Reflections on Robin Cook and Cindy Sheehan

Robin Cook the former British Foreign Secretary, died Saturday, while hiking a Scottish peak with his wife. They were alone and 300 feet from the summit. This is really a perfect metaphor for his career. As Tony Blair and the Labour Party’s first Foreign Secretary after 18 years in opposition (he held the post from 1997 to 2001) Cook developed a reputation as a brilliant but maverick politician. He was a man of great ethical conviction who could never have made it to the top. However, it is his record on Iraq that should distinguish him for Americans (and foreigners).

Although no longer Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook resigned from Blair’s cabinet on March 17th 2003 over their failure to get a second UN resolution before the attack on Iraq. Until days before his death he was outspoken in his opposition to this war. As recently as last Thursday he said: “By invading Iraq we have given an immense propaganda gift to Osama bin Laden. Abu Grab has given the photographs to go with it and as a result Iraq has been an immense boost to him….” Looking back, he commented (and I feel quite rightly) “I still think that if Tony Blair had said to George Bush that we could not go along with it, the US administration would have had greater difficulty selling it to the American people.”

If we ever thought of August as the silly season in terms of news, we can’t any longer. Reading Cook’s obituaries and final comments it is hard not to think of Cindy Sheehan, camped outside Bush’s ranch Prairie Chapel in the blistering August heat, awaiting the chance to talk to the President about her opposition to the Iraq war. Her son was killed there last year and she has become a dedicated anti-war activist. Cook’s final words echo in my ears and I’m sure they would in hers if she has heard them: “ It is dire. I mean, frankly, it is worse than my greatest fears…..Those that advocated the war on the basis that Iraq would be a blow against terrorism have made an immense blunder for which we will be paying the price for a long time to come.”

I hope President Bush will honor the lives of Casey Sheehan and Robin Cook by taking a few minutes out of his vacation to explain his thinking to one suffering mother.