Brown replaces Blair as British PM
Tony Blair resigns after 10 years in office, making way for Gordon Brown.
Brown to the fore |
Blair’s Middle East mission |
Soon after being confirmed as the Middle East envoy, Blair resigned as a member of parliament.
Blair became prime minister in 1997 after Labour won the biggest parliamentary majority for half a century with a strong public mandate for change.
But his popularity ratings dropped considerably, partly because of his decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and support for the so-called “war on terror”.
In an interview with The Sun newspaper published on Wednesday, George Bush, the US president, rejected the allegation that Blair was an uncritical “poodle” to the US.
“He’s bigger than that. This is just background noise, a distraction from big things. This kind of thing is just silly ridicule and that’s how I treat it,” he said.
Your Views |
“Blair has been made a scapegoat for British foreign policy regarding Iraq” |
what is now the consensus across the international community – that the only way of bringing stability and peace to the Middle East is a two-state solution,” he said.
He said a Palestinian state would need to be “not merely viable in terms of its territory but in terms of its institutions and governance”.
Members of the Quartet – the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia – met in Jerusalem on Tuesday to discuss the appointment for which Blair was the only candidate.