There are moments when history rises from its long slumber and delivers a verdict with the clarity of a hammer striking iron. Tony Blair’s exclusion from the proposed Gaza peace council was one of those moments—unambiguous, unforgiving, almost biblical in its finality. A man who once strode the world stage with the swagger of a liberator found himself barred from the very region he helped set ablaze. For the Arab and Muslim states, his name is not synonymous with diplomacy or statesmanship. It is a synonym for catastrophe.

No peace for a warmonger

Blair’s bid for a seat at Gaza’s reconstruction table collapsed under the weight of a legacy he can neither outrun nor whitewash. His cheerleading for the 2003 invasion of Iraq—a war justified with doctored dossiers and apocalyptic fantasies—left a wound that never healed. The armies marched, the bombs fell, and a nation was torn limb from limb under the banner of “liberation.” To the Arab world, the image of Blair standing shoulder to shoulder with George W. Bush remains an indelible emblem of deceit. It is not forgotten. It is not forgiven.

Arab and Muslim states delivered their objections with unusual unanimity. Their message was blunt: the architect of Iraq’s ruin cannot masquerade as Gaza’s healer. Their opposition carried so much force that Donald Trump, who initially praised Blair as a “very good man,” quietly backed off. Even Trump recognised that he could not install a mediator whose face triggers a collective memory of invasion, occupation, and the shattering of an entire region. Blair was deemed “unacceptable to everybody,” a diplomatic euphemism for........

© Middle East Monitor