Phil Brennan
Monday, March 19, 2007

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While the jury is still out on the chances of success for the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq, the long-term outlook for a peaceful Iraq is grim, according to one of Britain's most noted commentators and journalists.

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Lord William Rees-Mogg – former editor of The Times of London, vice chairman of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and a regular columnist for both the Times and the Daily Mail, described the current situation in Iraq as a "very difficult one."

Lord Rees-Mogg has also served as chairman of NewsMax Media and currently serves as chair of the company's International Advisory Board.

"It seems to me that having committed to a last try to stabilize Baghdad by sending more American troops and getting the Iraqi army to be more active, it is natural and probably right to see that process through," he said.

"But the long-term prospect of forming a stable united Iraqi government which embraces all sections of the community seems a very long way off."

Asked what he thought of one idea being promoted by critics of the administration's Iraq policies – that the U.S. should enter into diplomatic negotiations with Syria and Iran – Lord Rees-Mogg said he thought it was "the next step down the line.

"It's made very difficult by the fact that Iran is determined to move forward on the nuclear front and it's obviously right to take the view that the United Nations takes – that nuclear proliferation should be prevented if at all possible.

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"That makes it more difficult to involve Iran. On the other hand, Iran obviously has a great deal of influence through its connection with the Shiite groups in Southern Iraq. So if we don't involve Iran, it will involve itself."

Commenting on allegations of Iran's involvement in promoting the Shiite insurgency against the Sunnis in Iraq, Lord Rees-Mogg agreed that this is probably the case.

"There are said to be 32,000 Iranian agents in Iraq at the present time, which is certainly a massive number compared to the 7,000 British troops in Iraq. They outnumber them."

U.S. Action Against Iran

Asked how Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British people would react if the U.S. should take military action against Iran, Lord Rees-Mogg said "there are a couple of questions there: One is, would it be strategically the right thing to do? And the other is, would it be politically feasible even supposing it is the right thing to do?

"I think that the negative in the second case is quite clear – certainly as far as Britain is concerned. There just isn't political support in the British Parliament or among the British people for opening up a third front in the Middle East."

Iraq, he said, "is not a popular war in Britain any more than in the United States, and the British by and large take the view of Congress rather than the view of the President about what ought to happen next." They are, he said, opposed to any extension of the war.

Speaking of Prime Minster Blair's loss of popularity, Lord Rees-Mogg told NewsMax that Blair had made himself a lame duck even before he was re-elected:

"Tony Blair made the mistake of announcing before the general election that if he was re-elected, he wouldn't serve beyond the following general election. I suppose that at the time seemed quite a long way away. He's now agreed that he will go before next September.

"The result is that everybody has turned to Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, as the man who is bound to be the next leader of the Labour Party and therefore the next Prime Minister.

"The authority of Tony Blair has gone. He is also blamed for having joint responsibility with President Bush for an Iraq war that most people think has been unsuccessful. He's pretty unpopular on those grounds."

Europe

Asked if Britain would continue to oppose using the European currency, he said "there is no question of Britain joining the Euro – we believe we've done better outside of it than the countries that have gone inside the system. We had of course a shock experience when we tracked the [Deutschmark] in the European monetary system, which broke down in 1992, or at least our membership in it broke down and there's no question of our going back. Britain will continue to back the Free Market."

Lord Rees-Mogg has authored several bestselling business books, including "Blood in the Streets" and "The Plague of the Black Debt."

As to the future of the dollar as measured against the British Pound, he said the $2-to-the-pound relationship "is one which has always meant that the dollar is undervalued relative to the pound and that most dealers and long-term holders are aware of that. At $2 to the pound, it starts to become difficult for the British to sell their exports to the United States. It tends to stabilize in that area."

Rees-Mogg notes that what is good for American business is that because the British pound buys more in the U.S., many British people are coming to the U.S. to do their shopping – which is a boon to American retailers.

Said Lord Rees-Mogg, "A lot of British people are actually going to America because they got their Christmas presents there and found it cut the cost of buying their presents in half."

Strained Relations

Lord Rees-Mogg noted that he believes that relations between the U.S and Britain are "rather difficult at the moment. How that develops depends a lot on what happens in the next presidential election.

"Senator McCain is a popular Republican figure in Britain. He probably commands more confidence than President Bush does with the British public. The view being taken in Congress is closer to the view taken by most of the British public. Britain is closer to New England than the South is, in terms of the instinctive political reactions."

On the whole, he said, "The relations between Britain and America are not too good, but to my mind they are not disastrous or irrecoverable. There is a strain because the policies of the Bush presidency have not been popular in Britain."

He added that the negativity is more against the President than it is against the United States.

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