David Hearst writes:

Everyone and his dog appears to have been invited on US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” but thus far only Morocco, Albania, Argentina, Hungary and Vietnam have accepted.

With admission priced at $1bn, and with the suspicion they could be joining a half-baked proposal to sideline the UN, it is little wonder that few are rushing in.

The Board of Peace is supported by a founding executive board, which is stacked full of people who denied a genocide was and is taking place in Gaza, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, as well as people like Mark Rowan, Wall Street financier, who intimidated US campuses into banning demonstrations in support of Palestine.

They are united, too, by a profound lack of knowledge about the Middle East.

The one person on the executive board who has experience of the region – if you call invading Iraq and unleashing a devastating seven-year civil war “experience” – is Britain’s very own Tony Blair.

Blair, however, represents no-one but himself. The British government has been careful to make that clear by distancing itself from its former prime minister.

In November when Blair’s name first popped up, Jonathan Powell, the current national security advisor and Blair’s former chief of staff in Downing Street, said privately that Blair did not represent the British state.

Powell lobbied actively against Blair’s nomination, according to two separate informed sources who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

Powell accurately represents the view of the deep state that does not conceal its disdain for Blair’s many attempts to recapture the limelight on the international stage. [Continue reading…]