I listened to a fair bit of Sir Jeremy Greenstock's testimony to the Iraq war enquiry. The first thing that struck me was the truth implied by that old joke that the Foreign Office should be renamed the 'Ministry for Foreigners'. I am happy to be corrected but my impression was that Sir Jeremy had very little interest in British grand strategic interests but was much more concerned with keeping the United Mafiosi Nations happy. In so far as he appeared concerned for Britain it was to ensure that we kept our good name and reputation in that 'Hall of Whores'. What people like Sir Jeremy forget is that whilst he meekly obeys the diktat of the Security Council and thus permits his own country to be hobbled, he seems unaware, or perhaps, unconcerned, with the fact that when push comes to shove no-one else pays it any attention whatsoever.
There was some humour to be had from his delicate division between the war being 'legal but not legitimate'. That is the sort of well-bred distinction they teach you at Harrow, Oxford and the FO. As Paul Waugh points out on his blog, from Sir Jeremy's perspective the main aim for Britain was to defend the United Nations which for the previous 12 years had been utterly useless. In his own words:
There was no doubt that the United Nations over 12 years had failed to deal with the fact that they were being defied by Saddam Hussein.
We were trying to defend the United Nations from being eroded by successive non-compliance by a member state just as much as we were trying to deal with the threat posed by the Iraqi possession of dangerous weapons.
Perhaps part of the reason for UN failures lies in the fact that so many of their top officials, including a relation of Kofi Annan, were earning fortunes in bribes from international crooks breaking UN sanctions.
Anyway, so far it looks as though the top echelons of our Foreign Service are pathetic and useless, and I am becoming ever more convinced that the same applies to the top brass in our armed forces - but more of that later.
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