By Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka
Liverpool, England (AP)-Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to the foreground of peace efforts in the Middle East after an American peace plan at the end of the War of Israel-Hamas played him in a leading role in the supervision of the post-war administration and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
It is a familiar territory for Blair, which spent eight years working to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians as a living in the international community in the Middle East.
His decision to resign in 2015 was considered to reflect the disastrous efforts of peace in the Middle East who devoted themselves more under the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The American proposal – that President Donald Trump and Netanyahu declared that they agreed after the talks at the White House on Monday – would put the territory of Gaza and its more than 2 million people under international control, deployment of an international security force and installation of a “peace council” led by Trump and Blair to superdize the administration and reconstruction.
Hamas said on Tuesday that it would study the plan, both within the group and with other Palestinian factions before responding.
Inheritance of war in Iraq
Blair has decades of experience in the Middle East. For some, it is its great strength – and for others its enormous weakness.
As Prime Minister between 1997 and 2007, he took the United Kingdom to the invasion of Iraq led by the United States in 2003 despite strong public opposition. The subsequent conflict killed 179 British soldiers, around 4,500 US staff and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
A public inquiry concluded in 2016 that Blair took the country at war according to defective intelligence and “before peaceful disarmament options were exhausted”. But he did not say that the war was illegal, which could have opened the way to Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Blair defended his decision to go to war, saying he had made it in good faith, believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
A diplomatic role in the Middle East
After leaving his duties in 2007, Blair was appointed envoy of the Middle East by the “quartet” of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations-a position which began with a lot of promises but which has struggled to make spectacular changes in its quest to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Blair’s experience in British politics and the recognition of names gave hope that he had the charisma and the bonds that could bring progress.
But his work has become mired in skirmishes on issues such as the movement of Palestinian goods and inhabitants in the West Bank, and dealing with difficulties of a Gaza strip led by Hamas and blocked by Israel and Egypt.
“Well, he was a colossal failure in the many years that he was the special envoy of the quartet,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an expert in the Middle East in Geneva for the security policy. “They didn’t do much.”
Blair left in 2015 with little to show in terms of progress towards a Palestinian state. It was well before the attack on Hamas led by Hamas, the attack on Israel sparked the last war and poisoning the hopes of peace and stability.
Recently, Blair was part of the high-level planning discussions with the United States and others from the Gaza future.
In a statement, Blair said that Trump’s “daring and intelligent” plan offers “the best chance” to end the Gaza War. He did not mention his own potential role.
A controversial politician
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Trump’s announcement of a peace plan was “deeply welcome” and called “on all sides to meet and work with the American administration to finalize this agreement and put it in reality”. He did not mention the potential participation of Blair.
Blair remains a figure of division of the Labor Party, rented by some for having won three consecutive elections but forever tarnished in the eyes of others because of the war.
The Secretary of Health, Wes Streting, admitted that “there will be people who watch Tony Blair and his inheritance in Iraq and will lift the eyebrows to say the least if he is the right man to be involved.”
But he noted that Blair played a key role in the end of the decades of violence in Northern Ireland with the Friday 1998 Friday peace agreement, an experience that could prove to be essential in the Middle East.
Michael Stephens, an international security expert in the Royal United Revès Institute’s reflection group, said that Blair given a role in a transitional Gaza authority “has 2003 rings on this subject, so it seems uncomfortable.
“But if it brings a ceasefire, it may not be the worst option,” he said.
The Palestinians of the Gaza War expressed little enthusiasm for Blair.
“Blair is rejected by the people,” said Hussein Dhaher, a man inappropriate from the northern city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza. “This man has the blood of the Iraqis on his hands. He only brings ruin and destruction.”
Umm Mohammed, a history teacher who houses his family in Gaza City, wondered why a Palestinian leader could not have been found in the place of Blair.
“This man is hated in the region because of his role in the destruction of Iraq, and he will bring nothing good to the Palestinians,” she said.
Kirka reported in London. The writer Associated Press Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
