ABSTRACT
Tony Blair’s decision to embrace George Bush’s war against Iraq has four root causes. First, a perception of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and, after 9/11, the possibility that biological, chemical and nuclear agents might fall into the hands of terrorists. Second, a Manichean sense of good and evil and a religiosity which did not sit well in secular Britain, but which facilitated his relationship with the born-again George W. Bush. Third, his perception that British military operations, especially when justified as humanitarian intervention, were usually successful, short-lived and relatively free of risk, based on recent “successes” in Kosovo in 1999, Sierra Leone and East Timor in 2000, and Afghanistan in 2001. Fourth, and most influential, his judgment (fortified by the myth of the Special Relationship and his friendship with Bill Clinton in 1997–2000) that Britain must always try to stay close to the United States.
