Blair in Chicago

John Rentoul,biographer of Tony Blair reflects on his speech in Chicago last night in which he defended his historic intervention in Kosovo 10 years ago.

It is what John calls

a values-based foreign policy, backed up by a willingness to intervene militarily,

However the legacy of this policy will be Iraq which will hang around his neck like the proverbial albatross.

Also last night he notes

Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister, showed that in Blair's work of bolstering moderate Islam there has been a lot done, a lot still to do. "About 2,000 peace activists applauded" as George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, were branded "fascist war criminals" at a conference in Malaysia.