Blair steps down

"That is that. The end", said Tony Blair with an air of finality to his exit from politics on Wednesday, and left the House of Commons for a visit to the Queen to present his resignation. In fact, just the opposite was true: no such drama was justified.
He had clung to his office as long as he could. His Labour Party wanted to get grid of him as he had become an electoral liability ever since he blundered into the Iraq war in 2003. With the charismatic David Cameron now heading the Conservatives, the Labour was under pressure to effect a change at the helm.
Mounting death toll of British soldiers in Iraq and his alleged involvement in the 'loans for peerages' scandal only added to his party leaders' anxiety to hasten Tony Blair's exit. Finally, he agreed to leave. Speaking last April to his voters at his Sledgefield constituency, who elected him for the first time in 1983 when he was only 30, he announced his decision to quit. He could not justify his teaming up with President Bush.
"Hand on heart, I did what was right...I may have been wrong that's your call. But believe one thing; if nothing else, I did what I thought was right for our country".
But no one called him to stay on. As he left his deputy and his finance minister for as long as he was prime minister, Gordon Brown, took over the party, and indicated drastic reshuffle of the cabinet, if nothing else but to convey his rejection of Tony Blair legacy. Brown pledged to lead a "new government with new priorities".
Then he promised to be "strong in purpose, steadfast in will, resolute in action in the service of what matters to British people, meeting the concerns and aspirations of the whole country". If Blair had been able to strengthen the British economy, it was mainly because of Gordon Brown's running of the economy.
But does the new man have the political charisma to win yet one more victory for the Labour is a question that only the time would answer. His biggest challenge, however, would be the pullout from Iraq, which has become an increasingly unpopular commitment with the British people.
A clever Tony Blair is too young to go home and baby-sit. He has wangled a cushy job as Quartet's peace envoy to the Middle East, and had not resigned his seat in the Commons until his appointment was notified. With Hamas having painted itself into the corner by pushing out Fatah from the Gaza Strip at gun point, the ex-prime minister of Britain will find himself at a considerable advantage to rally support for pro-West Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, but only initially.
Hamas is the majority party in Palestine; to keep it out is not a workable option. For Tony Blair securing the support of the Muslim world would be difficult also for his part in bestowing the title of Sir on the condemned Salman Rushdi. But that perhaps is not the objective before the Quartet, which seems to be now single-mindedly pursuing its two-state solution where the Hamas would have no role. That is an unrealistic goal, unless one believes that Tony Blair needed a job and that he got.