Tony Blair and the quest for redemption in the Middle East

Tony Blair’s name rarely passes without reaction. Now, amid the ruins and hopes of Gaza in 2025, the former UK prime minister stands poised to return to the Middle East theater. From the relative political shadows to a central figure in the proposed “Board of Peace” that would temporarily govern the Gaza Strip from El-Arish, Egypt, following a US-brokered ceasefire.

This new proposal recalls Blair’s long stint as Middle East Quartet envoy. The central question remains, does his record suggest he could deliver more than management this time?

The man who has always cast politics as a moral mission, and once promised a “new dawn” for Britain is a deeply divisive figure; part diplomat, part war architect, part redemption seeker. Will this fraught new role be the final act in Blair’s long quest for legacy and atonement in the Middle East, or merely another chapter of controversy?

The New Labour inheritance

Blair’s meteoric rise to power was unexpected and dramatic. In 1994, the untimely death of Labour leader John Smith, who many believed would restore Labour to government, left a vacuum. Smith had been regarded as a steady, pragmatic leader with broad appeal. His sudden passing opened the path for the then-relatively unknown Tony Blair to seize the Labour leadership.

Blair’s political brand was built on reforming Labour itself. He scrapped Clause IV, the party’s old commitment to public ownership, recasting “New Labour” as a centrist, business-friendly project. This strategic pivot culminated in Labour’s sweeping victory in 1997, ending 18 years of Conservative rule. At age 43, Blair became the youngest British Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, symbolizing a generational break and a new beginning.

Culturally, the era was defined by “Cool Britannia”: Britpop swagger, optimism, and a booming late-90s economy. Child poverty fell, employment rose, and Downing Street became a place for Noel Gallagher photo-ops as much as policy launches.

However, religion quietly shaped Blair’s worldview, even as his press chief Alastair Campbell famously cut off questions with the line: “We don’t do God.” In 2007, five months after leaving office, Blair converted to Catholicism—a move long anticipated but delayed while he was in No.10.

Yet, early signs of controversy also dogged him: the 1997 Bernie Ecclestone tobacco donation scandal, where he apologized after granting Formula One an exemption from a tobacco advertising ban; and the 2002 Lakshmi Mittal letter affair, when he backed a steel magnate’s overseas business deal after a large donation.

Most notoriously, the Serious Fraud Office’s controversial 2006 decision to stop investigating BAE Systems’ alleged bribes to Saudi officials was widely seen as politically motivated. These episodes fueled public cynicism about how power, money, and justice intersected in Blair’s Britain.

Iraq, legacy, and moral weight

The defining rupture came after 9/11. Blair tethered Britain firmly to George W. Bush’s “war on terror.” On 15 February 2003, London hosted the UK’s largest ever protest against the looming Iraq invasion, but Blair pressed ahead.

The Chilcot Inquiry later concluded that Britain chose to invade “before peaceful options had been exhausted,” on flawed intelligence and with inadequate post-war planning. The report stopped short of calling the war illegal, but it devastated Blair’s reputation. Efforts to prosecute him stalled: the International Criminal Court said the decision to go to war was outside its remit.

Blair insists he acted “in good faith” and takes “full responsibility,” but for much of the Arab world he remains inseparable from the invasion that upended Iraq and reshaped regional politics.

The Quartet years: technocracy without politics

A long-time member of Labour Friends of Israel, Blair’s interest in the Middle East derived in part from his faith, according to his biographer Anthony Seldon. He also cultivated ties with leaders such as Libya’s Gaddafi and Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

On the very day Blair resigned in June 2007, he was appointed Representative of the Quartet—the UN, US, EU, and Russia. His mandate was deliberately narrow: support Palestinian institution-building, economic development, and improvements in movement and access, while the political track remained frozen.

Blair’s office in Jerusalem pursued unglamorous but tangible fixes: upgrading sewage plants in northern Gaza, removing some West Bank roadblocks, and promoting investment. His backing helped unlock private development projects like Rawabi, the first planned Palestinian city.

By 2011, the IMF and World Bank praised the Palestinian Authority’s institutions as being “above the threshold” for statehood readiness. Some checkpoints were eased; traders gained access to industrial zones. These were measurable, if modest, wins.

But settlements expanded, Gaza remained under blockade, and unemployment there soared past 40%. The wars of 2008–09, 2012 and 2014 devastated infrastructure; donor conferences pledged billions, but much never arrived.

Critics argued Blair embodied the Quartet’s structural flaw: substituting “economic peace” for political rights. A Brookings study called to “simply allow the existing mechanism to go quietly into the night.”

Blair occasionally freelanced politically: in 2015 he held Doha talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, trying to ease Gaza’s isolation. This communication channel fizzled, and Blair resigned later that year. Ultimately, his legacy was etched in stone as one of project management, not political settlement.

Egypt ties and El-Arish feasibility

Blair’s ties to Egypt date back to his premiership. In 1998, he visited Cairo to promote British arms exports, support a British Gas deal, and launch the Egyptian-British Business Council. He also frequented Sharm El-Sheikh for private retreats.

When the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, Blair called President Hosni Mubarak “immensely courageous and a force for good”, a comment widely condemned as out of touch.

Still, these long-standing networks have fashioned him into what Trump’s plan regards as an ideal candidate to operate an El-Arish–based Gaza administration. The logistical realm of controlling crossings, funneling reconstruction funds, coordinating with Egypt and Israel, echoes the managerial model of his Quartet role.

Redemption or repetition?

Blair’s personality is key. After Chilcot, he stressed he acted “in good faith” and would make the same decision again. This combination of contrition and defiance is characteristic: he frames choices as moral duties, then doubles down.

As Quartet envoy, when diplomacy stalled, he turned to what could be managed: permits, roadblocks, sewage plants. A “Board of Peace” in Gaza today would pose a similar test — repairing crossings, expanding water and electricity supplies, rallying donors. It is exactly the sort of managerial system in which Blair thrives.

But therein lies the risk. Administration without sovereignty may look like technocratic occupation with better spreadsheets. Palestinians lived through this from 2007 to 2015: more projects, but no political horizon.

Whether Blair’s involvement now counts as redemption depends on the mandate. If it is limited to reconstruction, he has already shown the limits of that approach. If it includes a credible political horizon—freedom of movement, a path to sovereignty—then it might represent something new. But that would require powers he has never yet been granted.

Tony Blair’s career arcs from optimism to moral controversy, from New Labour reformer to Iraq war pariah, from PM to technocratic envoy. In Palestine, his record is clear: he delivered micro-fixes, but not freedom.

The proposed “Board of Peace” risks repeating that pattern; process without politics, reconstruction without rights. Blair has the networks, experience, and managerial skills to run it. But unless the mandate itself changes, Gaza may see a continuation of his Quartet years.