Straw’s departure strengthens Blair’s agenda against Iran

By Abid Mustafa

After the British Labour party‘s worst local election result since 1982,
Tony Blair swiftly moved to reshuffle his cabinet which led to some a high
profile ministers losing their posts. While it was widely anticipated that
Charles Clarke the Home Secretary would lose his job over his failure to
deport immigrant criminals, and John Prescott the Deputy Prime Minister to
be stripped of his ministry, few expected Jack Straw to be removed from the
position of Britain’s Foreign Secretary.

It was understandable for Charles Clarke, John Prescott and Patricia Hewitt
( the Minister for health) to be in the firing line for incompetence,
adultery and how to fund the NHS, but Jack Straw’s conduct was never under
any real public scrutiny. So why was he removed?

The media has given three reasons for Straw’s dismissal: a) forging closer
links with Gordon Brown b) admitting mistakes over Iraq c) undermining
Blair’s authority over Iran. The latter appears to be the real reason for
Straw’s demotion to the leader of the commons.

While it maybe true that Straw was repositioning himself to forge closer
links with Gordon Brown (Blair’s successor), it unlikely that this was the
primary reason for removing Straw. The inclusion of Gordon Brown’s
supporters in the new cabinet discredits this view. Brown’s two former
advisers, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, both landed junior ministerial jobs,
while Des Browne and Europe minister Douglas Alexander were promoted within
the cabinet.

Likewise Straw’s disquiet over Iraq could not have featured prominently in
Blair’s decision to get rid of him. After all, Straw became the lead
architect of the Iraq war after inheriting the mantle of defending Britain’s
policy on Iraq from Robin Cook. Cook resigned as Foreign Secretary and
became a staunch critic of the government’s handling of Iraq. On the issue
of Iraq, Straw remained loyal and defended Blair’s Iraq policy tooth and
nail, he only spoke out when the Anglo-American debacle in Iraq became
plainly manifest for the whole world to see. Even then his remarks or
admission of mistakes caused Blair little political embarrassment.

If there ever was a reason for his dismissal from the office of Foreign
Secretary then it had to be Iran. The spat between the Foreign Secretary and
the Prime Minister over Iran started way back in 2003. Jack Straw much to
the annoyance of Downing Street and Washington has always insisted that
military action against Iran was inconceivable On April 9 2006 Straw
described the idea that the White House wanted a nuclear strike as
“completely nuts”. He insisted that Britain would not support pre-emptive
military action, adding: “I’m as certain as I can be sitting here that
neither would the United States.” Speaking to the BBC, Mr Straw said: “There
is no smoking gun, there is no casus belli. We can’t be certain about Iran’s
intentions and that is, therefore, not a basis on which anybody would gain
authority to go for military action.”  The division between Mr Straw on the
one hand and Mr Bush and Mr Blair on the other was further exposed in Prime
Minister’s Questions on 19 April 2006. Sir Menzies Campbell asked Mr Blair
whether he agreed with his Foreign Secretary that military action against
Iran would be “inconceivable” and that the use of nuclear weapons would be
“nuts”. An uncomfortable-looking Tony Blair said that while “nobody is
talking about a military invasion” now was “not the time to send a message
of weakness. The President of the US is not going to take any option off the
table. That is perfectly sensible for all the reasons the President has
himself given many, many times.” Using clever language Blair still held out
the possibility that his government would support the military option but
not a full-scale invasion.

The official US stance on Straw’s demotion was somewhat muted.  “That is an
internal political matter for the United Kingdom,” White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said at a briefing. However, the departure of the Foreign
Secretary was warmly by former officials of the Bush administration. David
Frum, Bush’s former speech writer who coined the phrase “axis of evil”,
said: “It’s a reassertion of Blair’s personal leadership of foreign affairs.
He has removed the foreign minister who says military action against Iran is
inconceivable and replaced him with somebody who hasn’t said anything.”
What is more interesting is that Downing Street was plotting Straw’s demise
for quite sometime. The Independent Newspaper quoted a retired senior US
intelligence officer as having told his British counterpart recently that
the White House lost confidence in the Foreign Secretary at least six months
ago. It was an analysis; we now know and shared with Mr. Blair. The Prime
Minister’s aides say Mr. Straw has a tendency to brief friendly journalists
with the details of a contentious meeting, sometimes within hours. It is now
evident that the Blair’s inaction to chastise the beleaguered Charles Clarke
and the adulterous John Prescott in the run up to May 5th local election
were deliberate. Blair’s main target was Jack Straw, and the abysmal showing
of the Labour Party in the local election provided the perfect opportunity.
Straw’s replacement is Margaret Beckett an inexperienced hand at foreign
affairs. Her occupation of the third most coveted position in British
politics has more to do with being a loyal servant of Blair then her
competence over foreign matters. Her biggest challenge will come directly
from the bureaucracy of the foreign office- some of whom deeply resent the
Prime Minister‘s neoconservative vision of the world.

With Blair effectively running the foreign office, he and his supporters in
BP and Shell will now have more freedom to plan their next move against Iran
and the wider Muslim world.