Tony Blair ought to have lost any credibility on this topic.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday it would be “deeply irresponsible” to set an arbitrary deadline for pulling British forces out of Iraq.

Responding to a proposal by the opposition Liberal Democrat party to bring troops home by October, Blair said such a move would send a disastrous signal to the insurgents who British forces are battling in the southern Iraqi province of Basra.

“For us to set an arbitrary timetable — not attached to the conditions in Iraq, simply saying that we will pull British troops out in October come what may — would send the most disastrous signal to the people that we are fighting in Iraq,” Blair told lawmakers.

“It is a policy that, whatever its superficial attractions may be, is actually deeply irresponsible … ” he said.

Tony Blair might - perhaps - be the one person in the world that could have stopped the Iraq debacle in its tracks. Of course, the majority of the responsibility for the disaster that is Iraq belongs to the Bush Administration. But Blair was Bush’s visible minority partner in the deal, and was really the major foreign leader that added credibility to Bush’s claims. Britain was the biggest supplement to troop total of the Coalition of the Willing. Without Blair, does Bush take us to war as he did? If Blair opposed Bush, would other countries have provided even the level of support they did? Would American conservatives? American Congressional Democrats?

Outside of the Bush Administration, and Hussein himself, and members of the Congress that supported the war, there is no person on earth more responsible for how things were messed up in Iraq than Tony Blair. He held a unique position in the international circle - a person that Bush was inextricably linked to in this policy - and he scaffolded Bush’s credibility with his own. He was responsible for that decision, and it was a bad decision. People are responsible for who they listen to and follow. Responsibility would seem to indicate that people shouldn’t listen to those who have been clearly shown to have bad judgement in a particular arena. Why would it be responsible for the British to listen to Blair now about Iraq?