托尼•布莱尔：《旅程》(A Journey)，哈奇森出版社(Hutchison)，建议零售价25英镑，共718页。
托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)的自传一定程度上是出于发泄目的的心理剧，同时也在论述现代民主国家领导人面临的种种挫折。该书以一种亲密的口吻写就，带有米尔斯与布恩出版公司(Mills & Boon)招牌式的言情风格。例如，布莱尔在书中透露，1994年，在自己决定角逐工党领袖的那个晚上，他是如何像野兽一样把妻子切丽(Cherie)"生吞活剥"的。此书更宏大的目标是想让自己的政治遗产得以传承，清算旧帐，为伊拉克战争辩护，以及向工党成员发出大胆的呼吁——不要丧失对"新工党" (New Labour)的信心。
布莱尔的自我描述前后矛盾，这令人颇为好奇。布莱尔冷酷无情，但有时却不够自信。他是一位有执着信念的政治家，尤其是发动对外战争的时候；但他的国内改革大多半途而废。他在执行方面颇有不足，唯一的例外是他任内达成的北爱尔兰和解。当初他年纪轻轻就出任英国首相，成为"时尚英伦"(Cool Britannia)的缩影，但到头来落得个遭国人厌恶猜疑的下场。在他占据唐宁街首相官邸的10年中，他与时任财政部长戈登•布朗(Gordon Brownj)的关系最为重要，但也最具破坏力。
要读懂布莱尔，首先必须厘清他与工党之间的关系。他与戈登•布朗和彼特•曼德尔森(Peter Mandelson)共同推动了"新工党"方案，该方案旨在帮助工党摆脱混乱不堪的选举格局。布莱尔离经叛道，但同时也招摇撞骗。他自己也承认："为了骗过工党，我不得不让自己与公众结成某种同盟。"
这种同盟有多种形式。布莱尔风度翩翩，自诩为受欢迎的人。"叫我托尼就行，"他总是对来访者这样说，即便他们更愿意称他为首相。他也善于把握公众情绪。在戴安娜王妃(Princess Diana)不幸罹难后，他的表现无可挑剔。在国际舞台上布莱尔是一位明星。他高大英俊，的确堪与克林顿和布什比肩。相比之下，欧洲国家的希拉克(Chirac)和科尔(Kohl)之流给人的感觉就像是一群"恐龙"。
当他本人与英国民众之间的关系开始出现罅隙时，问题就出现了。各种琐碎却又真切的丑闻让他失分不少。但真正让他无路可退的是伊拉克战争，因为发动这场战争是基于一个误判：萨达姆•侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)拥有大规模杀伤性武器。当然，有许多人和布莱尔一样，都假想伊拉克确实拥有大规模杀伤性武器。他还提供证据，表明萨达姆"并未放弃大规模杀伤性武器战略，只是出于权宜之计，将该计划暂时搁置。"但是，他误导英国公众参与了一场灾难性的战争，这种印象很难消除。
布莱尔从性格上讲是个干涉主义者。他在书中写道，有些问题需要"决断"。如若不加理睬，这些问题最终会难以收拾，阿富汗的"基地"组织(al-Qaeda)就是一个例证。
在1999年成功地对科索沃进行军事干涉后，布莱尔在美国芝加哥发表演讲，辩称：一个专制独裁政权自身的性质，就可以证明通过干涉将其推翻的合法性，而不仅仅是看它是否对国家利益构成直接威胁。
"布莱尔主义" (The "Blair doctrine")挑战了有关国家主权的理念，也大大地降低了付诸武力的门槛。国家主权的理念可以追溯到1648年签署的威斯特伐利亚条约(Peace of Westphalia)。干涉科索沃和塞拉得昂似乎还能证明上述方式的正确性，但出兵伊拉克和阿富汗则是规模迥异的冒险。布莱尔既没有认真处理国家重建的现实挑战，也没有解决更大范围军事干涉所暗含的诠释新"交通规则"的需要。他只是简单地重申：打击恐怖主义和极端伊斯兰势力是我们这一代人的职责，必须付出代价。
布莱尔给人的感觉很有亲和力（也许是刻意为之）；他言辞非常流畅，同时也善于装聋作哑；一句话，他是一位才华横溢的当代政治家（不管他对媒体是多么不满）。他展现给世人一个命运强者的形象，但公众对他判断力的质疑却挥之不去。美国前总统布什的境况也差不多，布莱尔评价他"非常聪明"，并补充称："布什总统看待世界的方式非常简单朴素。非对即错，这才成就了杀伐决断的领袖。"
在布莱尔看来，领袖们归根结底需要"过人的胆识"，鲁珀特•默多克(Rupert Murdoch)有着"过人的胆识"，他自己那位生性好斗的媒体顾问阿拉斯泰尔•坎贝尔(Alastair Campbell)更是拥有"超人的胆识"。那么，布莱尔为何没有"胆量"将戈登•布朗革职呢？
布莱尔在书中谈到，在早些时候，他是如何开始意识到自己、而非布朗，才是领导工党的恰当人选。得出这一结论委实不易，情节写得曲折动人："这是个需要勇于承担风险的时代。我意识到了这一点，而布朗没有意识到。"布莱尔说自己是个"骑士" (Cavalier)，代表着中产阶级的诉求；而布朗则是个"圆颅党" (Roundhead)，认同工党的传统价值观。
用"内战"比喻他们之间的关系恰到好处，但在2004-05年前，这两个对头之间一直维系着一种脆弱的休战状态，两派人马之间火药味十足的小规模冲突时有耳闻。布莱尔否认将经济政策大权托付给布朗，以换取对方黯然承认自己的首相地位。虽然布朗对此老大不愿意。他甚至宣称，让英国央行(Bank of England)独立是他的主意，这种说法让人难以置信。
布莱尔在书中写道，将布朗革职是不可能的，因为他是财长的最佳人选，拿掉他会影响政府的稳定性。除非人们了解他当时在工党的地位不稳，否则上述两种说法都站不住脚。如果没有布朗作挡箭牌，布莱尔就会危险地面对公众压力——特别是在伊拉克战争之后。
书中谈到彼特•曼德尔森的笔墨不多，这让人很感兴趣。曼德尔森不断告诉布莱尔：他的首相地位远比他本人（布莱尔）认为的稳固。但布莱尔并不这么看。
其结果是布莱尔对布朗作出了一连串的妥协，两人之间的最后一笔交易是：托尼•布莱尔将在第二个任期后下台，以换取戈登•布朗支持"新工党"改革议程。"布朗决不应该要求、我也不应答应做出这样的保证。我们无权这样分配权力，"他在书中写道。"我们没有这种权利。这种做法并不聪明。在政治上也不明智——更别提不符合民主精神了。"
2007年6月，布莱尔最终让位于布朗。他脱身的时机恰到好处，当时市场正处于巅峰状态。和克林顿(Bill Clinton)一样，布莱尔如今也在凭借10年首相生涯赚钱，在确保家庭"财务安全"的同时，为慈善事业筹集善款。同样和克林顿一样，也有点壮志未酬的意味。
本文作者莱昂内尔•巴贝尔是英国《金融时报》总编
译者/常和
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034572
Tony Blair: A Journey, by Tony Blair, Hutchison RRP£25, 718 pages
Tony Blair's memoir is part psychodrama, part treatise on the frustrations of leadership in a modern democracy. It is written in a chummy style with touches of Mills & Boon. Blair reveals, for example, how he "devoured" Cherie with animal passion on the night he decided to pursue the leadership of the Labour party in 1994. The book's broader purpose is to preserve his legacy, settling scores, justifying the war against Iraq, and mounting a defiant plea to his party to keep faith with New Labour.
The self-portrait is curiously contradictory. Blair is ruthless but at times diffident. He is a conviction politician, especially when it comes to foreign wars; but his domestic reforms are half-baked. He is weak on execution, with the exception of the Northern Ireland settlement. His youthful premiership epitomised "Cool Britannia", but he ended up being loathed and mistrusted. His relationship with Gordon Brown was the most important but also the most destructive during 10 years in Downing Street.
To understand Blair, one must first dissect his relationship with the Labour party. Alongside Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, he was the driving force behind New Labour, the project to bring the party out of the electoral wilderness. He was an insurgent but he was also an imposter. As he confesses: "In order to circumvent the party, I had to construct an alliance between myself and the public."
This alliance took many forms. Blair was a self-styled regular guy with buckets of charm. "Call me Tony," he used to tell visitors, even when they would have preferred to call him prime minister. He was also adept at capturing the public mood. He was pitch-perfect after the death of Princess Diana. On the international stage he was a star. Tall and good-looking, he really could stand shoulder to shoulder with Clinton and Bush. In Europe, the likes of Chirac and Kohl came across as dinosaurs by comparison.
Things went awry when the personal bond between Blair and the British public began to fray. Scandals, petty and real, took their toll. But the Iraq war marked the point of no return because it was based on a false prospectus: that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Blair was, of course, in good company in assuming that the Iraqi leader did have WMD. He also presents evidence that Saddam "had not abandoned the strategy of WMD, merely made a tactical decision to put it into abeyance". But the impression that he misled the British public into a disastrous war will not go away.
Blair was an interventionist by temperament. Some problems require "resolution", he writes. Left unattended, they fester, like al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
After the successful military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, he gave a speech in Chicago that argued that intervention to bring down a despotic dictatorial regime could be justified on grounds of the nature of the regime, not merely the immediate threat to national interest.
The "Blair doctrine" challenged notions of national sovereignty going back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It also dramatically lowered the barriers to the use of armed force. Kosovo and Sierra Leone appeared to vindicate the approach but Iraq and Afghanistan were adventures on a different scale. Blair does not address seriously the practical challenge of nation-building nor the need to define the new "rules of the road" implied by more widespread military interventions. He simply reasserts that the price must be paid in the battle against terrorism and radical Islam, the struggle of our generation.
Blair comes across as likable, if manipulative; capable of dissembling while wonderfully fluent; in short, a brilliant modern politician (whatever his moans about the media). He presents himself as a courageous man of destiny but questions about his judgment linger. The same applies to President Bush, whom Blair describes as "very smart", adding: "George had immense simplicity in how he saw the world. Right or wrong, it led to decisive leadership."
Leadership, in Blair's estimation, comes down to "balls". Rupert Murdoch has "balls". Alastair Campbell, his pugnacious media adviser, has "clanking great balls". So why did Blair not have the "balls" to sack Gordon Brown?
Early on, Blair describes how he comes to realise that he, not Brown, is the right man to lead the Labour party. It is a painful story of emancipation, well told: "This was a time for risk taking. I spotted that. He didn't." Blair says he is the "Cavalier" representing the aspirations of the middle class; Brown is the "Roundhead" identifying with Labour tradition.
The civil war analogy is well taken, but until 2004-05 an uneasy truce existed between the two rivals, interspersed with fierce skirmishes between their proxies. Blair denies he subcontracted economic policy to Brown in return for sullen acceptance of his premiership. He even claims, implausibly, that it was his idea to make the Bank of England independent.
Sacking Brown was impossible because he was the best man for the job and removing him would have destabilised the government, Blair writes. Neither proposition holds water unless one understands his precarious position in the Labour party. Without Brown, Blair was dangerously exposed, especially after Iraq.
Peter Mandelson, who interestingly does not loom large in this book, consistently told the prime minister that his position was stronger than he realised. But that is not the way Blair saw it.
The result was a series of compromises with Brown, the last being a deal whereby TB would step down after his second term on condition that GB supported the New Labour reform agenda. "It was an assurance that should never have been asked or given. It was not our right to apportion power like that," he writes. "Not our right. Not wise. Not sensible politically, let alone democratically."
In June 2007, Blair finally gave way to Brown. His exit was timed perfectly, right at the top of the market. Like Bill Clinton he is now cashing in on his 10 years in office, raising money for charitable causes while ensuring his family's financial security. And like President Clinton, there is the same sense of a talent strangely unfulfilled.
Lionel Barber is editor of the FT
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