Tony Blair and the War in Iraq

If he had opposed the war in Iraq, there would have been explosive consequences politically as well. He was a figure framed by the 1980s when Labour lost elections and were seen as soft on defence compared with Thatcher. All this I think had a big impact on Tony Blair's calculations when it came to Iraq - they were layered and complicated but quite shallow. The PM wanted to show he was strong with America so that if he had a referendum on the euro no one could claim he was just pro-European who had turned his back on America far from it.