Blair's bravado

Quote

“The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians.”  Margaret Thatcher
 
"The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is."  Phillips Brooks

News

Last week Tony Blair addressed the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war, expressing again his convictions that invading Iraq in March 2003 was the right thing to do.  “I had to take this decision as Prime Minister. It was a huge responsibility and there is not a single day that passes by that I don’t reflect and think about that responsibility, and so I should,” Mr Blair said. “But I genuinely believe that if we had left Saddam in power, even with what we know now, we would still have had to have dealt with him, possibly in circumstances where the threat was worse.”  His critics don’t question Blair’s sincerity so much as his judgement - going to war ill-prepared, and failing to plan or even anticipate that a country where all dissent was ruthlessly suppressed could not fail to erupt once Saddam was removed. Blair's style of government left him vulnerable, as he turned the cabinet into more of a briefing room than a place to wrestle with issues and take differing opinions seriously – as his former cabinet colleague Clare Short made clear this week at the Chilcot Inquiry.

These events illustrate the value of leaders being able to bring tentative decisions to trusted advisors, before embarking on a course of action with huge and perhaps unpredictable consequences.  It also highlights the necessity of applying the same moral and relational criteria to the strategy for how to implement what is deemed a moral decision, as to the decision itself.  

Read on...

As a contrast to these statements at the Chilcot Inquiry, consider the humility of Abraham Lincoln's reflections on the American civil war, made in his second inaugural address, delivered in March 1865 after his re-election as US president.  To read this profound speech of just 700 words, click here: http://www.relationshipsglobal.net/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=38

Walk the talk 

Resolving conflict: once you have made what you think is the right decision, don’t move immediately to implementation.  Rather, take time to choose the best course of action, that takes into careful consideration the implications of each alternative, not just on the main parties involved, but also on others caught up in the conflict indirectly.

The last word

From the Bible, Proverbs 15, verse 22: "Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed."