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A senior American official has spoken of "the myth of the special relationship" between the United States and Britain, arguing that Tony Blair got "nothing, no payback" for supporting President George W Bush in Iraq.
Kendall Myers, a leading State Department adviser, suggested that Mr Blair should have been ditched by Labour but the party had lacked the "courage or audacity" to remove him.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, was "shrewd, astute" to have distanced himself from America.
In candid comments that will embarrass Mr Bush and Mr Blair, the veteran official said America "ignored" Britain, and he urged Britain to decouple itself from the US.He asserted that the "special relationship", a term coined by Sir Winston Churchill in 1946, gave Britain little or nothing.
It has been, from the very beginning, very one-sided. There never really has been a special relationship, or at least not one we've noticed."
[quote]But the real killer is the same Kendall Myers, speaking in December 2003 in a seminar entitled "Global Geopolitical Trends: Is the Iraq War a Major Turning Point?"
Then Myers seemed to have a completely different view of his subject, saying that "the Anglo-American relationship is very strong, but it faces significant challenges within Tony Blair's party", then adding:
The Iraq war clarified the reality of a squirming, complex world. Within the United States, foreign policymaking has been decentralized. The State Department is marginalized and even the Pentagon, which calls the shots, is frustrated because the war has put unlimited American power out of business.