Or possibly a particularly early one. Two weeks after Tony Blair’s demission as Prime Minister, and four years after he opted for political suicide. This is what I wrote on March 18, 2003 , on the day before the Commons vote on a British participation in “operation Iraqi Freedom”.

I doubt Blair will lose his case tomorrow, but chances are, a majority will clearly depend on Conservative votes. I guess no explanation is needed as to why it is a huge problem for a PM to be backed by the opposition instead of his own Parliamentary party.

But even in case the rebellion will be less pronounced than commentators expect, and even if the war will take a favourable course – I doubt Blair’s decision to invest almost all his political capital into supporting the US government’s case for regime change will ever pay off. Even without a possible future leadership challenge, Blair will never again be the political star he used to be. Governing will be a lot harder for him in the future than it has been before.

Isn’t it great that blogs have archives?