Gerry Hassan: How Munich and Suez led us down road to Iraq

The Iraq war was the point where Tony Blair lost his political touch, and became "Bliar" in the eyes of many voters. Despite four previous inquiries into the war, none of them as comprehensive as this, a sense of anger, frustration and lack of trust now pervades how the public view politicians and the conflict.

Much of this anger is addressed personally at Blair, his role in making the case for war, the "sexed-up" dossiers, the dissembling and spin, and the relationship with George W Bush. Brown faces questions about what his views were in the crucial months leading up to war, why he didn't oppose it, and, once it was set to happen, the contentious issue of funding it.

However, the Iraq war did not happen as an isolated event, or just because of the perfidy of Blair and acquiescence of Brown. It happened in the context of where Britain sees itself in the world, how it understands its past and its strategic interests. In particular, if we examine the two British foreign policy disasters of the last century, Munich and Suez, we can throw wider light on the Iraq war.

Munich in 1938 now stands as a near-mythical example of foreign policy humiliation. Neville Chamberlain, then prime minister, along with other weak British and French politicians, are now viewed, in retrospect, as having failed to stop the aggression of Hitler and Mussolini with their ill-fated "appeasement". Yet there was a powerful logic to Chamberlain's thinking at the time, which was to retain a balance of power on the European continent, and to allow Britain's imperial reach in the Mediterranean and Far East to be maintained.

British policy was based on a gigantic juggling act, balancing various resources and assessments of threats. Domestic security needed to retain a balance of power in Europe to allow the British Empire to maintain its open, global network, its trade and commerce, and its naval power.

This policy ended in a British government engaging in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia at Munich and handing over part of its territory to Hitler. This was the infamous "peace in our time" and, for a few months, it was universally popular in Britain, before Hitler continued his aggression.

Less than two decades later came Suez in 1956, when Anthony Eden colluded with the French and Israelis to attack Egypt. The rationale was that the British and French were outraged by Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal.

The wider context of British policy was that, post-1945, successive governments saw the Middle East as our sphere of influence. British governments did not even recognise at the time that the establishment of the state of Israel would be a long-term faultline that would mobilise Arab nationalism, and believed that British interests could reconcile these opposing positions.

What drove much of this was the desire to retain British interests and keep the Soviet Union out of the Middle East and the Mediterranean. This led the British, along with the French, to overplay their hand, invite the disapproval of the Americans and enhance the prestige of Nasser, who became more pro-Soviet as a result.

These two episodes have much in common, namely, that their lessons, to this day, inhabit British identity and foreign policy. The events of Munich and 1938, and with them the shame of "appeasement", led directly to 1940 and "our finest hour". From this came a populist, simplistic analysis, given voice by Michael Foot's Guilty Men, which saw Britain as a plucky, little island standing up against the evil dictators. All that had been wrong with Britain was that the wrong people had been in command, and, once they were removed, everything would be fine.

Then Suez saw the same narrative used to misunderstand the Middle East: Nasser was, in Eden's words, "a little Hitler", and "appeasement" the spectre to be avoided.

This is the background against which the war with Iraq needs to be understood.

Firstly, the long, evocative story of the mistakes of "appeasement" and the need to stand up to dictators. To many of the war party in Labour and the Conservatives, Saddam Hussein was seen as a potential Hitler or Mussolini who had to be stopped.

Secondly, when a remorseless logic is used to lead foreign policy into a cul-de-sac, it can have disastrous consequences. Just as Munich and Suez were the products of strategic overviews and serious thinking, so Britain's involvement in the Iraq war was due to the "hug them close" philosophy of Britain's "special relationship" with the United States.

Another dimension here is the second stage of the UK-US relationship leading out of Thatcher-Reagan and the Second Cold War. Many had thought this alliance was withering on the vine after the UK joined the European Community in 1973, but it found new purpose in the 1980s, and part of its raison d'tre was a new-found zeal for military action.

The British part of this equation saw it emphasise time-honoured traditions, of a sense of national "exceptionalism", the skill of our armed forces, the use of naval power, and how we could militarily do things to make the world a better place. In the beginning, Blair, with a sense of gushing naivety, seemed to see the armed forces as a kind of Peace Corps going around liberating and bringing hope to troubled lands.

All of this was predicated on the American alliance, and Blair took what had been a cornerstone of British foreign policy, which had been restated and renewed in the early 1980s, and led it into uncharted waters.

In some respects, it is still a little too early to assess all the damage and ripples from Iraq, but we can be sure that it will stand in a hall of shame along with Munich and Suez.

Post-Iraq, is there any sign that our political classes, from Gordon Brown to David Cameron, understand that this humiliating episode requires that we have not only a strategic defence review, but also a strategic foreign policy review, which assesses the damage the dogma of Atlanticism does to Britain and the world?

Despite the damage to Britain's reputation, this does not seem to be a question Brown wants to answer. Yet the responsibility for this situation lies not just with one or two people, but with our entire political establishment.