Today, former British prime minister Tony Blair has to answer for his decision to take part in the war in Iraq. Many people in Great Britain will think he is a villain, whatever he says today. Everything that has gone wrong in the United Kingdom is currently being blamed on him. But does this make him a war criminal?

Tony Blair’s hearing by the Chilcot Committee is the climax of the British inquiry into the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Mr Blair is the key witness. The war in Iraq is his war.

Whatever the commission finally concludes, Mr Blair’s opponents have already heard enough. The civil servants, politicians, diplomats and secret service bosses who have sat before the commission since it began at the end of November, have done their work. Each and every one of them has distanced himself from Mr Blair and his mission. They have wiped the floor with his reasons for going to war.

Animosity
The animosity toward Mr Blair is huge and intense. It is not just about the war in Iraq, which is generally accepted to be the biggest British blunder on foreign soil since the Suez Canal fiasco. It wasn’t long ago that Tony Blair was a political hero. He won three successive elections, which makes him the most successful labour leader in history. He was contemporary and charismatic. He had authority and a predilection for social reform.

The anger towards Mr Blair is not just because of Iraq, but has been borne out of frustration about the failure of the whole Labour project, about the bank scandal, the recession, increasing social division, greedy politicians. The war in Iraq is symbolic of a crisis of confidence in British politics.

Judgement reserved
“The only question which matters, is the one the Chilcot Commission won’t be asking: was the war in Iraq illegal?” writes the Guardian. The inquiry commission will not pass judgement on Mr Blair. The commission has a broad mandate; it was set up to evaluate the run-up to the invasion, the war itself, and the period that followed. But it is not a legal investigation, nor is it a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr Blair’s six-hour-long hearing is actually just piece of theatrical voyeurism. Most of those present will already have decided on his guilt. But is Mr Blair a war criminal? It was an enormous error of judgement to send troops to Iraq, he convinced himself that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he exaggerated the influence he had on George Bush, he was absurdly naive about how Iraq would develop after Saddam Hussein. But he is certainly not a war criminal.

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