Humanitarian Intervention

The perils of failing to heed the Reverend Blair were demonstrated once more today, as it emerged that the holy man tried to save his chum Colonel Gaddafi from the consequences of excess democratisation. His reverence is thought to have held a special affection for Gaddafi, whom he personally redeemed from officially-designated mad dog status and whose attitudes to everything from national security to personal ostentation so closely paralleled his own. During the Arab Spring the Reverend Blair exerted his famous humanitarian influence, urging Gaddafi to flee to a safe place so that western governments could come up with a suitably humane retirement package, with the Reverend Blair acting as an honest broker in return for suitable remuneration. Although the Reverend Blair invoked his most powerful dialectical weapon - "I'm saying this because I believe it" - the Libyan dictator somehow contrived to remain unmoved, with notorious and deplorable consequences. The Reverend Blair, of course, having made his restraining influence felt on the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, went on to influence the peace process in Palestine and the liberalisation process in Kazakhstan, with similar spectacular success.