions.

I do not wait with bated breath for a George Bush denouement.

Chuma.