I enjoyed Jose Vergara's analysis of Tony Blair (on kenwilber.com blog) where he ponders whether Blair should be awarded an imaginary "Integral Leader Award." Probably because I agree with most if not all of it. It was especially nice to get the perspective on Blair from a Brit., with the information and analysis about his [Blair's] domestic successes. I think he makes a strong case that Blair was about as integral a politician as you can get in this day and age.

With one glaring mistake, of course. After making his case that Blair is\was integral thru and thru, he proceeds to pummel him for his support of Bush and the invasion of Iraq in very harsh terms, in the end stripping Blair of the "Integral Leader Award" and handing it instead to Robin Cook, who resigned as leader of the British House of Commons in protest to the war. It was perhaps a little unfair to give the award to Cook for a single act without the requisite analysis of Cook's political career from an AQAL perspective, but it is obvious that Jose considers Cook a hero, and rightly so I think.

It is hard to argue with Jose's analysis of the war and Blair's complications role in it, for me at any rate. Of course, Blair wasn't the only one who should have known better. Hillary Clinton certainly belongs on that list, for the same basic reason: that all the information necessary to make an integrally informed judgement against the invasion was available at the time. One of the more interesting justifications for Blair is that, seeing the inevitability of the war, he chummed up to Bush so that he might wield some leverage for steering the war and its aftermath in a positive direction. If so, Jose argues, then Blair fatally misjudged both his ability to have any affect on the Bush administration's policy decisions as well as the level of pure incompetency that that administration would prove to be capable of.

Ken says that the higher up the spiral, the bigger mistakes one is capable of making. Surely this is such a case.  What is heartbreaking is that without doubt Tony Blair thought he was doing the right thing at the time (as did Hillary for that matter.) What bad luck that the political career of [one of] the most integral world leaders in history should coincide with that of one of the most regressive.

All in all a very good article.  

Thanks very much for posting about this. I've read the article, and it's very interesting to me. I really liked it, but I want to talk more about the Iraq section. One thing I wonder about is the implication that Blair and Bush, the UK and US, were the only two important powers involved, so any failure in Iraq is enitrely their fault. If there's blame to be ascribed for going to war and the subsequent mess, they would have to be given the lion's share, but there were so many other important players: the U. N. Security Council, France and Russia especially, China, the rest of the Arab world, the Sunnis and Shia in Iraq, Sadaam, Al Qaeda, etc. It's a long list, and Bush and Blair don't have control over all of it. I don't have time now--I will respond more in a day or two--but I think that entire situation needs to be looked at from a more integral perspective. So much of the antiwar message is simply Bush was wrong, Blair was wrong, Bush is incompetent, the neoconservatives are trying to take over the world, and that's that, and Vergara didn't seem to depart from that too much.

I also hate to think what Bush would have done had Blair not been there to reign him in. The French Prime Minister did nothing to temper Bush, but we criticise Blair for his efforts. I say Blair deserves the award!

good essay too

Tony Blair will redeem himself when he becomes President of the Council of the EU.

I find him to be a rather ambiguous figure; sometimes I feel him to be callous, other times in his element. Suppose it's just like anyone, really.

D.