Outgoing Blair Gets Praise And Criticism
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a major player on the world stage for a decade, won widespread praise Thursday for defending Kosovo, fighting global warming and overseeing peace in Northern Ireland — but criticism for championing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Blair announced Thursday he will resign June 27 as prime minister and leader of Britain's Labour Party.
President Bush was effusive about Blair, a crucial ally in the Iraq war, calling him a man who kept his word: "When Tony Blair tells you something, as we say in Texas, you can take it to the bank."
Bush also had kind words for Blair's anticipated replacement, Treasury chief Gordon Brown, saying he "found him to be an easy-to-talk-to, good thinker."
CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer said the trans-Atlantic relationship won't likely change much with Blair's departure.
"Nations do not necessarily have friends, they have interests. Tony Blair did what he thought was in Great Britain's interest," said Schieffer. "They will always be our closest ally, no matter who the prime minister there is or who the president of the United States is."
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said: "Blair revitalized his party, modernized his country's economy and its approach to social problems, took the lead on global issues from climate change to debt relief to doubling aid to Africa, to the quest for peace in Northern Ireland and Kosovo, and started the global Third Way political movement."
"I am glad he was there and grateful for our friendship," Clinton said in a statement.
"Tony Blair has taken Britain from the fringes to the mainstream of the European Union," the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said. Blair "leaves an impressive legacy including his commitment to enlargement, energy policy, his promotion of action against climate change, and for fighting poverty in Africa."
The local party faithful may still adore him, but the truth is much of Britain has fallen out of love with its prime minister, reports CBS News foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.
His career was blighted, says Matthew Parris, by one key blunder.
"Iraq, Iraq, Iraq," Parris, a writer for The Times, told Palmer. "It must haunt him through his dreams now, and it will for the rest of his life."
And CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk notes, "Although the Anglo-American relationship will remain strong, Blair's likely successor, Gordon Brown, has strong ties with Democratic Party leaders in the U.S. and his foreign policy is likely to diverge from U.S. policy, particularly in Iraq, and particularly because of the criticism within the U.K. of the war."
On Friday, Blair's office said he had formally endorsed Brown to be prime minister.
"I'm absolutely delighted to give my full support to Gordon as the next leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister and to endorse him fully," Blair said.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called Blair a "jovial, easygoing person" and a "fantastic speaker."
Staying in office for 10 years was a major accomplishment, Reinfeldt said. "And to do it in a country with the British press is an accomplishment in its own right," he said.
Reinfeldt said the Iraq war led to Blair's eventual demise, and that his decision to join the 2003 invasion was likely influenced by the notion that "every British prime minister has a historical duty to be very close to the American administration."
"It is no easy task to make fundamentally different policy assessments (from the U.S.) on important foreign policy matters," he said.
White House press secretary Tony Snow called Blair "an extraordinary leader," and praised him for maintaining "a long tradition of an alliance that is of extraordinary strategic importance. And we certainly appreciate everything he has done."
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who helped lead the U.S. push for war, said, "He has been steadfast in the face of negative public opinion, and in the face of crises he's stood steady. And we could always count on him."
Blair's cabinet members and political allies say the prime minister has accomplished a remarkable amount, not least the swearing-in earlier this week of new Northern Ireland ministers to lead a power-sharing government of the province's long-warring Catholics and Protestants.
In former colony India, Blair won praise for supporting its bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
"He was able to achieve the Northern Ireland peace agreement. There is quite a lot for him to take credit for. But then Iraq is perhaps the worst blunder," said K. Subrahmanyam, a former member of India's National Security Council and a leading defense analyst.
In Kosovo, Blair is credited with leading and building international consensus to stop the crackdown by Serb forces on the ethnic Albanian majority in 1999. When he visited the province shortly after British forces deployed in Kosovo following the war, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians gathered to thank him.
"We are grateful and thankful for his extraordinary contribution," said Ulpiana Lama, Kosovo's government spokeswoman. "He made the Kosovo issue in 1999 a priority of foreign policy."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe praised Blair's record on education and economic development.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Blair helped make Britain "one of Europe's best functioning economies."
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana expressed hope that Blair's successor would be "good for his country no doubt but also good for Europe. I think that Europe is going through a very important moment."
French President Jacques Chirac, who had rocky relations with the British prime minister, made no statement but was to host Blair in Paris on Friday.
Chirac "will receive the prime minister and tell him directly the price that France attaches to its relations with the United Kingdom," a Chirac aide said on condition of anonymity.
The departure of the two leaves Europe with new management in two of its biggest economic, military and diplomatic powers. Blair has better relations with Nicolas Sarkozy, taking over from Chirac next week, and will meet with Sarkozy also Friday.
John Nagenda, a senior adviser to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, said Blair's efforts to fight poverty in Africa — another of his major policy initiatives — had produced little.
"He created high sounding committees full of celebrities but if these ever translated into concrete actions, they passed me by and I'm a wide awake kind of guy," he said, calling Blair's departure "a very overdue move."
In 2006, Britain was among several wealthy nations that cut millions in aid to the Ugandan government, saying that Museveni has mishandled the transition to multiparty politics.