Never mind Tony Blair and his denials over Iraq. As our government contemplates its response to the latest crisis in Iraq, now may be the moment for a different Prime Minister to admit to another grave error. Will David Cameron concede that he might have been wrong to have intervened in Libya?
Until recently, the Cameroons and most of the inhabitants of the Westminster village were eager to chalk up the removal of Muammar Gaddafi as a win for Team Dave and the coalition. It was proof – badly needed, after a decade of disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan – that military intervention could work. Western firepower played a key role in ending an odious tyranny, and the Libyans seemed eager for democracy. And no allied lives were lost. Hooray. Remember Sarkozy and Cameron’s cringe-inducing freedom tour of Libya? ‘Colonel Gaddafi said he would hunt you down like rats,’ said Dave, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘but you showed the courage of lions.
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