The Monroe doctrine defined the Western hemisphere as America's backyard. The Truman doctrine of containment gave sufficient cover to the United States "to intervene during a period of general peace in the affairs of peoples outside North and South America." George W. Bush will be known in history for his so-called "war on terror" doctrine.

In a speech to an audience of military personnel aboard the amphibious assault ship Albion, on January 12, Mr. Blair, who has lately become concerned about his place in history, outlined his foreign policy doctrine, whose main features are essentially the same as those of the Bush Doctrine.

The Blair Doctrine advocates British military interventions beyond Britain's borders in faraway countries, even though those countries do not pose any immediate threat to British territory.

Mr. Blair said: "Our armed forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory." He added: "The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan, or Indonesia, or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia -- the frontiers of our security are global."

In the same speech he emphasized that in these interventions, British troops will fight alongside the US troops. If I understand correctly, what Mr. Blair is proposing is to follow President George W. Bush in his campaign of waging pre-emptive wars across the world.

Mr. Blair as the prime minister of his country has every right to formulate his country's foreign policy, which he thinks would ensure security for his country.

But since the use of armed interventions in foreign territories as a tool of foreign policy will inevitably affect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of other nations and also perhaps world peace, it is fair to ask several questions: Before launching a military campaign, how will a specific target be chosen?

In other words, what procedure will be followed to identify an enemy? Will multi-lateral institutions like the United Nations have any role in this process? Does Mr. Blair realise that the world is a much smaller place today than it was in the eighteenth century when taking advantage of their technological superiority the European powers built vast colonial empires in far-flung corners of the world without much fear of retaliation on their own territories?

Is Mr. Blair aware of the changing nature of warfare in the twenty-first century (see a recently published book The Art of War in the Modern World by General Rupert Smith) when the technological revolution has empowered spontaneously organized small groups of highly motivated irregular forces to inflict damage to their adversaries "on such a scale that only a few years ago could only have been achieved by a superpower?"

Does Mr. Blair realise that his perceived enemy or enemies might interpret his foreign policy statement as a strong enough provocation to acquire first-strike capability against British interests?

Is Mr. Blair conscious of the possibility that other countries might follow his doctrine, identify Britain as an enemy and launch pre-emptive strikes against it?

Finally, will these military actions and reactions give greater security to Britain and the world or will they lead to open-ended conflicts across the world and a complete breakdown of international law and order?

A quick examination of the proceedings of the conspiratorial meetings that took place between Bush and Blair during the run-up to Iraq invasion reveals that Bush had decided to invade Iraq as early as in the second quarter of 2002 with or without the United Nations approval.

A Downing Street memo, written in July 2002, confirms that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war.

Now we know Iraq did not pose a threat to the United States or to Britain. It neither had weapons of mass destruction nor was it a sanctuary for al-Qaeda. In fact, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were sworn enemies.

American and British public opinion were, in effect, cheated by spin masters at the service of Bush and Blair.

A five-page memo that summarized the discussions between Bush, Blair and six of their top aides, written by David Manning, Blair's top foreign policy adviser at that time reveals that "Bush and Blair acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any WMD before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a US surveillance plane in the colours of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire or assassinating Saddam."

Mr. Blair considers himself as a moralist. It is difficult for me to reconcile his supposedly high moral standards with the vile method used by him and Bush to portray Iraq as a threat to world security and then invade it on false pretences.

Mr. Blair also talks incessantly about fighting for western values. I have my doubts as to whether history will judge him as a great defender of western values or as someone who brought shame to those values.

This misbegotten illegal war has not only brought untold misery to millions but also undermined the security of his country. Mr. Blair is a slick, silver-tongued debater but to argue that British participation in the invasion of Iraq has made Britain safer or that it had nothing to do with the London bombings is an insult to anybody's intelligence.

Mistrust of Blair's foreign policy goes far beyond Britain's Muslim minority of 1.6 million. Most British citizens are in total disagreement with Blair's foreign policy. They despise Blair's total identification with Bush's White House.

In a poll in mid-August, 2006 more than eight out of ten Britons said that Britain should split from the United States in America's so-called war on terror. According to Reginald Dale of Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies: "Many normally sober members of the British elite are incandescent with rage that Bush and Blair, as they see it are turning the Middle East into an even more lethal powder keg, endangering their own lives and those of their families."

Luckily, Mr. Blair will be out of office by this summer. It is quite likely that Mr. Brown will be his successor as the prime minister.

In a recently published article on security matters in the Guardian, Mr. Brown hinted that there will be significant changes in British foreign policy after Mr. Blair's departure.

While paying lip service to Britain's "special relationship" with the United States, Mr. Brown will most probably distance himself militarily from Bush's policy of waging open-ended conflicts all over the world.

The writer is a columnist of the Daily Star.