Britain’s march to war in Iraq essay

The split of the Labour Party on the Iraq issue was generally a quite expected phenomenon, as soon as this issue managed to split entire states, peoples and international organizations in their opinions. The decision of Labour party leader and former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to resign in protest against the policies of Prime Minister of Great Britain on Iraq had a significant effect though this was not enough to stop the war.

Still, the Cook’s resignation caused a great political damage Blair’s cabinet. This raised a number of new questions to Britain’s priorities, mainly due to the highly positive reputation of Cook in the Parliament as an effective spokesman from the Government. The position of Robin Cook could be easily understood. Above all, British Prime Minister was preparing for war without paying attention to the progress in the work of the UN inspectors, and thus was artificially exaggerating the possibilities of real threat posed by Iraq.

Indeed, London’s official position on Iraq was undergoing questionable changes: while originally the UK advocated the use of military action against Iraq only after the provision of evidence for the links between the Iraqi regime and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, later, an ideological argument on a serious threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime to international security was already enough. Deliberately misinforming the Parliament and the public about the existence of weapons Saddam Hussein’s government, Blair allowed Britain to enter the war which finally turned to be a bloody mistake. Therefore, the position of Robin Cook, as well as a number of other politicians, is truly justified: he just did not want to accept collective responsibility for the murderous decision to involve Britain into a military action without international consensus, political support and reasoned grounds.