One million dollars for a three-hour meeting is not bad at all. That's exactly what Tony Blair charged in September 2012 for meeting at the Claridge hotel in London with the then Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, and the CEO of the Swiss commodities trading company Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg.
In just three hours, Blair convinced Glasenberg to raise his offer for Xstrata shares by 8.2%, and Al Thani to accept a price 7% lower than what the State of Qatar wanted for 12% of the mining company. The Emirate of Qatar pocketed what would now be, adjusted for inflation, 5.955 billion euros, and Glasenberg ensured that Glencore acquired the multinational mining company.
This would have been impossible without Blair, who got there thanks to his contacts at the U.S. banks JP Morgan - where he had been an advisor on climate change - and Citigroup, in a new demonstration that having well-placed friends is crucial in this world. Ironically, he was the poorest in the meeting. His 1.2 million euros (which would be his fees from 14 years ago today) pale in comparison to Al Thani's 3.3 billion in assets and Glasenberg's 8.7 billion. At the Claridge - a hotel where Eugenia de Montijo received Queen Victoria - Tony Blair doesn't particularly stand out. But it's not bad for someone who, when studying, didn't want to be Prime Minister but Mick Jagger. In the end, he managed to charge as much per meeting as the Stone does per concert.
At 72, Blair, like Jagger (who is ten years older), has shown that old rockers indeed never die. However, in the case of the former British Labour Prime Minister and 'star' of global social democracy in the 1990s, defining him is more complicated. Politician? Statesman? Activist? Lobbyist? Deal-maker? One thing is certain: unlike Jagger, who has been shaking his hips and singing 'Satisfaction' for 60 years, Blair has managed to reinvent himself.
And now he faces what could be his most ambitious project: viceroy of Gaza. Or, technically, member of the 'Peace Committee' agreed upon by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu for Gaza, but whose creation depends on the approval of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Currently, Blair, along with Donald Trump, is the only member of the Committee. According to the British newspaper 'The Guardian', other possible candidates to join include Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris, American businessman Marc Rowan, and former advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Aryeh Lightstone.
None of them are Muslim or Palestinian. Sawiris is a Coptic Christian, a community that has suffered numerous attacks by Islamic extremists in Egypt, and Rowan and Lightstone are Jewish. The former was close to becoming Secretary of the Treasury under Trump and is attributed a fortune of around 9 billion euros, the same as Sawiris. Lightstone is a rabbi and was one of the architects of the historic Abraham Accords, which allowed for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan during Trump's first term.
Practically the entire plan is up in the air, so it is not possible to know what Blair will do. What is clear is that his presence on the Committee is supported by Israel and the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who want to definitively end Hamas, a group created by their secular enemy, Iran.
The former British Prime Minister has been involved in Gaza for some time, although in a position that does not seem impartial. As revealed by the 'Financial Times' - once one of his biggest media supporters - the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), established in 2016 to, as stated on its website, "help leaders and governments achieve things," collaborated with the U.S. consulting firm Boston Consulting Group on a plan to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza that included sending part of the population of the enclave to Somalia, a country located 3,000 kilometers away with as much violence and more poverty than the Palestinian territory itself.
George W. Bush and Blair, in Washington.EFE
Blair established the TBI just after stepping down as the special envoy of the so-called 'Quartet,' a group formed by the U.S., the EU, Russia, and the United Nations that aimed to reform Gaza and the West Bank and create a Palestinian state. These are relatively similar objectives to what the body overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza seems to have. On that occasion, the 'Quartet' achieved some improvements in the Palestinian economy but not in the peace process with Israel. Just as Blair joined the group, the pro-Iranian extremist group Hamas, which is responsible for the current war and the destruction of Gaza, had just taken power in that territory.
In 2007, Blair's leadership of a project aimed at forging impossible peace in the Middle East and achieving the equally difficult goal of a Palestinian state was criticized by some, given that, after all, the former British Prime Minister had been the United States' greatest ally in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Blair in particular and the Labour Party in general paid a very high price for the UK's involvement in that conflict. In 2005, as Iraq sank into a civil war that, according to some estimates, caused a million deaths, Blair was reelected for a third time, but with a much better majority than in his two previous victories. Discontent over the war in his party forced him to negotiate his departure from the government in 2007, making way for his Chancellor of the Exchequer and longtime rival, Gordon Brown. Three years later, the Labour Party lost power and spent a decade without regaining it. Among Labour members, Tony Blair is toxic.
Today, two decades later, it doesn't seem like his return to the Middle East will be as problematic. Since British 'Challenger' tanks - the same ones London supplied to Ukraine in 2023, forcing a reluctant Joe Biden to deliver his 'Abrams' to Kiev - entered Basra, then the second-largest city in Iraq, there have been civil wars in Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Sudan, and revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Israel has invaded Lebanon twice. Northern Syria is occupied by Turkey; the south and west by the U.S.; and the southeast by Israel. The U.S. and Israel have bombed Iran; Iran has bombed Saudi Arabia and Israel; and Yemen and Israel have bombed each other. Apart from the conflict between Israel and Palestine, with the total destruction of Gaza and the progressive 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians by Israel in the West Bank. But also, almost all governments in the region, except Iran, have buried the 'hatchet of war' with Israel, which, thanks to the U.S., has overwhelming military superiority in the region.
Not only has the Middle East changed. Blair has also changed. Twenty years ago, he was possibly the most relevant political figure in the world alongside George W. Bush. Twenty-five years ago, his 'third way' of social democracy was the political trend from Bill Clinton's U.S. to Lionel Jospin's France. With 10 years in office, he is the second-longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century, after Margaret Thatcher. But he left government, converted to Catholicism under the influence of his wife, Cherie, and left politics for good.
Since then, he has taught at Yale University, founded - and dissolved - a Catholic organization, written an autobiography, and worked as a lobbyist. He has also been linked to a controversial infidelity with Cherie involving Wendi Murdoch, the third ex-wife of the 'news owner', Rupert Murdoch, who is rumored to have also had an affair with Vladimir Putin, whom he had met through the Russian oligarch and then owner of Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich (supposedly, in 2023, at 92 years old, Murdoch dated Abramovich's mother-in-law, Dasha Zhukova, confirming that being rich and powerful is not just about earning a million for meeting in a luxury hotel, but about being of a special breed).
Controversies
Blair's activities have generally been discreet, although not always free of controversies. Especially when he tried to secure the Nobel Peace Prize for the dictator of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for a payment of 40 million dollars. It must be said in Blair's honor that he tried, despite the shooting deaths of several dozen unionists by Kazakh security forces in the city of Zhanaozen just two months into his work, which greatly hindered his efforts. The massacre did not lead Blair to terminate the contract with Nazarbayev, nor did it harm his professional reputation. Nine months after the deaths, Blair was meeting with Al Thani and Glasenberg at the Claridge.
Blair always comes out unscathed. Not in vain, when he was Prime Minister, he was called 'Teflon Tony', in reference to the non-stick material of pans, because nothing 'stuck' to him. And now there is no doubt that this quality will be useful if the peace plan moves forward. Gaza is destroyed. But, whatever happens, Blair won't be affected.
Nevertheless, there is a precedent that would be better to keep in mind, more as a caution than anything else. The last Western 'administrator' of an Arab country was the American Paul Bremer, whom George W. Bush appointed to manage the occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2004 and who was often referred to as the 'viceroy' of that country. Bremer spoke French and Norwegian, and had been an ambassador to the Netherlands before working for Henry Kissinger's lobbying firm. He knew nothing about Iraq and destroyed what was left of the country's state with his management. Today, at 84 years old, Bremer lives retired in Vermont and is an amateur painter. For the good of all, but especially for the people of Gaza, it is better for Blair to succeed. Then, if he wants, he can retire to enjoy his favorite hobbies, which are listening to the Rolling Stones and skiing. Although, knowing him, it seems impossible for him to stay still.