Le Monde: The story of Tony Blair… The warmonger and money lover

The French Le Monde newspaper reported that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair dreamed of being a peacemaker, but throughout his political career, he often preferred war.

He is now a businessman whose ultimate passion is money.

The French newspaper said that Blair was first mentioned in its pages on December 12, 1991, in an article by its UK correspondent, Laurent Zecchini, on the sidelines of the Maastricht summit, when he was responsible for social affairs in the Labor Party.

Le Monde continued, saying that her correspondent, Zecchini, described Blair in 1993 as “charming, persuasive, a skilled debater, brilliant, and argumentative,” and that he didn’t hesitate to oppose those he considered traditional.

As I described him in May 1997 as “Britain’s first postmodern politician,” savvy with the media and surrounded by communications consultants who helped him market his reform ambitions.

His December 1997 initiative to launch the first peace negotiation project with Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-linked Sinn Féin party, received widespread coverage, in search of an agreement to end the 30-year conflict.

In 1998, Blair decided to intervene in the Kosovo War, and he opposed the Serbian attack on the Albanians, ordered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier and carried out air strikes, and maintained daily communications to ensure public support.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Le Monde continues, Blair joined the US operation against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime, believing the operation had a “moral dimension” despite the absence of a direct threat to the United Kingdom.

Blair is once again following in the footsteps of the United States in invading Iraq, despite widespread popular rejection of the invasion.

But after four years of war, with British soldiers, thousands of US soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, Blair’s judgment has shifted.

The invasion of Iraq has become his “greatest sin of optimism and arrogance,” as he was “a victim of himself” and overestimated his geopolitical influence, Le Monde explains.

The French newspaper explains that Blair didn’t publicly retract his Iraq strategy even after Gordon Brown succeeded him in 2007, but the European political class treated him as an outcast.

Le Monde added that despite his appointment as the special envoy of the Quartet (the United States, Russia, the European Union, and NATO) for peace between Israel and Palestine since 2007, Blair has preferred to focus on his consulting businesses and lucrative lectures around the world.

It highlighted that its journalists, Benjamin Bart and Philippe Bernard, wrote in a report in the newspaper on July 17, 2015, that Blair “combines diplomacy, charity work, and lucrative business”.

They noted that 12 legal entities he owned generated approximately $90 million for him between 2007 and 2013.

The French newspaper recalled an investigation published by the British Financial Times in early July 2025, which revealed that the Tony Blair Institute—one of his companies, which he founded after leaving 10 Downing Street in 2007—was involved in discussions with the Boston Consulting Group regarding the development of the “Gaza Riviera” project, devoid of its Palestinian residents, a project dreamed of by US President Donald Trump.

It was announced at the time that Trump had discussed ideas with his son-in-law and former advisor, Jared Kushner, and Blair regarding a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.

A senior White House official told Reuters at the time that “Trump, senior White House officials, Blair, and Kushner discussed all aspects of the Gaza file, including increased food aid deliveries, the hostage crisis, and post-war plans”.

The official described the session as just a political meeting, the kind Trump and his team hold frequently.

Earlier, Axios website quoted sources as saying that Blair and Kushner would discuss “ideas for how to govern Gaza without Hamas in power”.

Sources reported that the former British Prime Minister met with US envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House last July, on the same day that Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.